Video interview – how can agencies retain their staff?

A leading property recruitment agency says that flexible working, restructuring pay and offering better benefits and incentives can help agencies across the UK to keep hold of their staff in an increasingly competitive jobs market.

According to a recent market update by Deverell Smith, a London-based property recruitment firm, there has been a 29% increase in job moves since 2021, primarily made up of resignations.

Nicola Broomham, director of Deverell Smith, told Angels Media’s Lee Dahill that restructuring pay could be one way of improving staff retention.

“Most managers that leave estate agency tend to leave the industry altogether,” she said. “One of the best ways and one of the key ways that people can help to retain their staff is looking at salary, looking at training, looking at things like flexible working.”

She also said it was important for businesses to look at different types of benefits, claiming that not all benefits necessarily need to cost anything.

“One client offered time off of work to go through gender change. The take-up within their business is realistically going to be very small, but actually the effect it has on the team – in terms of making them feel valued, included, part of that business – is massive.”

Broomham also says there are lots of things agents can do to support their staff with regards to things they are doing outside of work, such as community work and community involvement.

“Lots of businesses at the moment that are attracting younger talent, and retaining younger talent, are looking at diversity and inclusion policies, looking at things like climate and environmental work,” she said.

“All of these things are really, really important. But the main thing is to sit down with your employees and ascertain what they want. It’s very easy for managers and business owners to think they know what their employees want, whereas the reality is until you sit down to ask them and make them feel comfortable offering their honest opinion…only then will they really understood what is going on inside their business.”

She adds: “Talk to your people, talk to your team, find out what they want. Each individual will have their own career path that they want to take. Far too often the one-to-one’s get shunted and moved to one side – don’t get done, get done once every two months because you’re distracted by a valuation – but actually those one-to-one’s are really important, because it’s about that individual’s growth.”

Broomham says listening to your people and making them feel valued is ultimately the best way to retain staff.

You can watch the full clip, which runs to just over three and a half minutes, below. You can also see two other videos with Broomham and Dahill – on renumeration, benefits and career progression, and how estate agency is coping post-Covid with things like flexibility and the challenges surrounding hybrid working - by clicking here and here.