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Changing Face of HR in Realty Sector |
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The Indian Real Estate Sector has undergone a revolutionary change and is now emerging as a propellant of Indian economy. It is one of the fastest growing industries with promising career opportunities hidden in its . The industry is growing at 30 per cent per annum and is expected to soar further. It is the second largest employment generator of the country. Due to restructuring, the sector has witnessed sea level changes in its modus operandi, management practices and employment trends.
To begin with employment opportunities, the sector is over flooded with innumerous career opportunities. The sector presently employs 15 percent of educated Indians and has the capacity to provide jobs to over two billion people in the
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coming five years. The housing sector alone is likely to generate 40 lakh new jobs within ten years. The prime reason for such a huge demand of personnel has been due to great demands for residential and commercial real estate projects. Moreover, the sector offers attractive opportunities to people with roles such as developers, architects, strategy and urban planners, civil engineers, and contractors. It also offers a plethora of opportunities which are not confined to profiles of contractors and builders only, but extend up to professionals including people with marketing, law, finance, and advertising backgrounds. Many property management companies also work tightly with the sector, thereby, resulting into indirect generation of employment.
Coming to the trends of talent acquisition, most real estate firms are becoming proactive in terms of hiring and are adopting latest talent acquisition and recruitment trends like on-campus recruitments, e- recruitments using recruitment portals, executive search and so on. To meet the demands for highly skilled professional, companies like DLF and Omaxe are looking out for campus recruits from top business schools like IIMs. The job options range from real estate appraisal to property managers, advisors, investment bankers, entrepreneur, retail buyers and merchandisers, visual merchandisers, supply chain distributors and logistics and warehouse managers.
Talking in terms of compensation, the realty or infrastructure sector offers attractive packages even at the entry levels. The sector has seen highest salary increases (25%) during the last year, leaving IT and BPO sector far behind. The compensation offered by the sector is at par with what other sectors like IT and Pharma are provide. As the sector is facing an immense shortage of trained personnel, companies are offering lucrative compensation packages to new graduates and other experienced professional. The sector offers a lot of challenges and the salary levels are four-five times as compared to the manufacturing sector. Salaries of chief executives in real estate firms range between Rs40 lakh and Rs4.5crore a year, far higher than salaries for CEOs in more established sectors. Junior managers are seeing highest salary hikes with 15.9% increase while middle-level managers witness a significant hike of 15.7%. For the general staff and manual workforce, the hikes are predicted to range between 11 to 13.5 per cent in coming years.
Challenges for HR:
- Lack of quality talent:
There is a gap between the requirements and the availability of quality manpower. The sector is growing quickly and the amount of human resources available is not at par with the rate at which the sector is growing. A large amount of talent is absorbed in mega infrastructure projects. However, the continued growth of the industry is adding to the dearth in the existing talent pool within the country.
- Less supply of freshers from educational institutions:
Since real estate sector is a burgeoning one, not every one was earlier attracted to it. Students were lured by other sectors like IT who offered better salary packages than real estate. As a result, people with high potential opted for computer science degrees rather than civil engineering courses. Its only recently that some of the universities have started offering diverse courses in real estate. Moreover, candidates are now recognizing the opportunities real estate sector provides.
- Retention:
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the companies to retain talent with them. The attrition levels in the sector have touched 12.08 per cent in last year. To retain the potential, companies are paying hefty amounts to their employees. The salary hike was recorded at 25.2 per cent in 2007 and is expected to be followed in coming years.
- Inculcating values:
Times have been changing for the real estate sector and earning profits has become top priority for every company. With respect to this, the companies often forget to comply with quality norms or ensure integrity in practices. It becomes a challenge for the HR to inculcate values of integrity and commitment towards customer satisfaction in all the employees. A majority of companies now also emphasize on transparent dealings and methods while doing business. This will be an on-going challenge since the sector has enough weak links outside their companies, which also need to be changed.
- Lack of second line leadership:
By MNCs entering the realty markets take away the cream of talent at the first level. Other players thus look for candidates with high leadership skills. The challenge for HR, here, becomes to develop the second line of management and if possible even the third line, which is capable of undertaking enormous work pressure from the top line.
The changing face of realty sector is posing great challenges for the companies in terms of talent shortage and high attrition. To deal with such challenges becomes the sole responsibility of the HR departments of the companies so as to keep pace with the growth of the sector.
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