How Data & AI Advanced HR at Extra Space Storage with Whitney Harper

What does it take to scale a company to 8,000 employees without losing the culture that helped build it? In this episode of the Inside Extra Space Storage podcast, McKall Morris talks with Senior Vice President of People Whitney Harper about how the company approaches hiring, retention, leadership support, and growth at scale. Harper shares how the People team uses data to guide better decisions without weaponizing it, how AI is changing recruiting and productivity, and what Extra Space looks for in new hires. She also reflects on why a relationship-first culture has helped steady the company through major growth, including the Life Storage acquisition, while continuing to support teammates across the business.

Transcript & Chapters

0:32 — Meet Whitney Harper, SVP of People at Extra Space Storage

Morris: Welcome to Inside EXR, an Extra Space podcast. We're taking leaders from Extra Space Storage, putting them on mic, and hearing their stories, learning a little about them and their expertise. We have so many great experts within our organization.

Joining us today is Whitney. Whitney Harper is our senior vice president of people, and she's been with the company about five years. Actually, a little more than five years, I think.

Harper: Five years in two weeks, so you're right on.

Morris: Who's counting? Our people team really runs the gamut. We have leadership development, talent development, recruiting, employee experience. I'm missing one.

Harper: Total rewards.

Morris: Total rewards, benefits. How could I miss the most HR thing, the team that pays us every two weeks? They're great. Anyway, welcome. We're excited to have you.

Harper: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Morris: Let's start with a quick introduction. How did you end up at Extra Space? Where did you come from?

Harper: Oh wow. I actually started at Extra Space as a consultant. I was working for a company that did org design, executive consulting, and strategic work. I had been introduced to Gwyn, our chief legal officer, and we had some conversations. They were curious what a strategic HR function could look like.

So I came in and did a three-month consulting project. At the end of it, I presented what a future HR function could look like at Extra Space, and they said, "Great. Can we hire you, and can you deliver on that?" I was like, "Well, that was different than what I was expecting as a consultant, but a lot of fun."

Morris: You presented in the room, and then we just didn't let you leave. We were like, "You're stuck. Head upstairs and get to work."

Harper: Exactly.

2:14 — From the Olympic Games to Self Storage

Morris: Knowing you, I know you have some pretty cool HR background leading up to this. Can you give us a quick rundown of some of the fun places and roles?

Harper: Sure. My first chapter was in hospitality. My first job straight out of college was working at the Athens Olympic Games in food service in the athletes' village, which was a ton of fun. Then I worked in hotel event management. I was at the Ritz-Carlton Singapore and transitioned into HR through the training function.

I really, really love training, and that's been a common thread in my career. I also worked for a hospitality real estate consulting company for about eight years as global head of HR. We had 35 offices around the globe, and I got to wear a lot of different hats, everything from recruiting and benefits to employee experience, and learn the global side of the work too.

During that time, I also took some sabbaticals and worked at three other Olympic Games. Then I did four years of consulting and eventually joined Extra Space.

Morris: Love it. Salt Lake is hosting the Olympics too. What year is that, 2034? Do you already have big plans for us? Are you getting hyped?

Harper: I do. I love the Olympic Games. I think anyone should go to a city when it's hosting the Olympics. It's a party, and you get to see what humans can accomplish. The feats are incredible. Everyone is cheering for different teams. You're proud of your own country's team and other countries too. There are always amazing stories. So yes, I'm excited for Extra Space to get to be here hosting, and hopefully to have some role in the Olympic Games.

Morris: Your stories are always from all over the globe and all these cool experiences, and we're so glad you brought them to Extra Space.

Harper: My pleasure.

4:05 — Why Harper Chose Extra Space Storage

Morris: What made you choose Extra Space? You did the project on us and had three months to suss it out. What made you say yes?

Harper: Culture. As a consultant, you're kind of sniffing out what's dysfunctional or what's not working. I was like, wow, this is a company that has had three CEOs since 1977. That's unusual. That kind of leadership stability made me curious.

