Starting a career in residence life isn't a one-way street. It can serve as a route to other aspects of campus housing.
By Josh Gana
It has been said that working in residence education is a calling, but what happens when that calling isn’t quite as loud as it used to be? Or perhaps there isn’t an obvious open route on the res ed career path but still a desire to stay at the same campus. Maybe it’s even just a case of discovering a new professional skill set. Regardless of the reason, there are a number of viable career options within housing that may be great next steps for staff who still desire to contribute to the overall objective of supporting student development, success, and belonging. For some, that means transitioning into the business operations or facilities management side of the housing department.
In their work on infusing operations and facilities management into career trajectories, Samantha Kaetzel, Katie Meece, and Michelle Sujka from the University of Cincinnati observe, “Operations and facilities management tends to be something professionals fall into rather than seek out.” But what if professionals took a more intentional approach? The housing operations and facilities management positions rely on many of the same competencies that professionals would have developed during their time in residence education. Plus, those areas are experiencing workforce challenges, which opens up a number of opportunities. Altogether, it means that campus housing leaders should think differently about the recruitment, hiring, and onboarding of new managers in the contemporary environment. Pulling from the residential life staff talent pool can be an effective strategy.
Examining the industry dynamics influencing current workforce challenges frames the opportunity and impact that sustainable employee pipeline strategies can have. According to Data USA, colleges, universities, and professional schools are the largest employers of facilities managers in the United States. Nearly 80% of facilities managers in this data set identify as male, and the profession is less diverse regarding racial and ethnic demographics than the country’s general population. Further, CUPA-HR data from the 2019 Staff in Higher Education Survey articulates a demographic cliff in the facilities workforce, with the highest percentage of university employees older than 55 working in the service, maintenance, facilities, and skilled trades areas. The office, clerical, and fiscal affairs roles are not too far behind. Who is being prepared to fill those gaps as they appear?
At a time when many residential life professionals are looking for their next step, there is an opportunity to meet industry gap needs and provide career path options for staff who are skilled managers and higher education administrators. While the option of moving into other student affairs areas such as Greek life, orientation, or career services has long been common, there are also many ways to transfer residential life skills to positions in facilities and housing operations. According to the 2023 Employee Retention Survey by CUPA-HR, 62.5% of student affairs respondents are somewhat likely, likely, or very likely to seek other employment in the next 12 months, the largest percentage of any employee group. As residential life staff consider alternative career paths for mid-level positions, the benefit of keeping them in student housing is immense. Removing barriers to entry for these jobs can also create a more diverse workforce to support diverse student and frontline staff populations.
Speaking to individuals who had transitioned from residential life into housing facilities and operations roles, common responses indicated that the driving factor in making the change was alignment with their values and skills. They had an affinity for process-driven roles that included problem-solving, logistics, planning, and organization. They viewed housing operations and facilities as career paths that contribute to a student-driven mission differently and provide a longer-term focus on work projects and initiatives. Advancement and growth opportunities, higher compensation potential, and better-perceived work/life balance were also cited as factors.
That’s not to say there are no barriers to entry, such as credential requirements, technical knowledge, and perceptions. By examining these roles from a competency perspective, though, a greater alignment between residential life and facilities or business operations is illuminated, and strategies to mitigate the barriers become more apparent. Competencies necessary to be effective in management roles include technical role-based skills, universal management competencies, and context-specific competencies. All three are important regardless of role type, but particularly in technical professions, so it can be challenging to find candidates who are strong in all three areas from the beginning. An argument can also be made that residence education may be one of the best preparatory experiences for general management and higher education context-specific competencies. With intentional focus, any gap in housing operations or facilities technical experience can be bridged for many roles.
According to the International Facilities Management Association, there are 11 areas of competency required to maintain best practices within the field.
A number of these overlap with the skills and knowledge that residence life and housing professionals likely are being exposed to and strengthening in the early stages of their careers. In addition, competency categories specific to the ACUHO-I Facilities Management knowledge domain include facilities assessment, master planning, general and preventative maintenance, capital project management, sustainability, as well as inventory control and materials handling.
Where the overlap exists becomes more clear in conversations with professionals who have made this jump. They explain that the aspects of their first facilities management position that they were most comfortable with were communications, emergency preparedness, human factors, performance and quality, and project management. This isn’t surprising, considering the role that supervision, crisis management, and programming play in early- and mid-level housing jobs. These people reported that the biggest learning curves were in the areas of real estate and property management, master planning, finance and business acumen, operations and maintenance, and sustainability. Again, this is not surprising as these aspects of the job expose themselves as one gets closer to a senior housing officer position. Notably, staff who identify as female indicated that gender dynamics in a male-dominated field was a challenge that they needed to work to overcome. This is not related to competence but is based on perceptions and stereotyping.
A similar exercise can be done regarding staff positions that fall under the housing operations umbrella. While these roles may have a wider range of differences from campus to campus, they often include elements of assignments, occupancy management, conference services, desk services, and other business functions. More specifically, these positions often rely on experience and knowledge of sales, contracting and lease agreements, resource allocation and management, service delivery, application and assignment processes, and forecasting and trending.
Staff moving into housing operations from residential life felt most prepared for the process and analytical aspects of the roles. Housing staff found success and satisfaction in seeing the big picture, identifying efficiencies, and building relationships with staff across multiple functional areas. The positional challenges included unfamiliarity with housing operations terminology, software systems, and specific procedures related to the work.
At a time when many residential life professionals are looking for their next step, there is an opportunity to meet industry gap needs and provide career path options for staff who are skilled managers and higher education administrators.
