Embracing Flexibility and Remote Work: Lessons from the Real Estate Industry

Embracing Flexibility and Remote Work: Lessons from the Real Estate Industry

Hosts: Steve Boese and Trish Steed

Guest: Tanya Reu-Narvaez, Chief People Officer, Anywhere Real Estate Inc.

Summary

In the 17th season of the At Work in America podcast, Steve Boese and Trish Steed learn more about the real estate industry with Tanya Reu-Narvaez, Chief People Officer at Anywhere Real Estate. They highlight the industry’s high turnover, the importance of a growth mindset for real estate agents, and the shift towards remote and flexible work post-pandemic. They also emphasize the need for human-centric leadership, transparency, and leveraging technology like Gen AI to enhance productivity and employee engagement. The conversation also touches on the future of work, including the importance of automation, skill shifts, and the global workforce.

Chapters

01:12. Paychex Acquisition and Economic Concerns

03:51 Real Estate Industry Overview

16:23 Remote Work and Flexibility in the Real Estate Industry

20:27 Leadership and Connection in a Remote Environment

34:31 Future Trends and Opportunities in HR

Thank you for your continued support of the show and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

This episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement, and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes. Here’s a stat for you: 85% of businesses are expecting higher revenue this year, but many are still worried about economic uncertainty, talent shortages, and rising costs. Sound familiar? That’s why you need to check out the results of the sixth annual Priorities for Business Leaders survey from our friends at Paychex. They’ve surveyed companies just like yours to uncover the top challenges and strategies driving business success in 2025 — from streamlining HR tasks to setting employees up for growth. Curious? Head to paychex.com/awia to read the full report. Don’t just guess your priorities — know them.

Transcript

Announcer 0:00
Welcome to At Work in America, sponsored by Paychex. At Work in America digs in behind the headlines and trends to the stories of real people making a difference in the world of work. And now here are your hosts, Steve Boese and Trish Steed.

Steve 0:27
Welcome to the At Work in America. Podcast, my name is Steve Boese. I’m with Trish Steed. Trish, good morning, good afternoon. We’re happy. New Year. Happy season 17 of the podcast, can you believe it?

Trish 0:39
Congratulations to you. You have been doing this. This is your 17th season. I think that’s amazing. That’s such a good accomplishment.

Steve 0:47
Well, thank you. Of course, you’ve been a huge part of that as well. And yeah, thanks to everybody for listening. A lot of things, you know, exciting stuff coming in 2025 we’ve got some behind the scenes stuff we’ve been working on very diligently over the holiday break, and hopefully everybody will see some of those results really, really soon. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and stay connected with us on the network. So we have to thank our friends at Paychex, of course, and just before we sort of promote what they’re up to lately, we do want to mention, real quick to as we record this, Paychex announced the intention to acquire Paycor, which is another HCM technology company in the space. Really big deal, huge deal, actually Paychex, largest acquisition to date, and really stands to both strengthen Paychex but also outgrow and support, maybe, you know, 10s of 1000s of more organizations around this country. It’s really big news and exciting news.

Trish 1:48
Yeah, I think it’s exciting news. And I, you know, I always, when I see things like this, I sort of think about, what if I were on the opposite end, right? What if I’m an employee at Paycor? What would my feelings be? And there’s always uncertainty, right? With any sort of an acquisition. However, I can tell you, just like from our personal relationships with many people at Paychex, they’re being acquired by a very thorough, deliberate and very giving organization, right, giving not only to their own customers, but to the wider community of organizations of that size. So I think it’s going to be a really good move for pay core. I can’t wait to learn more.

Steve 2:30
Yeah, more on that to come, and when we get a chance, when he’s able to talk about it, we’ll maybe bring Tom Hammond back on to talk a little bit more about that news. So we will, of course, congratulate Paychex and Paycor, and mention that we are sponsored by our friends at Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes, Trish, here’s a stack for you. 85% of businesses are expecting higher revenue this year, but many are still worried about economic uncertainty, talent shortages, rising costs, all that sounds familiar. Sounds familiar to me. That’s why you need to check out the results of the sixth annual priorities for business leaders survey from Paychex. Paychex surveyed companies just like yours to uncover the top challenges and strategies that will drive business success in 2025 from streamlining HR tasks to setting up employees for success and growth. So if you’re curious, head to paychex.com/awia to read the full report, don’t just guess in 2025 Trish, know what to do, so thanks to Paychex, congrats to them, and we have a great show today. We got caught up in the Paychex news.

