Workplaces across the country were forced to quickly make substantial changes to how they operated and conducted business when the COVID-19 pandemic hit a year ago, and the title industry was no exception. As the vaccine rollout ramps up, and businesses consider returning to pre-pandemic practices, some industry leaders predict a few workplace changes are here to stay.
At Qualia’s virtual Future of Real Estate Summit on March 11, Qualia Director of Product Marketing Priyanka Srinivasan spoke with senior executives about how the pandemic has reshaped both employee expectations and employer strategies to recruit and retain top talent.
Tom Griffiths is the CEO and co-founder of Hone, a learning platform for managers of distributed teams. He said it was fascinating to watch employers who had previously just dipped their toes into exploring a remote workforce be plunged into the deep end by the pandemic overnight.
“There was a bit of skepticism with the [distributed working] trend before, and so companies were taking it slow, but COVID just meant we accelerated five years in one,” Griffiths said.
Most companies were pleasantly surprised with the results of remote working, he said. “Employees often report that they’re more productive,” he said.
Those agencies that embraced technology before the pandemic likely had an easier time transitioning when COVID-19 hit, especially when it came to recruiting and hiring talent.
Ohio Real Title President Ryan Marrie said not much changed as far as recruitment practices for his company from before and during the pandemic, mostly because Ohio Real Title had already invested in finding employees who can multitask, adapt and perform under pressure.
“Working in escrow can be a pressure cooker sometimes,” he said. “I think we had been recruiting, not intentionally, for dealing with the disaster that we’ve been dealing with the past year.”
Marrie encouraged employers to look beyond those with title and escrow experience to hire employees who have the attributes they value. Now is a particularly good time to look for new talent, he said, as so many people have been let go from industries across the board.
“Ideally, we find somebody with escrow experience, that has the right profile and can grow, but that’s really, really difficult. It’s such a niche industry,” he said. “We really have had great success taking people from outside of title that we find, people with a professional background with the right profile, that we know will fit in with the teams that we have. … We know that they can adapt, and we know that they’re going to learn fast.”
Being focused on finding the right kinds of workers over the past decade made it easier for Ohio Real Title to roll with changes, like remote work, caused by the pandemic, Marrie said.
Novation Title Insurance Agency Owner and CEO Nuria Rivera said Novation, too, was able to quickly pivot to conducting initial job interviews online because of their prior practices.
“Our company has always been very technology driven, and we do seem to attract a lot of the youth and young talent, so nobody has really had any type of issues with or concerns about doing interviews online,” she said. “It’s been fairly smooth and easy.”
The challenge now is what a return to a “normal” work environment will look like, Griffiths said. With employers gung-ho about getting everyone back into the office, and employees used to the freedom of working from home, the answer will most likely be a hybrid workforce, with some people in the office some of the time, he said.
The reality is not everyone can work remotely all the time, Marrie said. But the pandemic proved that with cloud-based technology, it is possible to offer more flexibility. For example, if an employee is expecting a contractor at their home at 10 a.m., they don’t have to take a half-day off of work.
“They can work from home on their laptop and come in at noon,” he said. “You don’t want that all the time, but you can be flexible, which our team and our employees have really loved.”
Employers will need to be flexible with other employee expectations moving forward, to not only recruit but retain workers, Rivera said.
More employees, especially the millennial workforce, have come to expect perks like remote learning, a work/personal life balance and opportunities to grow, she said. They watched their grandparents work their whole life for one company and then lose their retirement in the economic crash.
“They don’t want to repeat that,” Rivera said. “Having that freedom to live that life they desire is so important. If they work for a business that isn’t understanding of that and doesn’t match their values, they are going to go find somewhere else that does.”
Basic employee benefits like dental insurance no longer cut it, she said.
“I felt the need to really create something more special,” Rivera said. “We’re almost like a self-development company.”
She invests in people, she said, with training sessions focusing on things like self-care, relationships, health, communication and lifestyles. “All areas of life affect each other, and we really put a huge emphasis on making them the best versions of themselves in all areas of life, not just business,” Rivera said.
It’s also important that employees have a sense of freedom, the speakers said.
“Nobody wants to be micromanaged, nor can you grow a business trying to control everything,” Rivera said.
Rather, allow employees to learn through mistakes. That will create workers who take ownership of their errors and work hard to not make the same mistakes again, she said.
Marrie agreed.
“I’m a big fan of telling people, ‘Just don’t do that twice.’ Make a mistake, learn from it, and move on,” he said. “We give people the freedom to do that, and that’s how we’ve been able to bring in people from outside the industry and really see them grow and evolve into all sorts of successful roles.”