As I did interviews and learned more specifically about the people team, I thought, this is a great group of individuals. There were opportunities to be more data-driven and more strategic in how we supported the organization, but it was a really strong foundation. I also liked the business model. Coming from hospitality, you're the first to feel the early signs of an economic downturn and the last to pull out of it. Extra Space is a real estate company with a subscription model. It's stable, well established, and had been growing year over year. Those are not common things in most organizations.

To have a great culture that's also a growth company gave people a place to do their best work. It wasn't, "Are we still going to be viable a year from now?" It was, "How do we optimize? How do we move faster, get stronger, grow quicker, and handle large acquisitions?" That was really exciting.

Morris: It's the interesting work mixed with the stability of storage, right? We joke that self storage isn't the shiniest industry, but the work is still so interesting. It's a nice balance.

Harper: It really is. When I talk with other heads of HR and hear about the challenges their businesses are going through, I have to be a little quieter sometimes and just listen. We absolutely have things we want to improve, but the stability aspect matters. We've never done layoffs. We've continued to grow year over year. Those things let me spend more time on the fun, creative parts of the job.

Morris: You're in those meetings and everything you say sounds like a brag to everyone else.

Harper: I know. They're all stressed, and I'm over here excited about the things we get to build.

6:54 — Building a Data-Driven People Team

Morris: You mentioned data, which is one of your strengths and something you've really brought to the role. How do you think about data as a people team and the people data you're working with?

Harper: One thing I didn't mention is that, alongside some of my previous roles, I was a professor for eCornell for 13 years. One of the courses I taught was people analytics, and it's been really fun to see how that field has evolved.

When I came into Extra Space, I thought, oh my goodness, we have incredible databases and really good data that we're just not bringing to critical decisions. So the question became, how do we get data into decision-makers' hands so they can make the best possible people decisions? I view people as the engine that drives the company.

One of the first things we did was hire a people analyst. We needed someone thinking about this full time, understanding what data we had, how the business operates, and what decisions are made every day that data could improve. That's been really fun. We now have a people scorecard and people insights we share with the executive team to say, "Here are the trends we're excited about. Here's what we're watching. Here's what concerns us. Here's what we're curious about." We also look at how external factors affect internal aspects of the people team and the broader organization. It's about taking a business lens and using people data to make the best talent decisions.

Morris: When I think about Extra Space, we've always had a lot of data on operations and customers, but when you joined, I think we were close to 4,000 employees. Now we're at 8,000. That's a lot of data points. You've also done a great job not just handing over data, but making it digestible. How do you present data so the person receiving it understands the conclusions? You can show me data, but who knows what I'm going to take away from it.

Harper: Exactly. Part of that meant building those skill sets on the people team first. It wasn't just the people analyst. It was our employee experience managers, our recruiters, our division learning managers, every part of the people team. We all had to become data literate. That really needed to become one of our superpowers. All of us should be making data-driven decisions.

It quickly became clear that Extra Space loves data. Data is our love language, and that's a great love language to have. First, we had to educate ourselves and build up our own skill set. Then we started giving the teams that support specific business units data about those units and saying, "You know the story behind this data. Help us connect the dots and understand what it's telling us."

The second thing we did, which was really important, was make sure we never weaponize the data. We never want to say, "This means this manager isn't doing well." The data is there to help us stay curious, understand what's happening, and support people. Sometimes you see anomalies and have to ask, "Is that smoke or is it steam?" It's about helping the team diagnose accurately and respond in the right way, so the data drives good decisions without creating unintended consequences.

10:49 — Collaboration Across 8,000 Employees

Morris: That's interesting. I wouldn't have thought about it quite that way, and it's true that your approach has been very collaborative. Thinking about collaboration more broadly, every team in this company works with your team, and every decision you make impacts every team here. How do you think about all those touchpoints when you're collaborating and making decisions? We all have the Extra Space culture, but different teams have their own team cultures too, and there are 8,000 employees.