Steve 3:49
We are talking the real estate business today on the show with Tanya Reu-Narvaez from Anywhere Real Estate. Anywhere is a huge portfolio of brands that you know, like Century 21, Caldwell Banker and a bunch of others, Trish, there’s something like 1.5 million real estate agents in this country, give or take, making it one of the most widely held jobs of any job. And we’ve never talked about that on this show before, to my knowledge.

Trish 4:19
Not directly. And they sort of fall into that desk list workforce, even though they many do have offices they can go to, but a majority of the day to day activities are done remote, right, pre COVID, and even more so since COVID. So yeah, it’s a fascinating conversation. I think there’s a lot of wonderful takeaways and suggestions you can get from the real estate industry in terms of, regardless of what your industry is. And I think too, I was really surprised when I started digging into some of the statistics, because it’s such a big industry, turnover is really high within the first five years of becoming an agent. I read that I probably. It’s only 87% turnover, but that’s why it was fascinating to get to have this conversation, because you can see that with a lot of very progressive people ideas, you can really make sure to keep your your top performers. Yeah, great.

Steve 5:17
All right, so catch our conversation with Tanya. Thanks for listening to the show, and let’s welcome Tonya.

Steve 5:22
We are so excited today to welcome our guest. She is Tanya Reu-Narvaez. She’s the Chief People Officer for Anywhere Real Estate, Inc, and we’re going to talk about the future of work, what organizations can learn from real estate, which is, I think, fascinating. And in my research, prior to the show, I looked at some numbers, at the sheer number of people who work in real estate in this country. It’s one of the most widely held jobs in America, and we’ve never actually talked about it much on this show, so it’s about time we did. But more about Tanya. Tanya leads the enterprise talent and people strategy for nearly 10,000 employees globally across multiple business units and six iconic real estate brands, which supported a network of 313,000 real estate agents. Tanya is committed to putting people first as the means to drive profit and performance. She advocates for transparency, inclusion and integrity in support of the company’s purpose to empower everyone’s next move. Tanya, welcome to the show. Great to see you. How are you?

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 6:37
Thank you for having me, Steve. I’m doing excellent. Happy New Year everyone.

Steve 6:42
Happy New Year is still is in order. And the fact this is our first recording of the new year, so fantastic. It’s great, I think, a great way to start the year too, especially since, you know, and it’s my fault, I guess, from doing the show for 15 years and never really talking about this business at all, right, considering it employees and one form or another, so many people. So Tanya, maybe let’s learn a little bit more about you, of course, and then I’d love to dig in just a little bit about anywhere, because maybe the that name may be not as familiar to people, but some of those iconic brands certainly are familiar to people.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 7:17
So first, let me share, I’m happy that we’re having the conversation and being the first to lead the discussion on the industry, because I I love the industry first and foremost, but I truly believe that real estate touches so many facets of really driving the US economy, and there aren’t many industries that you know touch communities and neighborhoods and are so hyper local. It’s such an emotional transaction, if you will. But at the same time, it’s the largest contributor to the GDP. So I have fallen in love with real estate over the past. I guess now, 23 years, being in you know, being with the company you mentioned, anywhere. Yes, anywhere is the name of our organization, but most are familiar with our global brands being century, 21 era, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby’s, Sotheby’s International Realty, Corcoran and Better Homes and Gardens. And we also have a relocation company called Cardis. We have a national title organization. And so we’re really proud of our iconic as you refer to brands, and really being not just on every corner in the country, but around over 100 countries around the globe.

Steve 8:28
Wow, that’s pretty impressive, considering, you know you said, you mentioned real estate is such a local kind of business. And again, real emotional. That’s I was think, before you even said that word. I was thinking about it like some of the transactions I’ve had in my life, man, you, you, you count on that real estate, that realtor, that real estate person, that professional, so much, right? And it’s absolutely, yeah, you end up trying, like, becoming real friends with them too. I think for most of us, it’s a unique business in that manner, because, like, I love my plumber, but I don’t really feel that emotionally connected to to them, really ever. But it’s different with real estate I think.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 9:05
Sure is. And, you know, it’s funny, it is an emotional connection. I think that’s really what’s led to our focus on people, and my focus on people, because we are, in essence, in the people business. Again, there’s really not an industry that’s so hyper local and whereby those connections matter so much.

