A brokerage's product is its people, paid mostly on commission. Here is how to hire, pay and keep agents without losing them and their clients to a rival.
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Share your requirementsA real estate sales or brokerage firm helps people buy, sell and rent homes and commercial space. Agents and sales executives find leads, show property, negotiate and close, and are paid mainly on commission. Managers run teams and lead flow, back-office staff handle documents and listings, and the owner brings the brand and the relationships. Many agents are not employees in a conventional sense, and turnover is high, since the best can move to another firm or work alone. Clients tend to follow the agent, so the business is exposed when a good one leaves. See also HR for construction. What makes HR different here is that income depends on relationships held by individuals, so commission rules, lead rules and what belongs to the firm must be clear before disagreements start.
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.
Splits, timing and what happens on a cancelled deal are not written, and each deal is argued.
The favoured agents get the best leads, and the others notice.
When a good agent leaves, the relationships and the listings go too.
New agents are left to learn the product, the market and the paperwork alone.
Many join and leave within months, and the cost of cycling people is not counted.
Misstating a property or a price is a risk to the firm and the client.
Disputes between agents about a client are decided by memory.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Onboarding and Probation; Retention and Attrition Management. 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.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
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.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
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.
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 real estate sales and brokerage firms business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Splits, timing, what counts as closed and how cancelled deals are treated, with examples.
What this coversHideSplits, timing, what counts as closed and how cancelled deals are treated, with examples. The compensation strategy sets the principles.
A written method for leads, so allocation is visible and defensible.
What this coversHideA written method for leads, so allocation is visible and defensible.
Client, property and conversation notes in the firm's system, so relationships do not depend on one person.
What this coversHideClient, property and conversation notes in the firm's system, so relationships do not depend on one person.
Product, market, paperwork and conduct, with a mentor and a check.
What this coversHideProduct, market, paperwork and conduct, with a mentor and a check. The onboarding process holds the plan.
What must be stated about a property and a price, with examples, and a check.
What this coversHideWhat must be stated about a property and a price, with examples, and a check.
A client log, so disputes between agents can be settled from records.
What this coversHideA client log, so disputes between agents can be settled from records.
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 written commission and cancellation rule that agents can check.
A first month that teaches product, market, paperwork and conduct.
Measures that count how deals were handled, not only how many closed.
A look at why agents leave and what keeps the productive ones.
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
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead article
A practical joining checklist covering documents, assets, system access and statutory enrolments, with owners and timings, so nobody's first salary is wrong.
8 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.
With a written rule for splits, timing and cancellations, and examples. Most disputes arise from rules that were never written.
Hold client records in the firm, introduce a second person to important accounts and pay fairly. Confirm any restrictive terms with a qualified professional.
By a written rule that is visible, such as rotation or territory, with exceptions recorded. Informal allocation breeds resentment.
The product, the market, the paperwork and what must be disclosed, with a mentor and a check. An agent left alone in the first month is likely to leave in the third.
It depends on the arrangement, so confirm the position and its consequences with a qualified professional.
A real first month, clear commission, fair leads and a manager who coaches. Turnover usually reflects what happens in the first weeks.
The discussion would centre on how commission and cancellations are written, who decides lead allocation, and what a new agent actually experiences in the first month. One sensible opening piece of work is a written commission rule with a lead allocation method. After the meeting we send a written proposal setting out scope, timing and cost, and you choose whether to proceed.
From the client log: who first dealt with the client, what was agreed and when. A written rule on credit settles most cases. Without records, it becomes a contest of memory.
What may be said about a property and a price, how conflicts of interest are handled and how client money and documents are treated. Confirm the legal requirements with a qualified professional.
Look at the funnel: leads, visits, offers and closes, find where the drop is and coach that step. Most agents are stuck at one point, not everywhere.
All 29 business types in construction and real estate · Find another business type
See all HR topics for construction and real estate, or another industry.
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