A commercial property brokerage leases and sells offices, warehouses and shops for landlords and occupiers. Deals take months and pay rests on commission. This is how to run brokers, researchers and support staff fairly.
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Share your requirementsA commercial property brokerage represents landlords, tenants and buyers in leasing and sale of offices, retail space, warehouses and land. A team usually has senior brokers who hold client relationships, junior brokers who run site visits and shortlists, researchers who track listings and rents, and a back office for documentation. A deal can take several months, and income arrives in lumps when a lease is signed. Brokers hold sensitive information about client plans, rents and floor plans. Competition for listings is sharp, and a good broker can take clients to another firm. Commission rules decide most behaviour, and unclear splits cause long arguments. For the wider sector, read HR for the construction industry.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in commercial property brokers. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Who gets what on a shared deal is argued after closing, and the loser leaves.
A junior broker has no income for months and quits before his first deal.
A senior leaves and takes the relationships, and the firm has no record of them.
Rents and plans are shared in personal chats, and confidentiality is only a verbal promise.
Their data wins deals, but credit goes to brokers.
Brokers hoard enquiries, and good leads sit unused.
Juniors travel all day and do reports at night.
Back office staff chase signatures and verification, and deals slip.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Retention and Attrition Management; Policies, Compliance and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a commercial property brokers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A plain document on splits, co-broking, exits and payment timing, signed by all.
A plain document on splits, co-broking, exits and payment timing, signed by all. HR policy packages include the structure.
A base pay and training plan for the first six months, tied to activity targets and reviewed under the performance process.
A base pay and training plan for the first six months, tied to activity targets and reviewed under the performance process.
A client database with owner, history and notes, held in company systems.
A client database with owner, history and notes, held in company systems. See employee information.
A signed policy on client data, device use and messaging apps, covered in onboarding.
A signed policy on client data, device use and messaging apps, covered in onboarding.
A named share in deal credit or a bonus for data that leads to closings.
A named share in deal credit or a bonus for data that leads to closings.
A lead log with reallocation after a set number of days of inactivity.
A lead log with reallocation after a set number of days of inactivity.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A commission, confidentiality and conduct policy set out in plain words.
Activity and result measures that carry juniors through slow months.
A first-month plan that covers client data rules and systems.
A clear record of who owns which client relationship.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in construction and real estate, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Site engineers, supervisors, crews and sales teams leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act on it between projects.
8 min readRead article
Simple variable pay structures for product and engineering teams: four options, why individual metrics backfire, a build plan and a one page outline to adapt.
6 min readRead article
What really keeps mobile app and web developers in a small firm: stay conversations, growth paths, fair release rules and a risk sheet an owner can use this month.
6 min readRead article
How an India head can sort a global parent's HR policies into apply, adapt or replace, write an India addendum with advisers, and keep headquarters on side.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Write the rule before the deal, cover co-broking and exits, and have it reviewed by a qualified professional.
Offer a base pay, a training plan and small milestones. People leave when they see only risk.
Keep the relationship in company systems, involve a second person and have the exit terms agreed in writing.
Set rules for devices and messaging, train staff and limit access. Confirm legal duties with a qualified professional.
A credit or bonus tied to deals their data supports keeps them motivated.
We would look at the commission policy, junior broker pay path and client record system. Scope, timing and fees are written down so you know what you are buying.
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