An apartment developer runs a sales floor and a construction site under one name. Sales executives chase bookings, site teams chase handover dates, and the HR question is how to keep both groups motivated, fairly paid and honest.
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Share your requirementsAn apartment developer sells flats in towers that are still being built. A project usually has a sales office with executives, a customer relations desk, a site team of engineers and supervisors, and a small corporate group for accounts, legal coordination and HR. Sales people work on incentives tied to bookings, often with brokers in between. Site teams are tied to construction milestones. Both depend on launches and handover dates. The wider real estate developer types hub compares the different kinds of developer, and the construction and real estate sector page covers the shared ground.
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.
Executives watch the incentive sheet more than the target, and disputes over who closed a booking take up management time.
A competing launch nearby can draw out a team lead and three executives within a month, with leads and relationships going along.
Channel partners and their support staff want quick commissions, and your own team is unsure where to draw the line on promises.
Sales promises a date or a finish that the site team has not agreed, and the customer relations desk takes the complaint.
Executives ferry buyers to site and travel to meet clients, and reimbursements arrive in bundles with little evidence.
As one tower finishes, engineers and supervisors wait for the next phase or leave, and the firm has no plan for their move.
Quality of service, documentation and customer handling do not count, so the loudest closers rise.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Performance Management; Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for construction and real estate, not in general.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
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.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
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.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
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 apartment developers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A clear plan stating target, slab, who counts as closer, how team and broker bookings are credited and when payment falls due.
What this coversHideA clear plan stating target, slab, who counts as closer, how team and broker bookings are credited and when payment falls due. See performance and incentive design.
Who gets credit when a lead is passed on, shared or comes through a broker, with a short route to settle disputes.
What this coversHideWho gets credit when a lead is passed on, shared or comes through a broker, with a short route to settle disputes.
A weekly meeting where promised dates and finishes are checked against what the site can deliver, with a short note of agreement.
What this coversHideA weekly meeting where promised dates and finishes are checked against what the site can deliver, with a short note of agreement.
What may be claimed, with what proof and by when, for site visits, hospitality and travel.
What this coversHideWhat may be claimed, with what proof and by when, for site visits, hospitality and travel. The attendance and leave process can include field days.
A list of who moves to the next phase or project, with notice, so engineers are not left waiting or lost.
What this coversHideA list of who moves to the next phase or project, with notice, so engineers are not left waiting or lost.
Customer feedback, documentation quality and follow-up count alongside bookings, so the whole role is reviewed.
What this coversHideCustomer feedback, documentation quality and follow-up count alongside bookings, so the whole role is reviewed.
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.
Incentive plans for sales that are clear, fair and not open to quarrel.
Hiring of sales executives, site engineers and customer relations staff against a defined profile.
Clear roles for sales, post-sales and site, so promises and duties do not overlap.
Attrition by team and incentive spend against bookings, so you see what the plan costs.
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
Measures that show how reactor, console, lab and gantry staff are really doing, the ones that mislead or bury near misses, and a monthly sheet an in-charge can run in twenty minutes.
7 min readRead article
Sources beyond the neighbouring gate for setters, turners, inspectors and leak test hands, plus a one-hour bench trial built from your own rejected parts.
7 min readRead article
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Pay out promptly, give a view of the next launch and let them grow into team lead. People go when incentives arrive late or the pipeline looks empty.
That depends on how you work with channel partners and is a decision for your owners and advisers. HR can describe the roles clearly so nobody is confused about who they work for.
A weekly note of dates and finishes that sales may quote, signed by the project manager. It prevents promises the site cannot meet and keeps complaints down.
Give a clear rule, a short window to raise a dispute and a named person who decides. Keep a record. Most quarrels come from unclear credit, not bad faith.
Yes. Use milestones, quality, safety and team handling, not sales numbers. A common form for everyone leads to odd scores for engineers.
We would read your incentive sheet, count sales exits over the last year and ask how sales and site agree dates. A written credit rule with a revised incentive plan is a likely first job, with scope written for your approval.
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