Trish 9:22
Yeah, you know, Tanya, one of the things I wanted to touch on, because I know we’re going to actually dive in on a lot of the productivity and and so forth around being in real estate. But one of the things we like to talk about first is, how are people getting interested in becoming real estate agents? We have a large population of Gen Z that listens to the various podcasts on the broad on broadcast network here, and that’s one of the questions we get. What kind of individuals are you looking for to even get into real estate? Because you know, as Steve quoted there, there are so many people working in this field.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 9:56
Well, I think first and foremost, you have to have a growth mindset. That, you know, we talk about how the workforce has changed and will likely to, will likely continue to evolve. But if you think about it, real estate has offered the most flexible type of work environment, you know, really, in any industry. And so there’s a lot to be said about, you know, Gen Z entering and being excited about a career in real estate sales, when you think about it, not just the flexibility component that is most attractive to that generation, typically, but also, you know, sort of being your own boss, right? Sky’s the limit from an earnings perspective, it’s what you put into it, and a lot of what matters socially to different generations. Again, in this case, Gen Z, you know, sort of comes to fruition in real estate. You make a difference in local communities, and you impact, you know, wealth building, and ultimately have a significant impact on, you know, the national and global economy?

Trish 11:04
Yeah, I think those would be very attractive things. Do people coming into real estate, or maybe, if you’re, you know, mid career and you’re thinking about making a change, what kind of skills do people need to have? Do they need to have a degree? Is this something that they can come into with different skills?

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 11:20
The barriers of entry are relatively low, and I think that’s also attractive, specifically, if you want to make a change in your career, sort of mid career, but you know, you have to really be a people person. I think technology really matters today, probably more so than it did in the past, in the real estate industry, you know, being able to understand market trends is also critically important. And you know sales at the end of the day, it is a sales job, and so building those relationships, having those close connections to people, being able to influence but by leveraging, you know, technology and things even today, like Gen AI to be as productive as you can, so that you can, you know, be as successful as you so desire.

Steve 12:08
Yeah, yeah. But I think that’s what’s fascinating about the industry, and makes it appealing for a certain type of person, right? Because it it does very much seem like, unlike some other types of industries, like you can really sort of get out of it, what you put into it, right? That level of effort could be really commensurate to your success right now, of course, markets go up, markets go down, and some of that is out of your control individually, but it does seem like there’s a lot of reward for your effort in this industry, for sure.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 12:39
And you do have to be self motivated, right? I mean, these are independent contractors, right? So it 100% commission based, but I will say, especially going through not just the shifts that we saw through COVID, but even most recently, with different industry changes that the industry experienced. This is the most resilient set of professionals that I’ve ever you know worked with for whatever reason. We come through everything. Our agents come through everything, and they come through really persevering. So they’re very resilient. And again, being self motivated is really important.

Trish 13:18
Yeah, yeah. I think those skills that are you mentioned, they’re sort of universal in a lot of different businesses, not just in sales, right, but that ability to sort of want to take charge of your own career a little bit, and this will give you that opportunity. So I find that part fascinating, not only, I mean, there’s always a risk as an entrepreneur, Steve and I are entrepreneurs, we know that, but to have a really solid brand or company of brands behind you kind of gives you the best of both worlds, I would imagine. I won’t say which one, but I did use a realtor from from one of your brands numerous times and and I think what I found was that the spirit is that entrepreneurial spirit that they’re bringing, in addition to those really awesome sales skills, people skills and the connection to the local community, how do you how do you go about sort of training people in the organization, I know you mentioned, they’re independent contractors. How do you get them up to speed so that they can be their best in these local communities?

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 14:21
Yeah, well, Trish, let me just go back to something you said, because you you basically described the essence of the culture of our organization. You mentioned the the entrepreneurial nature of our independent contractors, and how that influences a company like anywhere, our brands matter, and we believe that you know that match, if you will, of an independent contractor with one of our brands does make a big difference. But you know, the entrepreneurial compliment with, you know, a publicly traded company is really an interesting dynamic. And when you know, when I mentioned earlier that we have our six brands, each have their distinct person. And we honor that right while working cross functionally and cross the organization together on macro, you know, issues, it’s really created a very sticky culture for both our agents and our employees. But I’ll go back to your question on how do we how do we educate, how do we train? We have a whole function dedicated to, you know, onboarding, educating, providing or enabling productivity gains, if you will, through our client success team. And that’s literally what they do every day, all day. And it’s really important to us. It’s part, it’s a significant part of our value proposition, but learning in general is a very important component in the eyes of a real estate agent.