Harper: I really view our role as helping leaders do their best work and helping every individual show up and do their best work every single day. I think there's dignity in every job we have in the organization.

The people team wants to make sure we're hiring the best individuals so they can support their teams, developing them so they have the right skills, building strong managers who can lead those teams, and helping business leaders make sound business decisions. The way we collaborate is by spending a lot of time talking with the teams we support and doing a lot of listening.

We have an always-on listening strategy. Sometimes that looks formal, like an engagement survey, and sometimes it's much more day to day. I'm always impressed with the teammates who work closely with our divisions. Each division has a people team task force, a dedicated employee experience manager, recruiter, and division learning manager, with total rewards wrapped around that through employee experience. They really know the ins and outs of what's happening in that business unit: the market conditions, labor issues, staffing needs, benefits questions, turnover, everything.

We don't want to be an ivory tower saying, "We see you over there. We'll throw you a rope if you need something." We want to be in the trenches, right there with our business leaders, and be very solution-oriented. HR sometimes gets a reputation for being the fun police or the ones who only talk about compliance and what people can't do. But our people team really wants to help solve business problems. We want to tackle those problems shoulder to shoulder with our business leaders.

Morris: The reputation your team has is definitely not "fun police." Our HR team is fun, and that is rare. You've been places where it's like, "Oh no, HR is coming," and that's not the attitude here.

Harper: Good. Especially if you've seen Halloween. I don't want to toot our own horn, but I think we've won a top-three award every year for the past three or four years. So we go hard on Halloween.

Morris: It's true. It's an impressive team.

14:11 — AI in HR & Extra Space's 20-Minute Interviews

Morris: Pivoting a little bit to the future, you've built a team that's so data-focused and data-literate. How are you seeing AI impact the people team and our decision-making? Are there tools we're using? Is there training we're looking at? How are you thinking about AI and people?

Harper: This is so relevant. I literally just got off a call with team members proposing an idea for AI superfans and looking at how we can use AI on the people team to optimize the processes we already have, including agents.

What I'd say broadly is that AI is being really disruptive in the HR space, and I'm excited about it. HR can be slow to evolve, and this is an area where I think we're actually leading in some ways. For example, in talent acquisition, the traditional job application process has been pretty broken for a long time. You try to cram your whole work history into a one-page resume, submit it into a black hole, hopefully get an interview, maybe get follow-up interviews, and eventually find out whether you got the job.

AI is changing that on both sides. Applicants are using AI to build resumes and apply for lots of jobs. It's becoming more of an algorithmic matchmaking service. That forces our hand in some ways, but I think we're leaning into it. We're using AI to conduct interviews so, within 20 minutes of applying, someone could be having an interview with an AI interviewer. There's still the option to have a live human interview too, because we're in that transition phase.

The benefit is quicker response times. That process has historically dragged because hiring managers have a thousand other priorities. Hiring matters, but it can fall to the bottom of the list on a busy day. AI helps take some of that pressure off. It can ask strong questions, evaluate whether someone is a good fit for the role, and answer the applicant's questions too so they can decide whether Extra Space is the right fit for them. In talent acquisition especially, we're seeing real process disruption.

In other areas, we're seeing productivity improve too. I think we're entering the era of the super worker, where people who were previously limited by their tools can suddenly do five or 10 times more. AI helps with the more mundane tasks and frees people up to do their highest-value work.

Morris: Extremely cool. I feel like you're kind of a futurist. You're always so optimistic about the technology.

Harper: I know there are downsides. I know those. But I am a hardwired optimist.

Morris: It's exciting to see what our HR team is doing and how you're approaching AI, especially as so many teams across the organization are looking at it in their own ways.

18:10 — What to Expect from the Extra Space Hiring Process

Morris: On the talent acquisition side, it is interesting when you apply for a job somewhere and it feels like you send your stuff in and then what? It can feel like a black hole. If you were talking to an applicant who wanted to work at Extra Space, what makes a good applicant? What should they expect during the interview and hiring process? And what does a first day on the job look like here?

