Prior to designing the Re/Max Core office near downtown Ottawa about 18 months ago, the four owners took a close look at the new breed of agent they expected to hire: millennials.
What they found was surprising.
Millennials, they deduced, want what their predecessors (baby boomers and generation Xers) didn’t want – a feature-laden office with a blend of work and social amenities. That is a 180-degree turn from past trends to smaller, bare-bones offices.
“We leased what had been a big old print shop,” renovated the exterior and gutted the interior, says Jarrod Davis, one of the company’s managing partners.
Beyond the customary office space, the 12,000-square-foot building includes a gym with free weights and professional grade exercise equipment and an 1,100-square-foot social space complete with a working kitchen.
“We’ve created an atmosphere in our office where fun is important. That’s what drives our energy,” says Davis, who at 41 is the oldest owner.
Collaboration on real estate deals is big part of what makes up the new breed of agents, he says, adding they want a workplace with a social side where they can meet other agents. “They need to be passionate about the people and the job.”
Re/Max Core spent about $1 million to retrofit the old print shop and then forked out more money for the recreational space, including a recreation/gym room called Club Core. The space comes with a full-size ping-pong table (a popular hangout), a pool table, chairs, tables, change rooms and showers. The gym is connected to an outdoor barbecue space.
“Real estate can be such an overwhelming field with long hours that this space is seen as a place where agents can escape and build relationships with their co-workers,” says Davis.
But it is not all fun and games. “I see agents from different teams and they are all talking about real estate,” says Davis. “I call it distracted focus.”
The owners didn’t stop there in making Re/Max Core a draw for millennials. They also installed a “Zen room” – place for sales reps to wind down – with soft lighting and music. It is a far cry from the cramped quarters of a parked vehicle, which is where many a sales rep used to “catch a few Zs” as a break from a hectic schedule, Davis says, adding that a yoga instructor will also be available for agents.
The brokerage opened in March 2015 and has about 115 agents. At a Re/Max convention in the U.S. it was ranked as the fastest growing Re/Max firm in the world.
Most of the brokerage’s agents are millennials – who, according to Davis, are entering the field “in droves.” Many of them want to “pair up” or work in teams, rather than work solo, to increase productivity without necessarily working the long hours that the generation before them did.
“They want to be fulfilled at work. And they also want to make more money.”
But do teams need or want a multi-faceted office when technological advancements suggest small no-frills offices are sufficient?
“When we look at the baby boomers and generation Xers, that was the direction we were going but now that millennials are making up a huge part of the market and they are developing teams, I think we’re seeing more agents wanting to work in an office,” says Davis.
Not just any office will do, he says. “Offices that are forward-thinking will develop specific plans for teams and design their offices for teams,” he says, adding that the trend to agents collaborating on deals is happening across Canada and the U.S.
The managing partner, who hasn’t directly sold real estate for about seven years, says when the firm first came up with the idea of integrating recreational spaces into the office, outsiders didn’t take them seriously. “We were mocked and laughed at a bit by people who thought it would be wasted space.”
Davis says the opposite has happened. The social room, for example, (which includes two business lounges) has proven to be the most popular room in the building. Sales reps hover around the kitchen where they can cook and eat and socialize around a large table. The room, like the gym, was completed months after they opened the office.
The office space at Re/Max Core includes six pods with computers and phones – essentially “soundproof booths” where the salespeople can concentrate on work. They are a design departure from the open concept workspace, which according to studies is a less productive office environment than expected, Davis says.
A coaching and training room is also featured and owners of the innovative brokerage plan to add staff that can assist agents learning new technology. A video green room is also in the works. An instructor will assist agents in the production of high-quality videos for marketing homes and other properties.
Davis says of the 115 agents working out of the office, 35 to 50 are there at any given time. It is proof that the social and recreational spaces are attractive. The average agent makes 14 deals annually.
Davis says the idea for building the unusual brokerage came after he spent time around a number of “new generation companies” (Google and Zappos, for example). He listened to their founders talk about what they did, what worked and what didn’t.
Davis says he’s not aware of many other firms tailoring their offices in similar fashion “but I think there will be a lot of brokerages headed in this direction. It’s just a simple switch in how we do business.”
Re/Max Core is owned by Davis, Marc Evans, Eli Skaff and Tarek El Attar.
Don Procter is a contributing writer for REM.