Trish 15:51
Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I think that’s one that people might not automatically assume, especially because they might think that a real estate agent kind of is on their own out there and nowhere land, right, trying to manage and navigate on their own. So yeah, I’m glad you shared that they have that, that real connection.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 16:10
And I think that too, yeah, part of our business strategy is, you know, you’re in business sort of for yourself, but not by yourself. And again, I think that’s that underscores the connection between an agent and a global brand? Yeah, I

Steve 16:24
love that, Tanya, I’d love to talk a little bit more about sort of the employee side of this equation, right? And you mentioned the pandemic a second ago, obviously, you know, we all came through that and work was disrupted, you know, fundamentally through that time period, and it’s a few years onto it now. And I guess it was shocking to kind of think about it’s been like about five years, almost since the beginning of all that. It doesn’t seem like so long, but so many organizations now we’re seeing time and again now are almost trying to wind back right some of the progress, or the some of the changes that were made during pandemic, specifically around flexibility and remote working and just how the organization is going to be structured and managed, somebody, especially the tech companies, right? Or, you know, calling people back to offices, etc, etc. I’d love for you to talk a little bit about your philosophy on this, how anywhere is approaching it and maybe, what are some of the lessons you learned from just the nature of your business about keeping people productive and supported? Who may not be in the office five days a week?

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 17:29
Sure. So let me start by sharing where we were in 2020 and that was, you know, we serviced over 300,000 independent contractors that forever have worked remotely or in a hybrid type of, you know, environment in and out of their offices, but mostly in the local communities. We at that time, from a corporate employee standpoint, we’re at about, call it, 92% of our population was tied to an office full time, and so, you know, overnight that changed, obviously, and where we are now is at about, call it 55% so almost half of our employees still remain 100% remote, and the balance are tied to a real estate office because of the connection and the support required in partnership with our customers, in this case, our agents. And even in that population, we’ve seen a shift, very intentional shift, that we’ve led to more of a flexible type of work arrangement. And I know that many are deciding to, or have gone back to, you know, the former state. For us, we made an intentional decision to stay the course with tweaks, because there were so many Silver Linings for us that we just didn’t want to lose. And I’ll give you some examples. Again, being a global company having multiple brands, in some cases, brands that in the very local markets are, in essence, competitors. The remote environment, you know, resulting from COVID, allowed for us to strengthen our cross company culture. So we were, at the time, forced to bring people together, to collaborate. We were forced to, you know, cross borders that perhaps we didn’t cross in the past. And so there were so many sort of unanticipated benefits from that that we basically operationalized. So, you know, during that time, we launched what we called, what we call winning behaviors. And there are four behaviors that we believe, you know, lead to success if you are an employee of our company, despite where you work and how you work, all of our learning programs have now become enterprise. All of our ERGs are enterprise and. Many of our strategic projects are cross functional. And there’s, you know, the beauty of cross company connections that enable us to strengthen our culture. But there’s also, like better outcomes from a productivity and from a business perspective.

Trish 20:18
Can you talk a little bit about specifically on that productivity piece, Tanya, where, I mean, maybe back to what it looked like pre pandemic, and then now that you have sort of this cross, you know, organization, collaboration going on. What kind of increases were you seeing in productivity, or what direct results were you seeing as part of that productive environment?

