Cobalt news

Workplace engagement, the route to an effective workforce

Timothy Rowe

29/06/2007

Creating an engaging and rewarding company in which to work is an essential part of growing a successful organisation both for attracting and retaining staff and for successful and entrepreneurial output. 

I believe the secret to employee engagement is; treating people with respect, leading by example, fairly rewarding hard work and giving each team member room to grow.  This freedom gives individuals a chance to flourish in a collegiate team environment.  This theme of working as a team is an essential and rewarding way of working and many would say is essential in most functions of real estate.  The real estate industry relies on specialist expertise coming together through the coordination of disparate skills in order to get schemes and initiatives off the ground.  Project managing internal colleagues and third party consultants to get results is only done through motivating and targeting people in the right way.
Another important part of ensuring an effective workplace is making sure that a work/life balance is carefully maintained, with an emphasis on helping employees to use their time efficiently.  Rewards, both fiscal and other are an essential way of incentivising best performers and creating an environment which acknowledges individual’s contribution to their own tasks and their team environment.
Companies can quickly understand their employees’ values and concerns over their environment by questioning them, at our company we annually survey our colleagues across a number of factors, namely leadership, well being, management, team, company, personal growth, and fair value.
Recruitment and retention of staff are of the highest priority in the current ‘full employment’ climate.  The UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reports 85% of organisations experiencing recruitment difficulties and 73% experiencing retention problems in their human capital checklist for UK Plc.  This issue is relevant in the real estate sector across Europe, where there is an acknowledged difficulty in sourcing professional talent to deploy and manage real estate investors, developers and consultancies' business plans. 

Those companies that can sell their businesses to new prospective staff based on strong principals of driving their staff to be well rewarded, trained and promoted on merit undoubtedly have a much better chance of attracting staff when it comes to recruitment.  Across geographies in the recruitment of real estate professionals, Cobalt Recruitment is finding that there is significant trend of good quality candidates getting a number of offers to consider in addition to counter offers and 'buy-backs' from their existing employees.

An organisation should acknowledge the value of their employees’ contribution to their business.  It is difficult for employees to engage with their job and their organisation unless they feel that their contribution is valued.  This contribution needs to be acknowledged by their managers and the business leaders. Leadership is of crucial importance to employee engagement. Faith, confidence and inspiration from the leaders and their values are all higher in those companies where employees are more engaged.  Good leadership doesn't just mean setting the strategic direction for the business but also clearly communicating to new and existing employees that their valuable contribution to the business will be recognised and rewarded.

In terms of attracting talent to an organisation we find that a coherent recruitment process is essential.  Those organisations that have defined what their selling points are and communicate them during the interview process are much more likely to engage with new employees.  Remembering that the interview process is a two-way dialogue may seem obvious but worth reflecting on as that gives employers a huge competitive advantage.

The overriding theme we see evolving in the real estate marketplace is the value of creating cohesive and united happy working environments.  This achieves a rewarding, energetic and productive workplace and an organisation able to achieve their goals.

Timothy Rowe is a Director of Cobalt Recruitment, which achieved 4th place in The Sunday Times, 100 Best Small Companies to Work For, 2007.