Harper: We really have three different groups, and the process varies a bit for each one. We've got our National Storage Solutions Center, our field team members in the stores, and our corporate team members. But across all three, you'll start by applying online.

You might interact with a chatbot that asks knockout questions to make sure you meet the minimum requirements. From there, the team reviews applicants, and AI is also reviewing the applicant pool. You may be quickly invited to interview with an AI agent, which means you can do a video interview almost immediately after applying. And honestly, even over the past three months, it's amazing how much the technology has improved. I keep telling my team, "Today is the worst AI technology you'll experience in your life." Every day it gets better.

That AI interview is more common right now on the field and call center sides. We're still evolving how it shows up in corporate hiring. After that, there may be additional interviews with a hiring manager. We try to make decisions as quickly as possible. Once you get an offer, you go through a background check, which is standard for all team members.

On your first day, the experience depends on whether you're fully remote, like some call center agents, or in person at corporate. We have a robust onboarding process because first impressions matter. We want people to feel excited. This is a new chapter, and people often stay with this company for a long time, so that first impression is important.

At corporate, you come on site and go through a live, in-person half-day training to get your laptop, get signed in, and get introduced to the Extra Space culture. Your manager picks you up around noon, should take you to lunch or have you meet the team, and then you spend the afternoon reviewing your onboarding plan and what the first week will look like. For teammates in stores, they may begin with an online orientation and then work in person with their on-the-ground trainer to get started.

Morris: It's awesome. We love seeing the new hires when they come to corporate and walk around. And as someone who went through store training when I was newer, just to learn the business, it's an incredible process. There's so much information we're downloading into employees.

Sometimes people think of storage as three walls and a door. How complicated can it be? But it's super complicated. We expect store managers to be property managers, handle leasing and legal documents, provide customer service, do marketing, ask for Google reviews, and represent our brand. For customers, our store managers are Extra Space. They're the people customers see every day if they're in their units or on the property. That's a lot, and I'm so proud of our team members and the great work they do.

Harper: Every time I visit the field, I feel the same way. I try to show up as Mrs. Claus. I'm not there to hand people a list of things to change. I'm there to ask, "What can I do to make your job easier? If you had a magic wand, what would you change?"

I'm so impressed that probably 80% of the time, our team members answer that question with an idea for how we could better serve customers. That ability to think like an owner and constantly ask how we can improve the customer experience just floors me. I love hearing those ideas.

Morris: They're awesome.

23:00 — How to Retain Top Talent

Morris: Speaking of new ideas, and innovation being one of our values, what are you looking at in HR that has you excited right now, other than AI? What else feels like an interesting challenge or a new area you're pushing into?

Harper: AI is definitely the dominant one in terms of disruption, but the best ideas tend to come from the team. Innovation is one of our values, and it's fun when someone on the team identifies a challenge and says, "Here's a problem. I'd love to tackle this."

At a broader level, I'd love for turnover to improve. I'd love for our retention to get stronger. That's a steady drumbeat for the people team, and it's something we're working on shoulder to shoulder with our operations partners. We want to make sure we're hiring the best talent, retaining top talent, and keeping people who want to stay and add to the Extra Space culture.

Some of that work includes full-cycle recruiting, which helps take some things off the district manager's plate so we can better support the hiring process. We also look at our benefits every year and ask which ones are most tied to retention. One of my favorite benefits, and one that's really sticky, is that some of our stores include live-on-site apartments.

When I talk to other HR leaders, one of the big themes is the cost of housing. So being able to offer housing at a select number of stores is a meaningful benefit. It helps us think more clearly about what benefits really matter for retaining team members. And on the front end, it reinforces how important an efficient hiring process is. Keeping stores staffed and running is critical.

24:58 — Relationships-First Culture at Extra Space Storage

Morris: I love that. You mentioned Extra Space culture and what makes it special. What do you think the secret sauce is?

