Employee engagement and workforce planning is arguably the biggest influencing factor in staff retention. However, outside of data generated within the confines of an employer’s own organisation, how accurate and representative is the data and information when it comes to retail property industry salaries and employee sentiments industry-wide? Eddie Reed from Property Network of Australia (PNA) discusses some of the issues and is calling for industry participants to take part in its 2024 Salary & Employer Review survey.

There’s no doubt that both salaries and sentiments have shifted in the wake of COVID-19. While salaries have certainly increased across the board and employee working conditions have arguably improved, the cost-of-living crisis and the lack of tangible and overarching industry data reflecting what the shift in salaries actually means are still largely unclear.

The recruitment industry has always played a huge part when it comes to providing unrivalled insights into salary information across almost every industry, but when considering the property industry specifically, traditional annual salary surveys released by recruitment businesses have generally provided only broad-brush salary ‘brackets’ for different roles, with data sample sizes being inconsistent and results therefore being arguably only subjective at best. Further, within these survey results there has been little consideration for how employer types (landlord versus agency), geographical locations (regional versus metro) or asset size, for example, can impact salaries and working conditions – with all of the above undoubtedly affecting individual, as well as overall employee compensation, but to what degree?

In the age of limitless information and ‘big data’ driving strategy and decision-making at almost every level and across every industry, the recruitment industry has the opportunity to contribute to this decision-making more than ever by shining a light on accurate industry salary benchmarking.

As one of Australia’s leading property-specific recruitment consultancies, using modern techniques and analysis, Property Network of Australia is committed to delivering the most detailed and comprehensive salary survey information the Australian Retail Property market has ever seen. Relying solely on the input from our national network of thousands of retail property industry professionals, we have begun surveying these professionals with the detailed results provided exclusively by employees directly.

Understanding where an employee’s salary sits from a wider industry benchmarking perspective is one of the most common queries we receive as Recruitment Consultants from our clients and candidates. However, we can only accurately answer that question using information that is provided to us by other industry professionals, or through benchmarking salary information from our own placements. We are therefore looking for the industry itself to contribute and help provide us with accurate salary information so that we can collate and present this data in a consistent and meaningful way.

Property Network of Australia will shine a light on market trends for salaries across both centre-based and head office job categories, as well employer types and locations across Australia. Using both qualitative and quantitative survey methods, our unique data will be presented via interactive dashboards, accessible to employees and employers alike, providing current salary and employee benefits and sentiment information. This will result in the first highly detailed overview of Retail Property Industry salary information since the COVID-19 pandemic totally reshaped the global employment market.

Why contribute?

Survey results will be used to highlight a range of information and data insights to the industry which in turn will allow employees and employers alike to access our interactive dashboards to lift the lid on what the market is actually doing and how certain statistics and the insights that they generate, compare across the board.

Survey participants will be contributing to a qualitative data set that will provide the industry with high-quality and up-to-date information, which will help to positively shape the future of the retail property industry, driving standards and parity in overall employee compensation across job categories and geographical locations in Australia.

Survey results will provide wider insights that can be used for staff budgeting and role/geo-specific salary benchmarking, beyond the insights of individual organisations. The information can also be used to better assist with accurately pricing management pitches and educating owner/landlords groups on the human capital component of delivering asset management services to their organisations.

Industry employees working in a particular region or location, can access the information to determine how their location impacts their earning capacity based upon what they do, or if their employer type will automatically affect salary or workload, for example.

The survey aims to positively influence the market to assist with fair and accurate salary benchmarking for employees, employer staff budgeting, as well as staff retention and effective talent acquisition planning through the use of this highly accurate information.

Participants of the survey can choose to take a short form version, or a longer form version of the survey (90 seconds). All participants will be included in a draw to win $500 and a 12-month SCN subscription, or $1,000 and a ticket to SCN’s Big Guns Lunch in Sydney in March 2025 as Property Network of Australia’s guest.

The survey information provided is of course kept in the strictest of confidence. Individual survey results are confidential as data and privacy is something that we take very seriously. Click here to participate.