Long-term investment

The number of program managers who have left Toll Brothers after going through the company's training program is so low, says Jack Shahin, a recruiter for the home builder, that he cannot think of one.

Neither can Dan Martin, Reno-based Toll Brothers vice president.

One guy did transfer to Toll Brothers' New York offices, says Martin, but to date, the firm has not lost a trainee.

Not one.

Toll Brothers, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based national builder of luxury homes, converted what was an informal system of training into a formalized, corporate- wide program of eight to 18 months of training, and training only.

Those accepted to the program have no other responsibilities during the training.

Its first Nevada trainee,Matt Munro, completed it in March 2003.He's now working as a project manager at one of the firm's Henderson developments.

"It's an elite, sought-after program amongst college graduates," says Carl DeFriez, an assistant project manager enrolled in the program in Reno.

He says that the program a one-year training system that rotates the trainees to all departments and provides mentoring along the way has exceeded his expectations.

The competition to get in is fierce, adds Shahin.

"I interview many,many, many applicants, and people are still lining up to get in."

Only entrepreneurs need apply.

Toll Brothers looks for candidates who can take ownership of a development.

They might be business graduates; they might hold construction management degrees.

But all candidates who make it through the gantlet of interviews and applications, have one thing in common the entrepreneurial spirit.

They want to be at the hub; they like to make decisions.

Once they make it into the program currently there are two trainees in the Reno division; three in Las Vegas then they are cross-trained in all of the builder's departments, from construction, to sales, to marketing, to purchasing.

"And where can you find cross-trained individuals like that?" asks Martin."Unless you train them yourself."

And train them outside their comfort zone, as well as in it, he says, so they can become decision-makers in all aspects of a project.He likes to start trainees with business degrees in the construction end of the business and those with construction management degrees in the sales or marketing end.

"It's a bucks-stops-here kind of a position," adds Martin.

And it's a business model that places responsibility at the subdivision level, with the project manager just three levels away from Robert Toll, chairman of the board and chief executive officer himself.

Toll Brother's project manager model also places the project manager at the hub of a development where, says Martin,"the motivation is pure." The manager wants all departments on the site to succeed.

It's a model that Martin believes reduces inter-departmental politics and infighting.

Investment in the training program is paying off, he says.And retention is just one benefit that Toll Brothers is gleaning from it.

The program also gets Toll Brothers access to the cream of the crop of graduates and professionals in the business, at a time with competition goes the other way, too, with job hunters often being head-hunted.

Though the company does not have statistics quantifying the success of its program, Shahin can point to one good indicator of the firm's satisfaction with its investment.

There have been three training spinoffs created so far, he says, within Toll Brothers training programs for construction manager, land development manager, and sales manager all based on the project manager program.