Apartment builder goes ‘above and beyond’ by fostering trust and caring for its employees
Trust. Fairness. Caring. “Those are such simple words,” said Ric Campo, chief executive of the Camden Property Trust. “But how do you actually manifest the reality of those words in your workplace?”
2020 provided ample opportunities.
During a pandemic that sent office workers home, an oil bust and recession that hit renters, and a renewed focus on social justice sparked by the death of George Floyd, companies faced a slew of decisions that could define them as workplaces. Camden’s navigation of the turbulent year placed the company at No. 1 among large companies on the Houston Chronicle’s Top Workplaces list.
Camden, founded in 1982, is a publicly traded company that builds, owns and manages apartment buildings across the country. The company’s portfolio includes 172 buildings nationwide, including 26 in Houston.
Headquartered in Greenway Plaza, Camden employs 545 in Houston and 1,700 nationally.
When the pandemic forced businesses to shut down or send “nonessential” workers home, Campo began weighing how to approach the situation in a fair and caring manner. He removed the terms “essential” and “nonessential” from company communications — “Everyone’s essential,” he explained — and began thinking about what special considerations his staff working onsite in apartment complexes across the country would need to stay safe.
The company drew up health protocols, sent out personal protective equipment and awarded $2,000 “frontline bonuses.”
It also rolled out an educational assistance program to help parents whose children’s schools had suddenly stopped in-person classes pay for tutors or child care.
“I have never appreciated Camden as a company more than during this pandemic seeing how upper management has handled everything by going above and beyond,” said one employee in the Chronicle’s Top Workplaces survey.
One out of every six responses used variants of the word “caring” to describe Camden as a workplace: “We take care of each other,” wrote one employee; “Camden truly cares about its employees, community and residents,” said another.
When it became clear that shutdowns would lead to historic job losses, Campo and Keith Oden, cofounder of Camden’s predecessor companies (Camden is an amalgamation of Campo and Oden’s last names), challenged the team to come up with a way to help residents who were affected. Camden decided it had to move fast.
Tenants who lost their jobs qualified for unemployment insurance, but systems processing claims were overwhelmed by applications, leading to weeks-long delays in receiving benefits. Camden established a $10 million fund to help unemployed tenants to meet living expenses while they waited for benefits.
“You have to help people understand that their job is more than just a job, a paycheck,” Campo said. “That makes them better employees. And that makes the experience better for the customers. That’s the secret sauce. Really simple, caring about people every day. And it takes a lot of time to build that trust. But you could tear it down in a day.”