Do furloughed agents want to stay in the industry? New survey

One of the industry’s top recruitment gurus wants to check the pulse of the industry - and that includes whether furloughed agents even want to return to work again.

Josh Rayner, founder of recruitment service Rayner Personnel, has created a survey to assess agents’ answers to key questions - How are you doing? What are you thinking? What are your thoughts on your industry now and what will it look like when we start to return to normality?

Specifically, Rayner wants to know whether the industry rank and file believe they could or should return to the same work in the same way - or whether many will see this as an opportunity to change direction. 

“Coronavirus has challenged our thinking, the way we have had to work of late and has challenged our very industry’s very viability’ says Rayner, who believes the majority of agencies have furloughed the majority of their staff in recent weeks.

"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” he adds.

And he asks: “Are we heading for business as normal when the restrictions are lifted or is there something more fundamentally transformational going? What do they need to prepare for, perhaps, new ways of working? Importantly, what is the scale of this challenge and more importantly opportunity?”

A number of industry leaders and influencers are supporting and promoting the poll. 

It’s a brief survey that will take just a few moments to complete; it’s anonymous and those responding don’t need to provide any contact details, but will have to be logged in via Linkedin. 

The poll is open for one week and the results will be widely published.

To complete the survey click here.

Survey Questions:

Coronavirus has thrown the property industry another set of challenges, but different ones to that of 2008 and Brexit. Stuck at home unable, by law, to carry out our most basic functions. Staff are furloughed and the market is in suspended animation with significant disruption to revenues, staffing and our overall viability as a sector.

How does that make you feel?

Please choose the one that applies the most:

1.       Nothing has changed for me I can’t wait to get back to normal and I appreciate the support I have received from my bosses   

2.       I’ve got used to working from home and I intend to change my role to make sure I can do more of that now.

3.       This crisis has made me think about job security perhaps going down the self-employed agent route is no longer so daunting and I intend explore that now.

4.       I’m out of here and I don’t want to be in this industry anymore. I’m not going back. 

5.       I'm unsure and feel different as this whole experience has made me consider my future. I will go back to my old role for now until I decide about my next steps