The Training Gap Widens: How Underinvestment Is Fueling Turnover (and What To Do About It)

INSIGHTS FROM THE 2025 AHTA AFFORDABLE HOUSING STAFFING SURVEY

If you manage affordable housing today, you can feel it: hiring is harder, ramp-up takes longer, and teams are stretched thin. Our 2025 Affordable Housing Staffing Survey puts numbers to that reality—and points to a surprisingly fixable root cause: training.

The Data Insights

• Nearly half (47%) of organizations say they need to significantly improve staff training—up from just 23% in 2022. That’s a dramatic shift in only three years. It signals that training has become a strategic gap, not just a nice-to-have.

  
  

• 49% report that new hires arrive with less or considerably less experience than before. This increases the burden on onboarding and front-line supervisors.

  
  

• 56% say workloads and operational demands are getting worse. This compounds the ramp-up challenge and raises the risk of burnout.

  
  

The through-line: *Training is the shared weakness—but also the biggest opportunity to stabilize staffing and performance

Understanding the Widening Gap

Experience vs. Expectations

1) Experience dropped, expectations didn’t. When nearly half of new hires have less prior experience than those they replaced, teams can’t rely on “learn it on the job.” Without a structured ramp-up, the result is slower proficiency, more errors, and higher early turnover.

Increased Workloads

2) Workloads rose during the talent crunch. As vacancies and back-fills stack up, remaining staff shoulder more. A thin onboarding process becomes a stress multiplier, not a safety net—especially for critical roles like maintenance techs and site managers.

Fragmented Training Issues

3) Fragmented training makes consistency impossible. Ad-hoc hand-offs, tribal knowledge, and scattered resources lead to uneven resident experiences. This increases compliance risk and weakens portfolio performance. Standardization (with room for local nuance) is the antidote.

What Effective Training Looks Like

Role-Based Learning Paths

Role-based learning paths. Shift from “one size fits all” to tailored learning paths for maintenance, site managers, leasing, and regional roles. Define the competencies that matter (safety, compliance, customer service, systems) and build content to those outcomes.

Structured Onboarding

Structured onboarding with time-to-proficiency targets. Onboarding should be a curriculum, not just a calendar invite. Set checkpoints for Day 7, 30, 60, and 90 with clear performance artifacts (e.g., “can complete a work order in system X end-to-end,” “can explain LIHTC income recert basics to a resident”).

Blended Learning Approaches

Blended, bite-size content for the field. Pair brief, mobile-friendly e-learning modules with hands-on practice, job aids, and supervisor coaching. Micro-learning keeps people progressing even on busy days.

Standardization with Local Adaptation

Standardize the essentials; localize the edges. Lock in enterprise standards for policy, compliance, and standard operating procedures (SOPs). Allow properties to add local context (vendors, site-specific workflows) without rewriting the core.

Measuring Success

Measure what matters. Tie your training program to leading indicators: time-to-proficiency, first-90-day retention, work order cycle time, and mystery shop or resident satisfaction on key interactions. Report progress visibly.

Five Strategic Moves for the Next 90 Days

1. Identify your top 3 failure points in the first 60 days on the job (e.g., work orders, rent collection conversations, HOTMA/LIHTC basics). Build strategies and learning paths to address those issues first.

   
   

2. Launch a role-based starter path for maintenance techs and site managers—the two roles most consistently under strain. Aim for 60–90 minutes/week of structured learning with job practice baked in. An online and on-demand delivery format allows for the greatest scheduling flexibility.

   
   

3. Create a “teach once, watch many” library: 3–5 minute screen captures of your actual systems (Yardi, MRI, OneSite) for the tasks new hires do daily. Upload that micro-learning content into your Learning Management System (LMS) so it can be efficiently shared with other learners.

   
   

4. Empower supervisors as coaches: Provide a one-page guide for weekly 10-minute check-ins (“Show me how you’d…”) plus a simple rubric to mark progress.

   
   

5. Establish a visible scoreboard (no names) for time-to-proficiency and first-90-day retention by property. What gets measured—and shared—improves.

   
   

The Expected Payoff

• Faster ramp-up → Fewer escalations, smoother audits, and less rework.

  
  

• Higher early retention → Lower recruiting volume and fewer overtime spikes.

  
  

• More consistent resident experience → Better satisfaction and online reputation.

  
  

• Reduced compliance risk → Standard processes and documented training.

  
  

• Improved portfolio performance → Faster turn times and less vacancy loss.

  
  

In a market where hiring won’t get easier overnight, the fastest way to create capacity is to get more from every new hire’s first 90 days. That’s a training problem—and an opportunity you can control.

How AHTA Can Assist You

The Affordable Housing Training Academy (AHTA) was built for exactly this moment:

• Role-based learning paths for frontline property management roles.

  
  

• 325+ courses with the ability to add your own content to the learning library.

  
  

• Custom-branded portals so learning feels like your platform.

  
  

• Affordable, scalable subscriptions designed for real-world operations.

  
  

If you’d like to see what a role-based onboarding path could look like for your team, request complimentary 14-day access or connect with us for a short walkthrough at https://ahta.online and visit the Contact Us page. We’ll help you translate today’s training gap into tomorrow’s retention and performance gains.