Harper: I personally think the secret sauce is relationships. We are a relationship-first culture. That goes all the way back to Ken Woolley and the company's foundation story. He was focused on the relationship over the business deal. It was more important to walk away with a good relationship than to squeeze every last bit out of the deal and have everyone feel a little burned.

I've seen that continue in how we work with our third-party managers, our joint venture partners, and our employees. With our managers, there's a real human connection first. We pay attention to that.

The same goes for customers. People usually come to storage in a season of high stress, death, divorce, deployment, or some other major life transition. Those are stressful moments. I think our ability to meet customers there with empathy is one of the things that makes our culture unique, and it's something worth holding on to.

Morris: That relationship-first mindset really does show up everywhere. We talk about life transitions and helping people get to a better tomorrow. That feels universal in our culture. We're building relationships that make things better for customers, for teammates, and for each other.

26:58 — Extra Space Leadership Support During a Crisis

Harper: If I can share a personal story that illustrates this, when we found out the Life Storage deal was happening in 2023, a $15 billion acquisition and a huge project, I also found out I had breast cancer that same week.

It was one of those moments where I thought, okay, we need to grow our headcount by 50%, the deal is moving fast, and now I have this health diagnosis. I remember talking to Joe and Gwyn and sharing the news. They both basically said, "Forget the deal. Whatever you need, take the time. Spend time with your family. That's the priority. We'll make it through the deal. Don't let that be a stress."

That was one of those moments where you realize we really do walk the talk. It's one thing to say relationships matter and we take care of people. It's another thing to see it in a moment like that. I could have imagined a lot of other responses, and instead it was, "Let's focus on the human connection."

I've seen that happen time and time again at all levels of the organization. The business matters, but in certain moments the individual person matters most.

Morris: Thanks for sharing that. It's such a clear example of what leadership prioritizes when things get hard. That merger was a huge deal, but it was still less important than taking care of you.

Harper: And honestly, they bought my loyalty in that moment. I was so glad I worked for this company.

28:53 — Why Harper Calls Extra Space Storage "Filet Mignon"

Morris: Thank you so much for coming on and talking with us. Is there anything you wanted to touch on that I didn't ask? Any last pitch for joining Extra Space or for the people team?

Harper: Yes. I joke that some companies are all sizzle and no steak. Extra Space isn't like that. We're filet mignon. It's a great organization and a steady plane to be on, even when there's market turbulence.

It's a place where I'm genuinely excited to wake up and go to work every day. I'm honored to do the work I do and to support our team members as they build careers here and experience the dignity of work. It has been the highlight of my career. For everyone who gets to join, I hope they feel that same sense of luck that they found this company.

Morris: I love that. Thank you so much, Whitney. And thank you to everyone who joined us and listened in. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe, listen to past episodes, and stay tuned. We have a lot of great conversations with leaders ahead.

About the Host and Guest

Whitney Harper, Sr. Vice President of People

Whitney Harper has served as Senior Vice President of People at Extra Space Storage since 2021. She joined the company after first working with Extra Space as a consultant, helping shape a more strategic vision for the human resources function. Before joining Extra Space, Harper built her career across hospitality, global human resources, and executive consulting, including roles at the Ritz-Carlton Singapore, HVS, and Navalent. At Extra Space, she leads the company’s people organization, including recruiting, leadership development, employee experience, and total rewards. She has also helped advance the company’s use of people analytics and AI to support hiring, retention, and talent strategy.

McKall Morris, Director of Corporate Communications

McKall Morris is the Corporate Communications Director at Extra Space Storage. She joined the company in March 2019 after several years in the airline industry. Since joining Extra Space, Morris has played a key role in advancing internal and external communications initiatives, helping shape how the company is represented across all channels. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications from Brigham Young University and an MBA from the University of Utah.

Read more from Whitney Harper in this Q&A. To learn more about Extra Space Storage, visit our investor site, or explore the next step in your career by viewing current job openings. This transcript was auto-generated and edited, including paraphrasing for readability. For the full conversation and exact quotes, listen to the complete episode on YouTube, Apple, or Spotify.