It is a high school parading around as a professional work environment. It is inappropriate for managers to disparage team members in front of other team members, but it happens all the time. Even the property managers engage in the crap talking. That does not cultivate a teamwork environment which they preach about. They have a do as I say not as I do mentality. As long as you go by and do exactly what they say, lacking integrity or not, you will be safe. They have no true HR department- the one person in this role was recently hired. There are no formal write-up policies. They exercise this state's (Georgia) right to hire right to fire policy. Fraternizing is allowed and I would even say condoned to get you where you want to go. They have what they like to call Cortland's 4 Guiding Principles which include: Integrity, Empowerment, Respect, and Excellence. First, if you respect someone, you treat them with respect both to their face and behind their back. If you have integrity, you share responsibilities like you are supposed to. You do not just pawn them off on those under you, "because you have lots of emails". GREAT example: opening models like YOU as a senior leasing (yeah, not a leasing manager) consultant put on the schedule to do. It should not be an option to pawn this off on someone else because of emails, etc. We all have a workload and have to work through it.
Empowerment - they ONLY apply this principle when its convenient to them and to those who are in charge, can fire you, or are friends with those in charge (again...fraternizing). Unless, of course, you are owning the responsibilities they do not want to do themselves. They use scapegoats to deflect management problems on-site, which could be solved or addressed WITH human resources training or involvement. The property manager just manages the team that manages the property. They should be good people managers too and not allow their fraternizing to cloud their judgement. The company is going to waste a lot of resources training new team members to just let them go rather than address the HR problems head on.
When an assistant property manager has angered so many residents that many refuse to speak with her, and she continues to rise through the company, there is a problem. It's called valuing friendships over integrity and what is best for the company. This is not a practice that recognizes hard work and merit, and it does not just happen on-site.
