Leaders from Camden, ZRS, and Elmington discuss how evolving operating models are reshaping career paths, training strategies, and team retention across multifamily portfolios.
SCOTTSDALE, AZ — The traditional multifamily career ladder is broken, and the 1:100 operating model has been for decades. Operators are actively redesigning what growth looks like, now that their solutions allow them to centralize operations and specialize roles to build bigger, better jobs for their teams.
By restructuring how work gets done, operators unlock new career paths for their strongest team members with roles that actually align with their skills, keep them engaged, and perform at a higher level.
At Forum, DeAnna Moore, President at Elmington, (No. 42 on NMHC Top Managers list, 38,000 units), Meghan East, Operations Manager, Centralized Services at ZRS (No. 13 on NMHC Top Managers list, 110,000 units), and Allison Dunavant, Senior Vice President, Human Resources at Camden (No. 16 NMHC Top Owner, 32 NMHC Manager, 58,000 units), are actively redesigning what growth looks like at their organizations.
They discussed how role specialization and lateral mobility align with employees’ desire for more purpose and opportunity that celebrate their strengths. Mobility is not restricted to the traditional one-step-up promotions, but designed to create jobs people don’t want to leave.
Poll: Has your company changed job descriptions to create new roles for a new operating model?
43% Yes, completely new specialized teams.
34% We’ve done a few
23% We are starting to think about doing that…
Camden: The first 30 days define everything
Camden Property Trust (Camden), No. 16 on the NMHC Top Owners list with roughly 58,000 units, started its journey in centralization in partnership with Funnel in 2020, and they continue to iterate today. Known for their unmatched employee experience, Camden has earned dozens of awards, including their 2026 recognition as One of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For for the 19th consecutive year.
Camden’s Work Reimagined initiative kicked off an enterprise-wide effort to rethink how work gets done, where it happens, and who is best positioned to do it. Rather than jumping straight into new roles or new systems, leadership began with a grassroots listening tour across the organization.
As Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Allison Dunavant works closely with leadership teams to design career paths, training programs, and talent strategies that support long-term employee growth across the organization.
“We talked to a lot of different people and really tried to unlock a lot of the business constraints that existed,” Dunavant said. “Where can we push the limits on our customer experience, and where do our employees really match up with that?”
That process went deeper than org charts. It focused on understanding where the value was onsite, what work could be centralized, and what strengths truly drive success in each role.
For background, Camden invested in building a contact center years before their Work Reimagined initiatives began. That structure gave them a head start on their centralization journey.
Through Work Reimagined, Camden committed to listen, adjust, and move quickly when something wasn’t working. They built trust with employees, and saw faster adoption as a result. That trust also created space for meaningful changes, including more flexible roles, and cross-property leasing support with the right technology.
When Funnel’s CRM and AI were introduced, it supported the existing onsite and contact center teams’ day-to-day workflows, as well as giving them a hand to respond to prospects after hours, allowing Camden to close leasing offices on Sundays and provide a better work-life balance for the team.
2025 national study on multifamily workforce trends
Camden recently completed a workforce study with Jason Dorsey that uncovers what truly attracts, motivates, and retains talent in multifamily, and it serves as a great snapshot of where their organization is six years into the Work Reimagined centralization journey.
The company found that 74% of employees decide within their first month whether they’ll stay, and 83% rank “working smart” as a top driver of job satisfaction.
That insight forced a rethink of onboarding.
“Your onboarding strategy is your retention strategy,” Dunavant said. “It has to be more than a checklist.”
“What we found is that onboarding was inconsistent,” Dunavant said. “All the way from… ‘sink or swim’ to giving people so much in their first 30 days that there’s just no way they can be successful.”
Instead of overwhelming new hires, Camden simplified the first 30 days, focusing on what employees need to succeed in their specific role. Managers and peer mentors reinforce that experience, helping new team members build confidence early.
“Over the last 3 years, we’ve seen significant improvement in employee engagement scores that have gone up 4%,” Dunavant said. “People are feeling valued and engaged in the work they are doing.”
That shift didn’t happen overnight. Back in 2020, as Camden was rethinking how work gets done and leaning further into centralization, the model itself was still new. Roles were evolving, expectations weren’t always clear, and AI wasn’t yet in a place to meaningfully support teams at scale.
Flash forward to 2026, and Camden’s centralized team settled in their roles (and stayed in them), with AI, stepping in as their No. 1 teammate across the leasing journey and improving sentiment scores across the board.
Onsite team turnover dropped 18% between 2022 and 2025, while centralized team turnover fell 36%. Engagement scores have also improved, with employees reporting higher levels of satisfaction and clarity in their roles.
And as Camden layered in new tools to support that model, the same philosophy carried through.
The company recently launched Funnel’s Voice AI, expanding its lineup of “Birdies,” Camden’s name for Funnel’s AI used across its contact center. The name is a nod to Camden’s hummingbird mascot, and fittingly, a group of hummingbirds is called a charm, which Birdie has in excess.
“Birdie is upbeat. Birdie has all the answers… Birdie listens and responds even when she’s interrupted. It’s like everything I want to be,” Dunavant said.
Within the first week of going live, Camden reduced hold times by 44%.
