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57 defined attributes about new candidates to help Cherry Creek better understand them, as well as fit them to the correct role and responsibilities. Cherry Creek sends its culture index out to all prospective new hires prior to their employment so they can learn more about their inner workings, how they respond to situations, how they think, their personality, etc. Sourcepoint has new hires work with a learning and development team for up to five weeks, as well as including daily huddles to ensure that employees are engaged. EMBRACING EMPATHY Employees in customer-facing roles need to have empathy to be successful, Torigian said. "What we're really looking for in our employees is this sense of the customer, and how do you take care of the customer regardless of what their need might be. What I want is people who can engage, help calm situations, and help bring the facts in to help people make good decisions, and help individuals make good decisions." "We look for people who have that ability to, to navigate those difficult waters, because you've got a client or a borrower that's in distress; they're scared," Kittyle added. "You need someone that has the ability to be empathetic, to understand the solutions that we have available for them, and to be able to communicate that accurately." BECOMING AN EMPLOYER OF CHOICE With servicers competing for the best talent, they are taking steps to present their firms as a better workplace option than the competition. Cherry Creek Mortgage has an excellent reputation in the industry, which helps make it an employer of choice, said Uhl, a sentiment several others shared about their own firms. Uhl added that relationships built through trade shows and other industry events over the last several years have helped draw talent to the company. "We look at: How do we make Situs AMC a relevant name? And how do we make it a relevant employer?" Torigian said. "e first thing we have to do is we have to transition from this model of exchanging transactional work for money. Traditionally, these are very commoditized roles." SitusAMC has taken several steps to break that mold, according to Torigian: "Being an underwriter at SitusAMC is not like being an underwriter anywhere else. We have this strong humanitarian plank. We're doing things like providing people with a global living wage and simplifying our PTO to make an impact on people's lives. We're doing things like remote work and hybrid work and converting the work- life life balance conversation into work-life integration." SitusAMC offers its employees career maps so employees skilled in one area can add additional skills to be able to move within the company, Torigian added. "You're going to develop, and you're going to grow as well. Beyond that, we focus on how we reward people. It's more than just a paycheck." "ere's not a bigger compliment to an employer than when your employees themselves are helping you recruit," Allgood said. "It starts with working in your own backyard, making sure your resources are valued, they're part of a broader team, that they appreciate the values in the culture." Allgood recommended including seasoned staff in the interview process. Applicants will sense from the core staff whether the organization is right for them. Several experts cited work-life integration, which became much more important during the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, as more people from all industries started working from home. "People spent more time at home, and they liked it—they realized some of the things are missed," Torigian said. Now, rather than requiring some employees to work specific hours, he looks for deliverables, like a certain number of loans processed in a certain number of days, regardless of when during the work is completed during that period. STAFF RETENTION By using motivation, innovation, and the maintenance of a certain culture, servicers and lenders can retain their best team members. "We have staff longevity because we have such an awesome dynamic of people, and it's a family culture," Hetzel said. "It's just an amazing group of people with a can-do attitude. We're all one team, all on the same path. It's not just to get the loan though; I've had that where I've worked before. I think "There's not a bigger compliment to an employer than when your employees themselves are helping you recruit." —Greer Allgood, Managing Director of Mortgage Operations, Wipro Opus

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