RiverRock Real Estate Group isn’t your parents’ property management company.
The Newport Beach firm, founded eight years ago, has seen the portfolio of office, retail and industrial properties that it manages for building owners double in size over the past year.
So has its staff.
Credit an employee base that on average is younger than a typical Orange County real estate company for much of RiverRock’s success over the past year, Principal John Combs said.
Younger generations of employees “want to interact with management,” said Combs, who started RiverRock in 2003 after leading the property services division of New York-based Insignia ESG.
Local buildings the company manages include Santa Ana’s 3 MacArthur Place office tower, Newport Beach’s 1500 Quail office and the 100 Bayview Circle office complex that holds RiverRock’s environmentally friendly headquarters.
RiverRock ranked No. 12 this week in the small-companies category of the Business Journal’s Best Places to Work list this week.
The list was compiled for the Business Journal by Harrisburg, Pa.-based Best Companies Group, an independent workplace researcher that managed the registration process (see Methodology, page 26).
Like other firms on the list, RiverRock counts its share of perks.
Employees get the day off for their birthday, along with gifts such as spa treatments or a round of golf.
Company bowling outings are the norm, as are quarterly “Friday treat days” when employees bring in breakfast on a rotating basis.
Beyond the perks, the company’s culture of promoting “an intergenerational work force” are what makes the RiverRock stand apart from others in the industry, said Kathy Valentine, manager of corporate services for the company.
Several of RiverRock’s new hires are straight out of college or relatively new to the work force.
Joe Giraudo, a project coordinator who’s been with RiverRock for about a year-and-a-half, was tapped to help beef up the company’s social media activities after being with the company for a short time.
That’s led to the company rolling out a series of websites for individual properties that RiverRock manages. The websites allow tenants to place work orders and prospective tenants to get leasing information, among other services.
“It’s a collegial environment,” Giraudo said.
Happy employees generate better services, and that gets noticed by RiverRock’s customers, Combs said.
“We want to work for clients that respect our people,” he said. “Our product is our people.”
