Do you worry about the retention of the agents in your company? Of course you do. 
The real estate financial model is built on the concept of an agent producing an annuity. After making a substantial investment upfront (hiring a new agent), you hope the agent produces an ongoing return on your initial investment. If the agent leaves your organization, the annuity stops.
As a real estate owner, executive, or hiring manager, it’s only natural to focus most of your mental energy on the retention of these revenue-producing agents. So, it’s going to be a challenge to recognize what is going on in the broader employment market regarding retention.
However, if you’re going to be successful at “new to real estate” recruiting, that’s exactly what you need to do. Someone else’s retention problem is your opportunity.
So, why are traditional employees leaving their jobs?
Jacquelyn Smith of Forbes magazine recently summarized a study conducted by CareerBuilder on this topic.
[Earlier this year], CareerBuilder conducted a survey among 3,008 workers nationwide to find out who is most likely to change jobs in 2014, what employees value most in the workplace, and what ultimately entices them to stay with their employers.
For the people who were planning to leave their jobs in 2014, here are their top complaints:
Concerns over salary. (66%)
Don’t feel valued. (65%)
Dissatisfied with advancement opportunities. (45%)
Dissatisfied with work/life balance. (39%)
Feel Underemployed. (39%)
Experiencing a high level of stress. (39%)
Poor opinion of their boss. (37%)
Overlooked for a promotion. (36%)
This is very valuable information—especially during an interview. Each of these reasons can be easily crafted into an open-ended question and worked into the flow of the interview.
For example, you might say something like:
“So, we’ve talked a little about your work experience. How does your current employer value the contribution you’re making to your team?”
If the person is feeling undervalued, you’re going to hear about it. This is a probable lead-in to the issues that really matter to this person.
As we’ve discussed many times in the past--unless you find the personal pain of each individual (and eventually answer that pain), you’ll rarely get them to make a change.
Now, let’s look at the opposite side of the argument: What are the factors that typically cause employees to stay in their current jobs?
CareerBuilder also asked respondents who plan to stay put the top reasons for not wanting to leave their current job. Here were the top reasons:
Like the people they work with. (54%)
Experiencing a good work/life balance. (50%)
Satisfied with their benefits. (49%)
Happy with their salary. (43%)
Of course, it would be easy to work these issues into the interview dialog as well. In this case, you’re looking for an emotional connection to one or more of these issues.
For example, if a candidate loves their employee benefits and can’t imagine giving up them up, he’s probably not going to leave his current job. Go find another candidate, this one is wasting your time.
Here’s some homework for you: Make a list of these 12 factors (8 negative and 4 positive) and bring them to your next interview. Try to weave a few of these issues into your interview as open-ended questions and let me know how it goes.
This WorkPuzzle will wrap-up the series on employment trending. There is lots of great news for real estate hiring: the local talent pool is bigger than it’s ever been (Part 1), people are finally feeling confident enough in the job market to voluntarily leave their jobs (Part 2), and research on retention let’s you know where to focus your efforts during interviews (Part 3).
In the hands of a thoughtful hiring manager, this information can be used to produce high-quality hires and profitable new agents.
Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.
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