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With the “Great Resignation” making the recruitment of commercial property managers an almost herculean task, an expert says now is the time for businesses to rethink existing organisational structures.
The business development executive for commercial property at Ray White Commercial, Leteicha Wilson, said that while recruitment of commercial property has always been a difficult undertaking, the “Great Resignation” has only exacerbated this pain point.
“The Great Resignation has played a huge role in extracting candidates from our industry,” Ms Wilson commented.
For context, the “Great Resignation” is a phrase used to articulate the observed surge in voluntary resignations in 2021, which was mainly attributed to the widespread burnout experienced by employees being further exacerbated by the pandemic.
While the workplace phenomenon mainly involves leaving an undesirable work environment, the Great Resignation is highly linked to an observed shift in employees’ attitude towards finding a new place of employment, including increased demand for fewer working hours, more flexibility at work, and higher wages.
To demonstrate how this shift in workforce sentiment has affected the commercial property management recruitment space, Ms Wilson stated that: “You only have to see the job advertisements on Seek with companies desperately trying to find an experienced commercial property manager.”
Citing the feedback from her own network, Ms Wilson unveiled that job advertisements are often “not receiving even a single application”.
With employers facing what could be the most difficult time in history, Ms Wilson advised that now is the right time to “re-think the structure of your commercial property management team”.
“I believe that now more than ever that we need to be restructuring our existing teams in order to bring on new inexperienced talent and develop them into our experienced commercial property managers of the future,” she stated.
But it’s not just about bringing in new blood to the industry. Ms Wilson argued that aside from finding new talent, businesses must put systems in place to ensure that new property managers will have sustainable and competitive careers.
“A focus needs to be placed on recruiting those eager to try something new, and supported by a well-planned onboarding process to ensure they are nurtured and educated to set themselves up for success in the wonderful world of commercial property management,” Ms Wilson further explained.
But Ms Wilson acknowledged that the “Great Resignation” also brought positive changes to the commercial management space. According to the expert, the workplace phenomenon has driven employers to shift their focus to creating systems that will lower employee attrition rates.
“[Employers] are now identifying the fact that recruitment of experienced commercial PM’s is hard and a real focus has been placed on retention of existing staff — so people just aren’t moving around or willing to see if the grass is greener,” she said.
She also believes that the “days of single portfolio managers are gone” and urged businesses to focus on creating teams within the commercial PM space.
“In order to grow as a business and onboard inexperienced staff, they need to ensure the structure supports the training and development of these inexperienced candidates, but to also provide career progression and, on top of that, leadership opportunities for those experienced commercial managers,” Ms Wilson stated.
Not just an idealistic approach to recruitment, Ray White is now onboarding external candidates into the industry through a 10-week training series.
Recruits participate in weekly training sessions that cover the fundamentals of commercial property management: from onboarding landlords and tenants to arrears, maintenance, compliance and vacating tenants.
“The feedback was overwhelming as attendees have just fast-tracked their knowledge and can head back into their office to implement what they have learnt,” Ms Wilson said.
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