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 20:40
Sure, I think the direct results, I mean, from a from a pure talent metric standpoint, our engagement is the highest it’s been, our retention is the highest it’s been. Our you know, resignation rate is the lowest it’s been, and so on and so forth. Leadership scores, I mean, I can go on and on from a business perspective, you know, we have our best people across the entire organization focused on our growth initiatives, and we’re starting to, you know, we’ve started to see, over the past couple of years, you just better outcomes, you know, whether it’s from a growth perspective, whether it’s, you know, how we get a product to market, and Whether the products better or, you know, quicker, to market again, just by leveraging the best talent across the organization in a remote environment. And it’s, it’s, it’s just worked for us. You know, clearly, as many have, we’ve been able to attract a whole different type of talent pool to the organization. I remember the days where I was recruiting, and obviously it was recruiting people to work in New Jersey that was difficult. And now, you know, our executive committee and our leadership and all the way down the line. I mean, they’re from all different parts of the country, and, you know, obviously there’s different trends that are leading us to even look beyond the US, and we could talk about that perhaps, but for us, it’s just our leadership teams are fully cross functional. There’s peer to peer sort of coaching and mentoring. And you know, our our impact, we believe, is greater in this type of structure versus how we had it in the past?

Trish 22:22
Yeah, I think having a dispersed leadership team like that, you know, if you’re an employee, especially if you’re kind of out there selling real estate somewhat on your own right, supported, as you mentioned, I think it would be very advantageous to have a leader, maybe from the same region that I’m in, or someone that I sort of feel that kindred relationship with, right? Instead of just thinking, Oh, everyone’s off in New York, for example, and I don’t really have any relationship with them. Have you found any better connection between sort of your senior leadership team and the people in the various regions?

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 22:58
It’s such a great point, you know, yes, but I think we still have opportunity. I’ll give you an example for me. You know, now I’m more fluid, so whatever town I’m in, I often pop myself. I don’t know if people love this or not, pop myself into one of our sales offices I did a couple of times over the summer in the Hamptons. And, you know, just to connect with our staff there, with some of our agents, I make it more of a point now than ever, if I’m in, you know, a certain part of the country or a city, you know, to reach out to whether it’s local employees or our customers, and get together, and it’s a better experience. And to your point, there’s better connections now the opportunity going forward, now that we are, you know, much more dispersed than we ever have been I, for my team, I actually put a map of where we were a couple of years ago and where we are now. And it’s, it’s like night and day. But I do think, because we are, you know, located now, across the country, there are pockets where there are communities that could be brought together, different brands, local offices, agents, people from, you know, our product and technology team, etc. You know, for example, we have about 90 or so employees in the Atlanta area. Like bringing those groups together to collaborate, to get to know one another. I think is an opportunity for us ahead and certainly on our radar. I love that.

Steve 24:23
I do think it’s in generally speaking, right? It’s a pretty decent idea that the organizational structure and its design principles and its operating principles kind of reflect the business that they’re actually in and the customers that they’re trying to serve, right? So now we’re talking about a national brand, global brand, serving people literally everywhere. Right? Doesn’t make any sense to have all the people making all the decisions you know, hunkered in one building in Chicago or wherever. Right? Logically, doesn’t make sense. Now, maybe, if you were building cars in a big factory outside of Chicago, maybe that may make sense.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 25:00
If we were in the widget making business, that would make sense. But we’re in the people business. So, you know, going to where our customers are, people are, I think, makes a ton of sense. And, you know, but with that said, you know, there, there does have to be that intentional focus of bringing people together to collaborate. You know, when important we as an executive committee, by way of an example, we get together once a month in person for a week, and we try and bring others in during that time. We schedule different events around that time, and we try and focus sort of this saying, you know, the the on site is the new off site. So there’s a lot of planning that goes in when we bring our people, and even if, even if it’s for, like, you know, a couple of our meetings, so we try to have some fun with it.

Trish 25:48
I like how you kind of flipped that idea. Because I think if I were an HR leader listening, you know, to this today, I’d be wanting to sort of gravitate to maybe exploring that a little bit more. It’s a good example, too. I mean, to go back a moment. You said that you were going personally out to some of these offices, and you didn’t know if they loved it or not, but I would, I would argue they probably do. Because, again, it’s putting not just you know your name, it’s it’s seeing your face, getting to know your personality, having that, that connection that you’re then asking them to build with the, you know, clients they have. So to me, it’s such a good way to see senior leadership kind of walking the talk, if you will. Because a lot of times I think that’s where the barriers lie, right? It’s when people are told to do one thing, but they’re not feeling that same feeling. And it sounds like you all are kind of giving that feeling to all the various employees or contractors you’re working with.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 26:45
Yes, you have to be approachable, you know. And again, it sort of forces, you know, executives and leaders to not be in this, you know, Ivory Tower, right? Just to use that as an analogy, and be out there where the business actually happens?

