Talent management is set to become a critical issue for the real estate industry, according to Deloitte & Touche USA LLP’s real estate practice. A talent gap, the result of an aging work force, high turnover rates and the increasingly sophisticated, global nature of the industry, has made talent identification and retention imperative. Nearly 58 percent of the real estate work force will be of retirement age by 2010. Generation Y, the 46.7 million people born between 1982 and 1993, is the answer to this approaching shortage, but the challenge facing the real estate industry will be tapping this new and ideologically different source of human capital. 

According to our new study “Closing the Talent Gap: Strategies to attract and engage Generation Y in the real estate industry,” to survive the employment shift, real estate companies must review their leading practices, giving consideration to the following points:

1. Generation Y is coming into the market with a set of values that differs from their predecessors'.  This “value set,” which includes flexibility and work/life balance, are key career motivators for this generation.

2. To successfully recruit members of Generation Y, real estate companies must develop and communicate their vision and differentiate themselves from their competition. Based on Gen Y’s interests, companies should promote their sound values, technologically advanced workplaces and global scope.

3. Real estate companies need to adjust their talent management strategies to better suit the needs of the incoming workers, developing practices that add the most value to their employees — the “customers” of this process.

Download the full report below.

Related Content:
Deloitte Insights podcast: Develop, Deploy, Connect: Harnessing the Power of Generation Y