In a tight talent market, retaining talent while embracing employee retention strategies can be a game changer for any commercial real estate company. The payoff for organizations that focus on talent retention is well worth the time and investment. With such a low unemployment rate, workers can quickly bounce from job to job, ultimately raising turnover rates and impacting your company’s bottom line.
This has led to real estate companies facing two issues. The first is that the CRE industry is having trouble finding qualified candidates looking for jobs, which is why many companies are turning to real estate recruitment firms like RETS Associates to acquire top talent. The second issue is that if top talent is already employed at a company, odds are they are getting recruited by your competitors. There are key retention strategies companies MUST implement if they want to sustain their competitive advantage and keep one of their most valuable resources: people!
- Communicate, Communicate, Communicate: Providing a clear path to greater compensation and responsibility can help employees feel that they’re valued and a crucial part of the company’s success. This strategy also ignites employee engagement to keep them from feeling stagnant. The more a manager can sit down with their top performers to discuss what they’re doing well and what they can improve on, the more excited that employee is going to feel about their future with your company.
- Let’s Talk Corporate Dating: The most common mistake we see is that managers assume their top performers know they are well regarded and vice versa with under-performers, when in reality that isn’t true. Whether it’s personal relationships or work relationships, people are still people…. and you should talk to your employees similar to how you would communicate with your significant other on what’s going well and what’s not (minus the raised voices over what to eat for dinner or football Sundays of course).
- Compensation is More Than Money: Keeping up with current compensation packages is essential to retaining top talent, but we’re also finding that by offering benefits such as flexible work schedules, work-life balance, and a positive team environment is proving to be just as important. Especially, in today’s job market, employees are constantly being approached by recruiters and other firms. As more and more candidates are placing a larger emphasis on different values, CRE companies must quickly adjust in order to stay competitive.
- Evolving Physical Workspace: CRE firms are investing more capital in their physical office space to attract top talent as modern workspaces can make a real difference to today’s candidates. There has been a rise of open and collaborative work environments which is proving to be an important cultural factor in addition to the rise of technology in the workplace. As the CRE market becomes more Millennial driven, we will see these cultural adjustments continue to sweep through companies.
- Recruiting Strategies: Retention starts right from the beginning with the recruitment process. From identifying which aspects of your company culture you want to showcase, to growing your companies’ digital landscape, social media has clearly become a more powerful tool than ever. Your firm’s brand is crucial to attracting, and even retaining, the best talent and can help you successfully build top-notch teams. This must extend beyond digital platforms by having a clearly defined process in place. As recruiters, we often see companies make top candidates go through a slow, painful process of interviewing 5 to 6 times, or taking light years to move candidates from step to step within the process. Just like dating, the more time that goes by between conversations, the more chance someone else can swoop in or that they will lose interest altogether. Achieving the greatest results happens by having an efficient process supported by a well-illustrated culture and company brand.
Brandi Popovich, Executive Recruiter, About Brandi
The RETS Team brings a deep, strategic understanding of the real estate industry to your recruitment needs. Click here for more insights & tips.
