The past few months have been a period of stabilization in the real estate market, with some even talking about a revival in the residential area. Especially developers specialized in the premium segment have been doing well, continuing the trend of recent years. Institutional rental projects have been developing, while the office and commercial market noted a slowdown. The industry continues to be a “worker’s market”, with employees focusing on stability and expecting salary increases around 5%. For those who decide to change employers, the increase can even reach 15%.
Evaluating the industry’s situation in the previous year, it is necessary to distinguish its various segments, as they witnessed diverse dynamics of growth. In the residential sector, a significant driver of growth was the revival of the market in the middle of the year, resulting from the government program “Safe Loan 2%”.
– This was quite a positive stimulus for the industry. Our clients signaled that there was a lot of interest in apartments, which translated into sales and then into further investment decisions. Hence today we observe that this part of the market is doing quite well, despite the overall slowdown, which was quite visible, for example, in the office segment. There were definitely fewer recruitments there and therefore this part of the market is doing decidedly worse than the residential part. The warehouse area maintains stability – explains Piotr Sulerzycki, Senior Executive Manager at Michael Page.
In the residential market, the past months have been a period of bulls in the premium segment. The growth observed in this area was especially noticeable against the declines in other segments.
The relatively good situation in the entire industry affected the moods in terms of recruitment. On the one hand, employers’ requirements towards candidates increased. Recruiting companies scrutinized the competencies of potential employees, looking for people who would independently achieve the tasks set before them. The most frequently recruited positions were Asset Manager, Leasing Manager, and Project Manager. On the other hand, the so-called worker’s market has not significantly weakened.
– A desirable market worker is a person with established technical knowledge but also soft skills. Organizational skills, the use of technology, methodologies related to process or project management that can be applied to various situations, various investments are highly valued. And these so-called soft issues, which have been visible for many years in the market – communication skills, negotiation skills, but with increasing emphasis on entrepreneurial thinking. Companies want their employees to think a bit like the owner of a given company. This is not obviously easy, but such an entrepreneurial approach is very valuable and even necessary in many positions – adds Piotr Sulerzycki, Senior Executive Manager at Michael Page.
For candidates, the key factor was primarily the salary offered by the future employer and the company’s position in the industry. People changing jobs could expect a salary increase of 10-15%, while for those staying in their current workplace, wage increases hovered around 5%.
– The market may have shifted somewhat in some areas towards the employer, but I believe that the lever has not completely switched to the other side. The employee still has quite a significant impact on the market, on companies. However, other aspects are important for this industry. Salary and flexibility are of course important, but not the most important. In the real estate sector, the stability of the organization and the prospect of that stability are perceived as key. Employees prefer to work in financially established companies that belong to a stable owner and that guarantee the implementation of investments, which means work for years to come. Candidates check whether the company actually carries out investments, whether it has plans, whether it buys land, whether it builds, or whether it is an organization at the stage of stagnation because there are also many of those on the market – concludes Piotr Sulerzycki.
The expected sense of stability often goes hand in hand with identifying with a given company, sharing the values of its owners. Importance is therefore also placed on opinions about the company. The real estate market in Poland is fairly sealed and seemingly not large compared to other industries. Therefore, knowledge about other organizations is quite common here, as is a focus on relationality and long-term attachment to the employer.
Full report available at the following link: https://www.michaelpage.pl/dla-mediow/badania-i-publikacje/przeglady-wynagrodzen
