How Landlords Can Support Tenants with their Greatest Challenge

How can a Landlord help attract employees to its tenants business?  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2018 in both the United States and the Dallas Metroplex, there is less than one unemployed person per job opening. As a company owner, I can vouch that employers have to work much harder to attract and retain top talent.     

The Landlord has no say in many of the traditional tools companies use to recruit and retain top talent.  At my company, Lord Green, we are dog-friendly with almost as many dogs as people reporting to work each day. We offer regular massages, a kegerator with beer and another with Kombucha, a kitchen filled with healthy snacks, standing desks, health benefits, 401K and pension plans.  Thankfully, we are our own landlord. This makes taking the additional steps to attract top talent incrementally easier.  In addition to installing the dog park that allows employees to bring their dogs to work, we have installed reverse osmosis water filters for all to enjoy and provided the game room were the team gathers for an afternoon game of foosball. 

Our building is ENERGY STAR certified and we are pursuing various green building certifications such as BREEAM and LEED. After all, a wealth of research has indicated “green” buildings can enhance occupant wellbeing. They can help companies boost employee productivity, cut absenteeism, reduce turnover and attract talent. These are all “social” gains. What started out as the “green” movement, quickly evolved into “sustainability”, and now it is ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance).  

For Landlords, the “social” does not end with the building itself. It also encompasses tenant and even community engagement. Also referred to as the “Health & Well-Being” movement, this translates into providing access to healthy food options, green spaces, exercise, and areas and events that encourage social interaction within the asset and within the local community.  For example, an office building hosting a brown-bag lunch once a month for all occupants and having health-related practitioners speak such as doctors, fitness coaches, nutritionists, etc. We see this demand for more social spaces in new developments of apartment communities—more and more social spaces and smaller units.

As the “social” aspect becomes of greater and greater importance to tenants’ employees and to apartment dwellers, it presents an even greater opportunity for forward-thinking landlords to differentiate (often at little to no cost) to attract and retain tenants.