These experiences and motivations reflect Meece’s transition to becoming a neighborhood operations coordinator at the University of Cincinnati. Previously, she had been a hall director at a small university. With each passing year, she found herself gravitating towards the parts of her job that involved housing assignments and operations. Eventually, as she moved into a role that worked with an upper-division student community, her responsibilities included working with the housing management system, creating standardized practices for her area, centralizing residence hall management responsibilities, and supervising desks. All of these skills would transfer to her new campus.
Similarly, Kate Flowers, the assistant director for custodial services and sustainability initiatives at the University of Washington, was in her second resident director position when she started to consider her career trajectory. She was excited about work that supervised permanent staff and offered stability and the challenge of managing projects and goals with longer-term impact. When a housing facilities specialist position became available, the communication, project management, supervisory, and leadership skills used daily in residential life were transferable to the role. Both Meece and Flowers were also eager for live-off positions that offered a better balance between work and personal priorities, and the operations and facilities positions were a good fit.
Housing operations and facilities leaders can lay a foundation that reduces structural barriers and allows residential life staff to gain meaningful operations and facilities experience. One strategy that has been effective at the University of Washington is offering informal learning opportunities to resident directors on key facilities management topics through individual coaching and a lunch-and-learn model. During these sessions, staff who expressed interest in learning more about facilities were provided literature on topics such as work management, maintenance and operations, custodial standards and expectations, design, and fire and life safety practices. After reviewing the material, the participants would debrief with facilities leadership. This type of learning engagement was subsequently formalized through the creation of a collateral position in housing facilities for resident directors during the summer. In addition, the campus hosted interns in both facilities and housing operations.
Institutions can also create their own educational resources. At the University of Cincinnati, a housing operations language document guides housing staff through a series of vocabulary terms like a housing-themed version of Duolingo. Broken down into categories like accounting, purchasing, facilities, maintenance, occupancy, planning, and others, it serves as a primer. By learning definitions of terms like box move, swing space, plumbing stack, chargeback, plant funds, double rub, and others, housing staff can better understand the conversations and concerns of their colleagues in other departments and can also take advantage of a kick-start to a new career.
Meanwhile, on the hiring side of the equation, when it comes time to recruit for an operations or facilities position, there are several ways that the pool can be broadened to include residential life staff. First, it’s important to consider which positions are most appropriate for this type of transition. It may not be the right fit for somebody with little direct facilities experience to supervise a highly technical area such as an in-house electrical shop. A facilities manager who serves more as a portfolio manager or liaison to university shops and contractors or who supervises general maintenance and custodial staff could be an appropriate entry point for a residential life professional, as could a role working with housing assignments and occupancy. When posting the job, minimum requirements should be crafted carefully to be more inclusive. Does the relevant experience need to specifically be in facilities management, or would student housing, operations management, and property management suffice? Think about transferable skills and hiring for attitude. Finally, review hiring processes through an equity lens. Utilizing competency-based interviewing techniques and focusing on case studies or experiential factors in the interview can allow candidates to highlight related competencies even if they don’t have specific related experiences.
Once on the job, coaching and mentoring are critical for staff new to facilities management and operations. Flowers emphasizes how important coaching was when she transitioned from residential life: “Coaching from my supervisor and supportive direct reports gave me context [that helped me be successful].” Be willing to train on technical skills and have patience while staff are onboarded; the APPA Institute for Facilities Management can be a valuable starting point. Having strong operational processes and documentation in place can also aid staff who are more unfamiliar with the technical aspects of the job. Samantha Kaetzel, neighborhood operations coordinator at the University of Cincinnati, notes, “It's super beneficial to provide structure and a balance of workload where possible. It’s also incredibly helpful to offer autonomy in these roles, as sometimes people work best being able to figure out larger problems when they have the space to do so.”
Meanwhile, staff considering moving into these new roles must search for opportunities to expand their knowledge, get engaged in building operations, and look for ways that their current positions overlap with their aspirations. A resident director is a building manager and an occupancy manager. Volunteering to serve on facility project teams can be an educational option. Seek out the operations and facilities leaders in an organization for informational interviews and job shadowing. According to Brian Stroup, director of operations and facilities at Oregon State University, professionals will also get a lot of mileage by doing their current job well. “It cannot be underestimated the value and impact of doing good work and being reliable to others. These two simple but hard-to-do things will help offset any real or perceived gap of technical knowledge when making a shift like this.”
More formal learning opportunities include training programs like the APPA-certified educational facilities professional program and university facilities management certificate programs. Including operations and facilities management in your professional development, such as the ACUHO-I housing facilities or business operations conferences, can be quite effective. When attending other regional or national housing conferences, attend some operations and facilities sessions. Finally, once on the job, new staff shouldn’t worry about having to know everything right out of the gate. According to Oluwatobi Ishola, a facilities manager at the University of Washington, “Be prepared to ask questions . . . take advantage of the tools you have developed in the past such as communication, organization, creative thinking, and supervision.”
With some care and attention to removing transition barriers and strengthening the pipeline for residential life staff to move into facilities management and operational roles, these staff are strongly positioned to apply a developmental and educational lens to the work. In doing so, the organization yields a deeper candidate pool, and residential life staff have the opportunity for a rewarding career path. As Michelle Sujka, assistant director of housing for facility operations at Cincinnati, observes, “Facilities can seem scary for folks who have only ever been immersed in residence life. For the res life folks who get energized around the administrative parts of their job, facilities could be a good next step in their career. I think we have trained ourselves that facilities is a specialized area, but truly, if there’s interest, there’s a role for you.”
Josh Gana is the director of operations for housing and food services at the University of Washington in Seattle. He has served as a co-lead of the facility design and maintenance imperative for the ACUHO-I Future of the Profession project.
