Will estate agency return to normal when lockdown lifts?
That's the question that leading industry recruiter Josh Rayner is asking estate agency staff to answer in a new industry poll taking place this week. Have your say!
As most of the estimated 150,000 people who work in the estate agency sector are either furloughed or told to work from home, many are wondering if these employees will, when the crisis is over, resist attempts to return full time to their branches.
Leading estate agency recruiter Josh Rayner wants to know if industry rank and file believe the industry will return to normality once the all clear is given and whether they see it as an opportunity to change direction.
Many negotiators and other branch staff will be wondering if, as their employer was able to continue doing business without a branch, perhaps the daily commute into work isn’t necessary.
“How many of those currently furloughed or laid off intend to simply exit agency altogether,” asks Rayner (left), who founded Rayner Personnel in 2012.
“Has this experience changed your view of what a work/life balance looks like and indeed should look like?
“Coronavirus has challenged our thinking, the way we have had to work of late and has challenged our very industry’s very viability.
“It’s important as we pass through our fourth week of lockdown to ascertain the thoughts and the sentiment of those that form the foundations of the property sector itself.”
To find out, Rayner is asking agents to fill in a short poll that takes two minutes to complete and will be open until next weekend. The results will be published soon afterwards.
Read more about Rayner Personnel.
Josh Rayner is a bright lad, and what may be seen as a pedestrian attempt to find out what is happening inside the heads of agents, is in fact exactly what is needed. As the blueprint of work and business is changing forever.
Take ABF, who? Associated British Foods, who? the owners of ‘Primark’ that has just take a nearly 300M haircut, why? Because since lockdown, only a month ago, it has generated zero income, because it does not sell online. I foresee many in the c-suite having some explaining to do.
Everyone thinks this lack of business foresight is crazy, but not as crazy as the real estate industry thinking that post-covid the consumer will be ‘doing business’ in the same way. And a re-vamp of an agency website is not what I am alluding to.
Customers/clients in any industry want service, in real estate the largest asset base in the world, paper needs to give way to a more immediate and meaningful way of transacting business. Just as Primark was caught out – a face to face shopping experience in a pandemic, real estate also is about to hit the same impasse, and maybe this is why the workforce in the industry really needs to be consulted about what it thinks. Good work Josh.