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In an industry where businesses love to tout the latest advancements, one leader argues that workplace flexibility should be the new gold-star “product” in every company’s suite.
On a recent episode of The WIRE, hosts Grace Ormsby and Sadhana Smiles discussed how COVID-19 changed the game for certain workplace expectations and, in particular, how alterations to office policies might help stem an outflow of staff, particularly in the property management sector.
According to Ms Smiles, the key to crafting a new structure that works for both business leaders as well as their employees is to examine the aspects of their workplace that might be able to be “hybridised” and to keep the question of what constitutes employee “wellness” in mind.
She also recommends that owners think of this change much as they would advancements in any part of the business, asking the question: “What’s the opportunity in front of us?”
Ms Smiles suggests thinking of it as “almost a bespoke type of product that you create for your business”.
“The hybrid workplace is here to stay, and if you can get it right, it will make you a lot more competitive in the marketplace if you are going and looking for new team members to join your business,” Ms Smiles asserted.
Yet, at the same time, she said it was important to acknowledge that “there’s no one-size-fits-all in the hybrid workplace. Every business has different needs. Every employee has different needs.”
And those needs and expectations on the part of employees have radically shifted from what they were even two years ago.
“I think as leaders, what we’ve got to understand is the last two years, we have enjoyed working from home or having that hybrid environment, and so our people have reimagined how they want to work, and they’re not going to ‘unreimagine’ that, if there was such a word, but let’s make that one up. They’re not going to do that.
“So, as leaders, we’ve actually got to go, ‘Well, what’s your reimagined workplace? How does that fit in with our business needs so that it’s a win-win for both of us,’ and hopefully through that, you can actually create high levels of retention,” Ms Smiles said.
In no field has retention become more important than property management. A report published at the beginning of 2022 confirmed what many in the industry had been experiencing in real-time: a mass exodus of property managers from real estate altogether.
MRI’s Voice of the Property Manager confirmed that almost a quarter of professionals in the sector planned to leave not only their role but the industry entirely.
As the duo discussed on The WIRE, these figures reveal that there’s never been a more important time to be focusing on employee satisfaction — or a moment more amenable to change.
“With all the technology that is now operating within your business, there’s less need to be face to face in an office space,” Ms Ormsby noted of the rapid uptake of new systems brought about by COVID that has now made workplaces less physically bound than ever.
“I’m a tenant myself, and I don’t think I’ve ever gone into the office of my property manager to say, ‘Hey.’ It’s just not something that you do. So, why does your property manager need to be in the office and visible like that when they’re probably going to be more valuable in other ways?” she queried.
Ms Smiles concurred, noting that workplace flexibility might soon be the make-or-break offering that determines agency owners’ ability to win out over the competition in attracting high-performers.
“As long as everybody in the business has an understanding of where you’re going to be at any one point in time, it works. It’s not a world that’s going to change. It’s just going to get more and more flexible as time goes on,” she noted.
“And if you don’t do it, then you perhaps won’t get the same type of talent that you would have the opportunity to get if you did”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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