Why putting people first is the key to seizing the property boom

Putting employees first can help minimise stress during the pandemic-induced conveyancing boom, says Grant Sanders, practice manager at Stephen Rimmer .

I was 27 in September 2008 when the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed and sent shockwaves through the global financial system. A year prior, I had bought a flat right at the top of the market, when the price of the average house had peaked at £190,000. By March 2009, the market had seen a 15% reduction in property values.

Fast forward 11 years to March 2020 – when the market had seen a 50% increase in value, taking the average value of a house to £232,684.That same month, the first lockdown was announced by prime minister Boris Johnson.

In July 2020, in order to boost the economy and inject some confidence into markets, the chancellor of the Exchequer announced a suspension of the tax paid on property purchases up to the value of £500,000. Nobody in the profession could have predicted how this spark – combined with the circumstances of the pandemic and its effects on people’s lives – would ignite the property market and keep it hot well into 2021.

Various media outlets have covered the unprecedented demand on the whole real estate industry, from agents to removals, but the past year has been particularly busy – and challenging – for residential conveyancers.

Workloads have increased among our conveyancing professionals, and at Stephen Rimmer we’ve had to actively support those colleagues – alongside finding new ways of working – by making their jobs as easy as possible. There were delays to case lifecycles of course, but we made sure to manage client expectations and prioritised keeping all communication channels open – to the same level as in the office.

Being alive to the risk to people’s productivity and wellbeing that too much work brings is important too – we went as far as recruiting at all levels in our conveyancing department, and have even made use of locums to meet demand.

It’s worth adding that putting our people first has been an important strategy throughout the pandemic, and one that’s benefited the firm in the long run. Where some firms quickly chose to furlough lawyers, having not done so meant that, when demand picked up, we had the resources immediately available to respond to enquiries.

We’ve also noticed that the way a firm treated their people during the worst moments of the pandemic has had a major impact on staff retention. We were (and continue to be) contacted by people at firms that didn’t support their colleagues or didn’t offer the correct tools and resources to carry out their jobs. Continuing to put people first will be a recurring theme as we exit the pandemic, for our firm and likely for many others.