We ask Ray White Glenroy Principals Mete Karan and Ziya Koksal and Operations Manager Georgia Constantinidis how they are helping their office through lockdown in Melbourne.
What kinds of things are you doing to keep your agents engaged?
We are trying to keep things interactive with Friday night games nights of bingo, trivia and Netflix parties. Paint and Sip is another big one that the staff enjoy.
To keep everyone involved we have created an Employee of the Week where employees nominate a fellow colleague displaying outstanding behaviors that week. The winner gets to choose between being "boss for the day" or $100 UberEats voucher.
We also have the Biggest Winner competition to drive healthy habits for the mind and body, for example, we are doing F45 personal training sessions four times a week and every kilo lost is $10 to Mind Australia not-for-profit organisation. We have a mindfulness and yoga class every Thursday lunchtime and monthly emotional intelligence sessions with an external performance coach as well to help keep us all sane.
Lockdown can be isolating so keep everyone working together we also have the Team Collective office competition which drives us all to work as a team and drive activity & KPI's. The prize is a weekend away when lockdown is lifted.
To stay motivated we do an Hour of Power which is a call session we all do together via video call to clients. Along with this we have also had over 12 Q&A sessions with successful and award winning agents and offices including Ray White Ferntree Gully’s Ben Thomas, top Ray White Principal Gavin Rubinstein, Ray White Remuera, Ray White Aspley and more.
It’s important that we stay in close contact with our staff and do regular pulse checks so we never miss our 9am good morning video Google Hangouts and monthly one on ones have now turned to weekly meetings.
Why do you think this is important?
We have a duty of care to our staff and we have in many ways taken the role of a caregiver, teacher and parent, all while trying to stay productive at work. It is easy for our remote staff to begin developing feelings of isolation and disconnect from our culture, which can, in turn, contribute to low engagement.
How have your agents been spending their time e.g. securing listings, setting up auctions for post-lockdown or getting on top of the little things?
Since the start of Stage Four restrictions, we have secured 22 sales listings, eight unconditional sales, leased over 25 properties all while complaints are an ultimate low.
What is the outlook for your office post-lockdown?
We have created and implemented so much during this time, and have shown some real perspective on our processes, systems, and policies that need to change. For instance, we are now 95 per cent paperless.
Image: Receptionist Nicole Paschalidis brought a friend to her daily lunch time catch up.
