Staff Retaining 2023
In spite of recession concerns, employment numbers remained strong through the end of November, with 4.3 million jobs added to date. Unfortunately, the real estate industry remained challenged by one of its most volatile market environments in years, and stories about mass layoffs tended to dominate trade publication headlines.
What does this mean for the general economic outlook for 2023, projections for the real estate market and, most importantly, how to think about staffing your title agency and managing the work ahead?
Companies hesitant to shed staff
In the most recent Federal Reserve Beige Book report, the districts reported modest growth in employment with hiring and retention difficulties that have plagued businesses over the past two years easing further.
While layoffs were reported in technology, finance and real estate (especially on the origination side), many contacts were reporting a reluctance to shed workers in light of hiring difficulties. In essence, businesses are reporting hanging on to workers in a “wait-and-see” attitude to avoid cutting staff only to begin the scramble to hire them back if the economy grows beyond expectations in 2023.
Strong employment numbers and the penchant for retaining staff in the light of the economic uncertainty ahead is good for the real estate market. The hope, of course, is that inflation will moderate and with it, interest rates, mitigating any further deterioration in the real estate market.
How to think about staffing in title and escrow
Finding experienced title and escrow staff has been a constant challenge through the recent robust real estate markets. It’s important to find ways to retain your professional staff through a slower real estate market in 2023.
One way is to choose tech tools that keep your highly experienced staff focused on the more complex tasks that were trained to handle.
This is more important than ever in a slower market. Lenders will be far more cautious and demand a higher level of attentiveness to the title work and borrower information. In many cases, there will be more questions to answer and more verifications to follow up on.
With potentially fewer transactions, your real estate agent customers will also be looking for a higher level of attentiveness.
Alanna’s conversational AI technology can handle many of the day-to-day tasks to free up your staff to stay focused on the needs of your real estate agent and lender customers. The technology is capable of managing complex conversations with clients via SMS text or web chat to provide updates and answer routine questions.
To keep your team strong through the ups and downs in 2023, remember that while Alanna can help you with the all-important communications with your customers, you must still manage the internal communication with your staff.
Make sure that you are being as transparent as possible with your employees. Fear of the unknown adds unneeded anxiety. Frank discussions are imperative. Communicate your plans and expectations to your staff, but also entertain their ideas. No one knows the needs of your customers better than your frontline workers who will appreciate how Alanna’s technology can help maintain strong communications throughout the transaction.
Call us today to learn more about how our AI technology can help ensure stellar customer service in 2023 and free up your staff for their vital work.