Within the first week of going live, Camden reduced hold times by 44%.
Because when the roles are designed well, the systems support them, and employees feel it day one—that’s when retention starts to take care of itself.
ZRS Management: Flexibility without losing consistency
As the No. 13 NMHC top third-party manager operating across 110,000 units, ZRS Management (ZRS) leaned into centralization to handle high-volume tasks like lead management and initial prospect communication. The move transformed jobs, and job descriptions for highly-skilled centralized teams elevated from onsite positions.
“We hire 100% internally [for centralized teams],” East said. “We really want anyone that we bring into our team to be experts and already the best onsite at what they do. We evaluate them on performance and lean really hard on regional managers RVP, especially in centralized services, and we know our people are the best.”
By building their centralized teams with 100% internal hires, ZRS elevates top performers, and team members are moved into specialized roles matched to their expertise.
“It’s important for us as operators to be currently set up to see where people’s strengths are and [where we] want to specialize them to the best of their ability,” East said. “We see where they’re shining, and it really benefits us as we are rolling out centralized roles and keeping that consistency going.”
ZRS moved high-volume tasks like lead management and initial prospect communication into centralized teams, and created entirely new roles focused on speed, responsiveness, and portfolio-wide performance.
“We noticed teams were missing about 50% of their calls,” East said. “We know when you’re onsite you wear a lot of hats, you can’t really avoid it. After we deployed to centralized, missed calls dropped to 10% or less.”
But operating at scale in a third-party model adds another layer of complexity.
ZRS doesn’t have the luxury of a one-size-fits-all rollout. Each owner brings different priorities, policies, and expectations. Instead of forcing uniformity, the strategy focuses on building strong operating standards that can flex across portfolios.
The goal is consistency where it matters most, paired with the flexibility to meet each client where they are.
Not to mention how they secure buy-in.
By demonstrating value through streamlined workflows, higher service levels, and more consistent execution, centralized teams prove their impact over time, both to internal stakeholders and to owners.
“At the end of the day, we have clients who have different needs, wants, policies, or ideas,” East said. “We have a set of standards that we’ve established… but for us to be effective and really show the value that we have in streamlined work, higher touch levels of service, and operating with consistency, that’s what we’re all trying to do.”
Elmington: Careers built on strengths, not titles
As operating models change across multifamily, so do the paths people take to grow within them. At Elmington, career progression is powered by an entrepreneurial spirit.
President DeAnna Moore is living proof that it works.
She originally planned to go into fashion. Instead, she took a leasing consultant job in college for the rent discount—and never left the industry. Today, she is the President of Elmington, a vertically integrated organization spanning development, ownership, and third-party property management, with roughly 38,000 units under management.
Moore recalls in her career raising her hand for an opportunity to create a learning and development program, which would lay the foundation for her rise to executive ranks.
That same philosophy is now central to Elmington’s culture.
Under Moore’s leadership, employees are encouraged to raise their hand, take on new challenges, and pursue paths that align with how they work best. Growth isn’t reserved for a select few, it’s something employees are invited into.
“It was a great opportunity to be able to pour into the people that are out here on the front lines,” Moore said. “You raise your hand, you continue to excel. We’ve created an environment that really allows for that. It allows for an entrepreneurial spirit, which is something that’s special about our company.”
Rather than pushing employees through a predefined ladder, the company focuses on identifying strengths and creating opportunities around them. That means growth doesn’t have to be vertical (and often isn’t).
“It’s not just that traditional trajectory… leasing professional to assistant manager,” Moore said. “But really finding the right opportunity for people. And that’s where the sweet spot is.”
Moore is evidence of this strategy in practice, creating a more entrepreneurial workforce.
Another vital component of retention and career growth is in the technology stack, especially AI. Elmington was with another large multifamily AI company before moving to Funnel in part due to its people-centric approach.
“After really spending time vetting not only the AI and really getting to know the system itself, the capabilities, but even bigger than that, is the partnership that we as an organization have been able to curate [with Funnel],” Moore said. “[Centralization] is not a one-size-fits-all.”
That flexibility is especially important in a third-party environment.
“It came down to people, the relationship, and ultimately really feeling like that we were partners in this process together, it was not just a, hey, here’s our out of the box system, figure it out on your own,” Moore said. “It has been a journey that we’ve taken together that we have, you know, there’s been blood, sweat, and tears along the way, but it’s been fun, and I wouldn’t choose to do it with anyone else.”
Better roles, better outcomes
Roles are changing. Expectations are changing. And the companies that are keeping their best people are the ones willing to redesign both.
Across Camden, ZRS, and Elmington the approach looks different. But the principles are consistent. Start with how work actually happens. Build roles around strengths, not the 1:100 career ladder. And create real opportunities for people to grow without forcing them into a path that no longer fits.
“I think we’ve all assumed for a long time that growth meant a promotion,” Dunavant said. “What we’re seeing now is that people want purpose and opportunity.”
That shift changes everything.
Career growth becomes more flexible. Training becomes more intentional. Retention becomes something you design, not something you hope for.
Because in a model shaped by centralization, specialization, and AI, the operators who win won’t just build better systems.
They’ll build better jobs.
