<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=669891663901487&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Skip to content

    Why Your Best Real Estate Project Manager is Quitting

    Worried about retaining your top development talent? 

    For real estate development teams, staff turnover has serious implications. Losing even just one project lead can impact the direction of an individual project, entire portfolio or the operational success of an entire organization.  

    Savvy senior leaders recognize this vulnerability and understand two vital issues related to their project and development teams:

    Talent retention is critical in avoiding disruptions to successful project delivery
    • Any employee departure can lead to a substantial loss of institutional knowledge, which is the most powerful and impactful asset a team possesses for the successful delivery of current and future projects. 

    • The majority of seasoned professionals store most of their prior experience and expertise in their head, and will take that with them as they change jobs. This is especially worrisome when turnover occurs during a critical project juncture.   

    • Relying on more traditional spreadsheets, desktop drives and filing cabinet systems is an ineffective way to manage historical and current project data, so it becomes very difficult to find specific information after the “owner” of that process no longer works at a firm. 

    • Training or onboarding new talent is time-consuming, taxing on resources and doesn’t always lead to a successful outcome. 
    Having the best real estate project managers and staffing can be the difference between success and failure
    • Rising stars are eager, hungry and always looking for the next big move in their career; they are not satisfied with the status quo and will push those around them to improve.  

    • Forward-looking, tech-adopting firms attract top talent seeking innovation, which, in turn, attracts even more top talent.

    • A cohesive team dynamic - personalities and balanced skill sets that work effectively and efficiently together - is critical in ensuring a project runs smoothly and returns are maximized. 

    • A firm cannot survive, grow or retain its industry-leading stature without the right team in place.

    So how do you make sure your best - and most experienced - contributors remain dedicated and loyal to your firm? We’ve spoken with industry insiders across the country and hear the same feedback. 

    [Guide] Start exploring the world of commercial real estate technology to find  the tool that solves your team’s most pressing problem area.

    To start, leaders need to understand the mindset of high-performing talent:

    • They are highly skilled and trained and want to focus on the strategic direction of a project, not tedious administrative work like data entry.

    • Working 12+ hours a day, 6 days a week with much of that time wasted on reconciling error-prone spreadsheets, digging through files to answer one-off questions and negotiating vendor change orders without the necessary data has them frustrated. 

    • They want to spend more time being strategic and working on interesting projects, instead of being a “paper pusher” that squanders a quarter of their time overseeing the monthly cost report process - tracking what happened 30 days ago, instead of where the project is headed in the future
    • They want to have more control over and visibility into their projects or portfolio. 

    • They want easy access to current and historical data to make faster, more-informed decisions. 

    • They want to be the best at their job and work with other top performers at a firm that encourages innovation.

    • They pay close attention to the latest CRE trends and are advocates for modern technology adoption; they want the best tools and solutions to accomplish their goals.

    Much of these points can easily be addressed by shedding outdated, manual processes that have plagued traditional real estate project delivery for decades. For the same reason construction teams now use an excavator - and not a shovel - to dig a foundation, top real estate development and project management talent want modern-day technology to do their jobs as efficiently and effectively as possible.

    They want to work smarter and faster. They want to leverage modern technologies to eliminate data entry, gain access to real-time data analytics and benefit from artificial intelligence. They want purpose-built technology that enhances their existing capabilities and talents. They want to work for firms with senior leaders that value their perspective and their desire to leverage modern technology solutions to do their job.

    What they don’t want is to work at a firm that operates no differently than it did in the 1990s.

    Commercial real estate is evolving. It is no longer strictly a filing cabinet and spreadsheet industry. Instead, the real estate organizations that are most poised to own the next decades’ top returns and profits are ones that realize that they must leverage the same advanced technologies that other high-skilled, knowledge-based industries are using to get the most out of their talent - automation, data analytics, and even artificial intelligence. Firms that employ modern tools and solutions benefit two-fold; they see greater returns on their projects and appeal to high-performing talent that wants to be at the forefront of change and innovation. 

    The best way to keep your top talent? Don’t be a dinosaur. Prove to current and future employees that you’re a modern real estate firm that prioritizes being the absolute best at what you do - and that means using the best tools and solutions to get the job done better, faster, and smarter.

    Eager to learn how employing technology purpose-built for real estate development teams will help you achieve easier, more predictable outcomes and attract the best talent to take your business to the next level? Upgrade with Northspyre.     

    New call-to-action

    Northspyre

    Other posts you might be interested in

    View All Posts

    Subscribe to our Newsletter

    Never miss a real estate development beat.