Countrywide furloughs mortgage brokers and warns other staff to be ready
The UK’s largest estate agency has told employees via email today that they face being furloughed as the company reviews all its business activities amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
Countrywide’s 10,000 employees have been told via email today that they face being furloughed as the Coronavirus lock-down continues to kill the property market.
The Negotiator has been told that the email prepares staff for the eventuality and that employees at the company’s financial services division, which has been particularly impacted by the property market hard stop, have already been furloughed.
While some sales and lettings activity is continuing, the work of mortgage brokers has been doubly difficult to sustain – home buyers are understandably reluctant to take on new debt or remortgage at the moment, while lenders have been withdrawing products and asking for ever larger LTV ratios.
Countrywide’s decision is thought to be linked to the government’s announcement earlier this week that all sales and lettings home moves should not proceed unless they were already past exchange and contractually unable to stop.
Work remotely
Countrywide had already sent all of its employees home to work remotely and closed branches as per government advice which, now that the Coronavirus Bill has passed, is backed up by police powers to shut business premises that are not on the exempted list.
The decision by Countrywide to consider furloughing its staff is also linked to its perilous financial position. Although many brands such as Hamptons are profitable, the company is carrying a heavy debt burden after its attempt to sell commercial property arm Lambert Smith Hampton for £38 million fell through recently.
Countrywide comment
A spokesperson told The Negotiator: “Our priority remains to do the right thing by our colleagues, support our customers and preserve our business as we navigate the Group through this unprecedented situation.
“Our high street branches are closed with colleagues at home and we have been working to assess business-critical activities required across the Group to support our customers, our landlords and tenant community who rely on us to manage their housing emergencies and keep a roof over their heads.
“We welcome the UK Government’s introduction of the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS), and like many businesses within our industry, we will be utilising the scheme to support our colleagues who are not engaged in the continued provision of essential services.”
Is this the final nail in the coffin for Countrywide. Regardless of their current pipeline, I guess many transaction will fall through, which is the same for most estate agents.
Countrywide very rarely give laptops to their employees and their IT system is so dated that very few of their hard working, loyal staff would be able to work remotely from home. They would also have major potential issues if staff were to use their own laptops or computers working from home in regards to GDPR.
The latest advice from Government will certainly not help matters and only adds to the uncertainty with both buyers and sellers.
So they’ve furloughed the only division of the company still capable of generating revenue first… seems like a sound strategy…
Fully agree.
I feel really sorry for their staff.
In many ways this definitive step by Countrywide PLC means that its employees will get 80% of their salary up to £2,500 covered by the government for the next 3-months, as long as they do not work. And may or may not get the extra 20% as a top up from the company.
With such a large number of salaries 10,000, it gives certainty to many, though there must be some who will still work? Such as property managers etc in the Lettings division.
It may give some certainty to many staff during these challenging times, but I predict many of their offices will not reopen in three months times and the recruitment agencies will be very busy with new candidates, but very few vacancies !!
The lettings side of the business is the only major section of the business that is of any value and I’m sure there will be a number of groups looking to on board this into their own organisation.
Now the sales staff have ‘gone’ and the shop fronts will soon cease to exist it looks allot more attractive as an acquisition.
Not sure if this is the silver bullet or final nail in the coffin they were needing.
The staff will be hurt the most but all good staff will find new position I am sure.