human resources coordinator

Shea Homes

I found Shea Homes to be great place to work, so much so that I have worked for them in both Washington State and California.  They are a family owned company and place a great importance on work/life balance.  I worked hard when I was there but I never brought work home with me.  There was never the expectation that I was to be there on evenings or weekends nor where there emails or phone calls I was expected to return after hours.  

The days are jam packed, both in the office and out in the field.  You hit the ground running at 7 am and are tuckered out by 4 pm.  I enjoyed this pace, it made the days interesting and go by fast.  A typical day was spent in appointments, either team meetings and team house inspections or appointments with homeowners reviewing the progress and completion of their new home.  All departments work very closely together - sales, design, construction and customer service so you have the opportunity to learn a lot about many fascets of the company.  

I found all of the managers to be strong leaders, compassionate individuals, and competent problem solvers.  Shea has a very strong culture with generous time and resources dedicated to 7 Habits of Highly Effective People courses, Myers Briggs type personality tests, and Shea Homes Core Value training.  

The most difficult part of the job was balancing the often unrealistic expectations of a highly experienced buyer within the reality of production (not custom) building.  

The most enjoyable part of the job are the people.  I throughly enjoyed coming to work everyday because of the people I got to spend it with.  I've made lifelong friends there, I laughed a lot throughout the day, I learned a ton from people in other departments who were more than happy to share their expertise and insight to further my knowledge and career growth, and they threw me the best baby shower ever when I left the company to have my son.  I cannot say enough about this group of people.

HR is non-existent and provides no real value or advocacy for employees.  Core values listed on company website are for marketing purposes only.  The work environment lacks professionalism (think middle school: whispering, rumors, bullying).  There is little to no diversity, workplace inclusion is not on the radar.  Groups within the company function as silos with their own politically motivated agendas-no cohesion.  Disjointed organization.

 Executives provide no authentic leadership.  They make no effort to create a stronger work culture. Heads are buried in the sand until the end of the year when bonuses are handed out.  Weak leadership.

My manager is obsessed with control and manipulation.  She employs fear-based management.      
Professional identities are the only source of personal power (lacks healthy self esteem) which prevents a strong, capable team to emerge.  Stalled productivity and diminished efficiencies are the results for the organization.  I see it everyday. Weak management.

Stop inviting the female employees to the Holiday broker function (which showcases live animals) only to expect them to “work” the party.  It’s humiliating.   For Pete’s sake, the year is 2018. 

 Birds of a feather, flock together.

8: 30 am to 7:00 pm . Worked in a model home with another sales rep. Is an active -adult community Met prospective buyers from all over USA and foreign countries.
Each person may take a few years to make an ownership decision.
This  will be their retirement home.
Was my fist experience in this market. I learned and adjusted well.
Active adult is an amenity- driven business. We had no amenities.
The company was seeking funding to build at this time.
The challenge was to comfort and encourage the the prospects.
For them to consider leaving their home and environment where they raised their children, made lifelong friends, had family heirlooms to sell , etc., is very emotional.
I did much listening.
The company and manager had an untenable situation until the amenities were established.
Shea Homes required strict and immediate follow through with the leads. We used a data and tracking system called Sales Force.
It worked !

A typical day at Shea Homes could be meeting and greeting people as well as tours.  Although in support of the sales, (when time permits) the traffic data is input and maintained and this process is done via a software program that keeps data on potential clients from visits to down payment to selection of options/upgrades through and including the closing.
What I learned while with Shea is the complexity of contracts and the critical quality of data.
During my time at Shea I for fortunate to work for and with truly excellent people.  Shea management has very good people skills.
The most enjoyable part of the job was working with and for people.  It is truly fun when an employee feels like they have made a difference in helping someone make a major purchase.
The most difficult part is holding back and only asking questions about the potential client that brings them to a comfort level.

If you want a job where you can skate by and do the very least, this is the place for you! They don’t care how well you do at your job, only how long you stay there. But once you leave, you are GONE. They refuse to bring anyone back, no matter how good the person was or the reason for leaving the company, and they talk about this all the time. It’s a very cult-like environment. I’m not sure why anyone would want to ever go back there. Management will tell you something and then do a complete 180, and pretend like they never had the conversation with you. They are full of lies and empty promises. Pay is well below the industry average and the benefits are subpar. However, if you can get through about 5 years of terrible pay, bowing down to people, and not questioning anything, then you can sit back and do the very least for the rest of your career! 

The Shea family has wonderful core values set in place. The education they offer to their employees is above and beyond normal standards. The Shea Properties portion of the company needs some work in the upper management area. The on-site Community Managers have so much unnecessary tasks put upon them there is no way they could succesfully finish the workload and still be expected to engage with the outside of the property and or with the residents which is an essential part of property management. There is a huge lack of support in upper management and they are given too much power. I have been in the business for many years and I understand the basic functions for success.

I loved my co-workers and we worked well together as a team and always got the job done. No matter how many free hours we had to put in we made it fun!

Maintaining current pricing and production info.  Understanding that there are certain Vendors you cannot change, even if you find a less expensive alternative.  My manager was in Irvine, but I was also given direction by the General Manager.  Getting someone to make the decision of which item would be used, or which Option would be used was tedious and there was a lack of help or urgency from the Management.  But they gave us deadlines to have things done, but they simply wouldn't take time to made the decision.  Most enjoyable was they left you alone after making the decisions until day that they set for completion.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The discounted housing although even that’s almost not even worth working for them. HORRIBLE work environment and culture. Very obvious favoritism from upper management and you’re definitely NOT a good fit unless you’re a brown-noser. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Everything, management, lack of support, ZERO work/life balance. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
THE WORST!!!! Exhausting. Unfair treatment. Overworked. Unorganized. Discriminatory treatment from one tenant to another (accommodating one resident but not another for the exact same issue)

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Overworks, over stressed and lack of support

What is the best part of working at the company?
The coworkers are a friendly bunch, and will help whenever possible

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Mid-management have no clue what it takes to keep a property clean and we'll maintained. All they see is their bonuses, so instead of doing the job right for a little more money they would rather do the jobs for less, even if they end up having to do it twice.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
They preach a good game, but middle management don't actually care. On the ground because of the middle management the culture is toxic 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day at Shea is like walking on egg shells due to the middle management being so toxic

There are pros and cons to all companies but Shea seems to have more cons than pros. 

The company seems to be trying to fade out onsite leasing staff and integrate AI into all properties. It makes for a strange disconnect from the onsite staff to the prospective resident. 

Benefits are not great and they don’t offer sick pay or unpaid time off. They offer a decent rent discount but nothing amazing. The policies are very questionable and they do very little to verify who is renting. 

Moving up in the company seems to be quite hard and not a very easy process as there is major favoritism within the company. 

My advice to the company is to be more inclusive, listen to the onsite staff instead of making excuses as to why you do certain things, offer better benefits, get back leasing associates. 

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