Your Real Estate Offshoring Experience | 3 Genuine Reviews
In the real estate industry, the trend for international team building has been growing for some time, with more and more businesses realising the benefits of offshoring at least some of their business or administrative tasks.
There are many strong opinions when it comes to hiring international team members, or ‘offshoring’. The word itself carries negative connotations for many, despite the fact that we ‘offshore’ nearly every aspect of our lives, from the clothes we buy to the cars we drive.
But not many people get the chance to hear from business owners who actually have first-hand real estate offshoring experience. One piece of advice that we learned from Julian Muldoon’s STAFFLINK Conference speech was to be careful of who you take advice from.
That is why we wanted to have a discussion with business owners who have real first-hand experience of having an international team member. This discussion took place at the STAFFLINK 2022 Conference panel discussion, featuring Troy Pullar of Harcourts, Vicki Lekanis from Jellis Craig, and Laura Shooter from SJ Shooter Real Estate.
We wanted to know what their Real Estate offshoring experience was like, what successes they had and what challenges they faced.
Here are some of our favourite quotes:
“They are part of the team. We love them!”
“They are a part of our business, a part of our team. We love them, we treat them well. But a lot of them have been there for three years so we are starting to see some movement.”
“So we’re looking at what else can we integrate to replace those people. Not to replace them. But to replace those mundane tasks. What can we automate? So we’re big on Tech and we’re big on Tech stack, but that’s not getting rid of the day-to-day communication with the client.”
“We’re still very forward focused, very face-to-face, but anything we can integrate with we are open to.”
“Your team might need a bit of time”
“I think just remembering that they are human, I think. It actually took some of my team a little bit of time to remember that it’s a human, not a robot. I guess just being patient with that.”
“By the time as business owners we’re making these decisions [to hire an international team member] and implementing these things, we’ve been thinking about them a long, long time. So it all makes sense to us now, and I think it’s okay to remember that your team might need a little bit of time to catch up to where you are as well.”
“The Australian industry has failed at outsourcing”
“For anyone in the room who has got international team members, managing that relationship is the success of this whole thing.”
“Watching the Australian industry fail at outsourcing was interesting because, they thought you just put your problems overseas and that’s fixed. And by the way, they’ve made a mistake. You make heaps more than that and you’re shouting at them? Hang on a minute!”
“There was a lack of empathy”
“Maybe I would have taken a couple of my team with me to the Philippines. Just to see the environment. I think it took my team a little bit too long to realise what sort of people, and environment they’re working in. Especially when most of our team [in the Philippines] were working from home.”
“There were families of 8, 9 working out of bedrooms. I think there was a lack of empathy until time went on. So I’d probably have taken a few of them to the Philippines with me, just to make sure that the connection isn’t just with me, it’s with the whole team.”
