Track2Realty Exclusive Realty Job Survey-III
The pan-India survey by Track2Realty finds that that close to two-third, as many as 58 per cent of the real estate professionals admit to suffer some form of depression or general anxiety disorder due to demanding schedules, high stress levels and lack of performance-linked rewards.
30 per cent of the realty professionals admit to have less than six hours of sleep and/or sleep related disorder and only 12 per cent professionals report a life that is stressed but not depressed.
The young employees are more prone to this depression and most of the anxiety related disorders is reported among the survey respondents under the age of 22-30, as many as 52 per cent. 30 per cent depressed employees are in the age group of 31-40; 16 per cent in the age 41-50; and only 2 per cent realty employees are depressed in the age group of 51 and above.
“You can think of a work-life balance only when the scope of work has been defined. What I can’t cope up with is the mood change of the employer with which all the plans go haywire. Even when I have made the entire marketing plan as per the brief of the management, I may be blasted for over-spending and asked to make everything yet again at the eleventh hour,” says Shaily Ahuja, a marketing professional in Mumbai. (Name changed on request to protect identity)
In terms of the most depressed city for real estate professionals, Noida ranks as number one, followed by Gurgaon, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Bhopal.
Sales & marketing department seems to be the office of most depressed employees across the Indian real estate. With slow sales becoming a market reality they have to deal with the double pressure of performance with shrinking budget and lesser team strength.
More than half, 52 per cent, find it difficult to manage with cost cutting in branding and marketing; 32 per cent crib because they find it unrealistic to perform with half the sales team; while 16 per cent question that when the developers are increasing the brokerage fee then why are they cutting the salary of the employees who work full time with them.
Time management is another pressing issue that the real estate professionals feel most uncomfortable about. No! It is not about managing their time with the demands of the job but the office bullying in the name of time management.
Majority of them are rather living with a feeling of their time being sold to the employers who can use or abuse it the way they wish to. 48 per cent of the work force is not comfortable with the punching of attendance card multiple times, even during a lunch break; 34 per cent allege the management deliberately makes them stay beyond office hours; 18 per cent are bugged up with the overall attitude of the management.
“What will you do when your boss asks you to go out only with another colleague whose company may not make you comfortable for negotiating a business deal. But that is the management policy here to create a layer of unwanted checks & balances,” says Ankit Shah in Ahmedabad.
The results were based on a set of 25 questions and the answers were grouped into seven key factors of work-life balance, job security & growth, compensation benefits, management, job culture, fiscal year’s performance and job market in the given year.
The survey finds that the primary reason for staying with a real estate job is still the quest for more money, yet the same money could not bring satisfaction into their professional lives with work-life balance being the biggest casualty. Those who wanted learning opportunities, skill development or professionalism were extremely dissatisfied with the sector.
