Skilled Worker Shortage in the Real Estate Industry

Why there’s a shortage of skilled workers in the Real Estate Industry 

The shortage of skilled workers is a frequently discussed topic in all industries. The Real Estate Industry isn’t an exception. 54.9 percent of all Lettings & Sales Agencies and Management Companies have difficulties finding suitable candidates (according to a staff development study by EBZ in 2022). Employees as well as managers are highly sought-after, especially for technical jobs, and the situation might come to a head in the future. The reasons for this are diverse. Changes in demography is only one, lack of technical and computer skills is just another. At the same time, topics such as modernising buildings, new build homes and sustainability will (have to) become increasingly important in future. At the same time, new constructional, legal and technological requirements for these projects are getting more and more demanding. Future job candidates will need expert knowledge in these areas; knowledge that employees barely have at the moment.

How to find the right employees despite the current skills shortage

One good solution to counteract this is to further train the employees you already have rather than hiring new people. Extra courses can help your staff to deepen their expert knowledge. Encouraging your employees to take part won’t only help your business to grow, but will very likely make people want to stay in the company. Especially when it comes to digitalisation and technical tasks, it makes sense to offer employees opportunities to develop professionally. This doesn’t have to be expensive, like webinars for different software solutions, for example. – A lot of software companies even offer this service for free.

To attract employees who have (several years’) experience in digitalisation, it’s not only vital to offer each employee the opportunity to grow personally, but also to strengthen the business’s brand awareness and the corporate culture.

In future, skilled workers will be able to choose which company they would like to work for, and not the other way round. That’s why it’s important for a company to carefully consider how potential candidates should be addressed, what they can offer their employees, and how the company would like to be perceived by their customers as well as by their staff (employer branding).

Alongside a decent salary, many other aspects play a major role when people are looking for a new job, such as the possibility to work from home, a 4-day week or flexible hours. But also recognition at work, good communication in the workplace and opportunities to personally grow are getting increasingly important.

It’s essential to consider how you can meet your employees’ needs and what your company can offer them. In the HR monitor for 2022, it says: “Active personnel management and recruiting is becoming the key to a company’s capacity to survive in the industry in the future.” Also diversity is an important aspect that companies should pay more attention to in future. The Real Estate Industry is still dominated by men, especially in leadership positions. Professional diversity management could potentially have a great influence on the success of projects.

Digital Tools for training employees

Digitisation is not only increasingly used for planning and promoting projects, but also to streamline the processes within a company and for recruiting. Besides being highly useful for communicating with colleagues and for training new staff (onboarding), it could potentially reduce a company’s workload.

For one thing, onboarding, as was mentioned before, is essential for new employees to get off to a good start in the company; for another, it helps to introduce them to existing structures and processes right from the start.

Digital onboarding is when you only train employees online. The goal here is to get new employees involved in the company as soon as possible. Keeping them motivated has to be a top priority right from the start and will mean less effort and fewer costs in the long run. This process is mostly automated, but it should still be individualised. Staff turnover isn’t only time-consuming, but also costly, which is why intelligent, automated processes are essential for training new employees.

iDWELL digitises complex and time-consuming processes in Property Management (communication & administration) to reduce the workload, so companies can completely focus on customers and on essential tasks. The software maps all the workflows and processes, which makes it all the easier for employees who are new in a company or new to the job to quickly get familiar with the complex tasks a Property Management Company deals with. The software offers the following solutions:

• Email integration
• Workflow management – visible for everyone
• Automated checklists with instructions
• Templates for automated email and letter communications
• Due dates & reminders
• Contractor management
• Work from home & use during inspections
• Document communications between tenants and owners
• Messages on a digital noticeboard
• User-friendly and intuitive interface

You would like to learn more about iDWELL and how it can help you to streamline processes and make it easier to train new employees? Then reach out to us for a demo. – We can show you how you can save time by using iDWELL for happier employees and staff.