Last Updated on November 6, 2022 by Guest
Attracting and retaining top real estate agents has always been a challenge for brokerages. It’s no secret that the industry has high turnover rates, and real estate companies can experience a shortage of agents at any time of the year. That’s when challenges take place for real estate recruiters.
According to a 2016 interview, 96 percent of the top 150 real estate brokerages in the United States are recruiting and retaining either their highest or second-highest priority for the year.
Human resource issues are not exclusive to US-based brokerages; other countries are also reporting high turnover rates for real estate agents. Also, the United Kingdom’s recruitment experts are claiming that the real estate industry is facing its worst personnel shortage in a generation.
The tight competition for talents in the industry is understandably exerting a lot of pressure on real estate agent recruiters and human resources. To ensure that their company remains an attractive prospect for new and experienced real estate agents, recruiters need to evaluate and improve their recruitment process continually. This will help them identify and address critical issues in the system that they use and refine how they market their agency to the agents they’re prospecting.
Among the challenges, recruiters should pay attention to are.
Ensuring the Company Has Enough Agents
At some point, recruiters have experienced rush trying to fill a position that’s just been vacated by one of their agents.
Leaving a position open for long is out of the question, so many brokerages are forced to immediately hire a candidate who may, at first glance, seem like an okay fit for the position. This rushed selection process does not leave sufficient room for the agency to see if the agent can thrive in their company.
To avoid last-minute recruitments, it’s best to anticipate openings and recruit new and experienced agents year-round. Always keep an eye out for promising talents, incentivize referrals, and ensure that your real estate recruiting presentation is up to date and ready for an audience.
If you’re not yet prepared to hire a candidate, it’s an option to keep them in various stages of the recruitment process. Should you need new personnel, you can immediately get your best candidate for the vacant position.
Retaining the Company’s Current Agents
Many studies focus on the cost of worker turnover, and they all point out that retaining an existing employee or agent is much more economical than hiring a new one. If you’re losing many people, it’s essential to find out exactly why your agents are leaving. Patch the hole in your boat first.
Once the cause has been addressed, and you’ve gotten new people into the team, keep track of their employee satisfaction level. Find out what their wants and needs are and make sure that these are met. Newcomers may want more opportunities to mentor and learn about their profession, while experienced agents may want to find avenues that can help them expand their earning potential.
At the same time, take a look at what you can do to make your workplace healthier. You can invest in technologies that offer assistance to your agents, for example, or foster a company culture that supports the holistic growth and career development of the agents and staff members.
Making the Brokerage Stand Out from Others
To get the attention of the top talents in the field, an agency needs to be seen and heard. Take every opportunity to build your brand and capitalize on the elements that make your agency an ideal workplace for new and experienced real estate agents alike.
There are different ways to go about this. You can host seminars and conferences, for one, and establish your agency as a proponent of innovations that can make work easier for real estate agents. This lets other agents know that your brokerage is an early adopter of technology and that they can expect to enjoy highly efficient processes if they join your team.
If you’re branding the brokerage as a place of work that values work-life balance, you can develop social activities where community members can have fun and interact with each other. Do this by hosting year-end parties and events that celebrate the goals achieved by your agents or the company as a whole. Besides putting your company culture front and center, an activity like this can help your recruitment efforts and assist your agents in growing their professional network.
If you want to take your real estate agency to the next level, you need to be able to recruit and retain agents that can grow with your company. What steps are you taking to address these three recruitment challenges? Now would be a good time to revisit your recruitment strategy and incorporate campaigns and activities to address these common issues.