Steve 27:03
I remember Trish, a story that Don Robertson told me, who’s recently retired. Good luck, Don. I’m sure you’re still listening now that you’re retired. But he was the CHRO of Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company, really big company, and he talked about when he got named CHRO there, and let’s say they had 10,000 employees at some number like that. He took him eight months, he said. But he spoke to, he got in front of every one of the 10,000 people, even if it was only for 30 minutes or something like that. But he, you know, and he talked very, very intently and intentionally about how important that was. And it was all about connection, right? It was showing that you were, you were listening to people. They could feel heard that, you know, like you said, you’re seeing the face of a leader in that regard, especially for a company who I’m sure, like anywhere, is really trying to be well, I saw anywhere is a great place to work, officially, great place to work seven years in a row, right? That doesn’t come by accident, right? It comes by really caring about people and connecting with people. And Tanya, you’re nodding a little bit. I think, you know, I think that resonates the best leaders, we hear it again and again, are making time for to build those connections.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 28:11
Yeah, it’s such a good point. And a couple of things I’ll share. One, I’ve always been, I’ve always led with more of a business sort of mindset, you know, and just happened to be in the HR world, but when we went remote, you know, overnight, one piece of sort of leadership anecdote that I’ll share for me personally was, even though I was that I always kept my sort of personal life very separate. And then there’s the business world. It forced me to have real deep conversations, regardless of like, if it’s personal business, and that forged very different relationships than I’ve had in the past. So that was a big win for me in my ability to connect at a much deeper, deeper level with my team. And then, you know, obviously, just employees in general across the organization. The other thing I’ll share is just the essence of transparency and being a real leader. I implemented a series called Winning together. It was really a CPO series, Chief People Officer series, whereby I host every month, I think this is the third or fourth year, and I try and focus on topics that I think are most relevant for the masses across our organization, and they are very real conversations that I don’t hold back, and frankly, our employees don’t hold back, and it’s an opportunity to just open up, you know, the conversation and and be real and learn about one another and discuss, you know, challenges that might exist or, you know, answer questions that people may not have felt comfortable asking in the past. So there’s definitely something to be said about people like myself and just leaders in general getting in front of people. People and being real, being authentic, and, you know, putting everything on the table, yeah?

Trish 30:06
Because what you just described is something so different from you sitting in an office somewhere and sending out, you know, an employee engagement survey once a year. That’s right, that’s a totally different experience. And so, and well, one is an experience, what you’re offering now, versus, yeah, people that get an email that say, Can you please tell us what your thoughts are? You know, it just doesn’t seem to have the same value. It’s not even in the same ballpark. So Well, congratulations on that. I think that alone, it’s such, again, another creative idea where you’re backing it up with your personal story, and you’re making it happen and for an extended period of time. So people that trust grows with you, then if they see your being real and open and honest, then, like you said, they’re opening up as well, which is, it’s got to be a win, right when it comes to more productive, more engaged employees I believe.

Steve 30:58
So, yeah, Tanya, I want to talk a little bit about before we let you go about something very unique that came over when we learned about some of the story here and anywhere, and some of your story, which I’m reading this right from my notes Tanya’s email philosophy, dash, she doesn’t read emails. And first of all, thank you for showing up to the show on time, because I think we still use email pretty much for all those communications.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 31:25
But my coms team got me here on time, so I have to give them the credit.

Steve 31:30
Indeed, for one, I can’t believe that’s really real. But if it is, maybe you could not, not have to be flippant about it’s funny, and I’m enjoying myself talking about it, but like, but how it speaks to connection, collaboration and sort of is particularly around how younger people are wanting to work too. Because nobody under 20 wants an email either. I’m pretty sure, yeah, you know,

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 31:51
Look, I put that out there because it is actually true. It’s situationally based, you know, I glance, obviously, you know, I have my email structured in a way that certain things come, you know, are prioritized. But to be honest, I mean, I could spend my entire day just drafting and sending emails, responding to emails, and I don’t think that’s the highest and best use of my time. So that’s first and foremost. There are, there are bigger things to focus on. The second is, I do believe that it’s an antiquated form of communication, and might agree or disagree with me, but I’m I’m much more effective when I have context. I’m much more effective when I’m talking to a person, you know, whether it’s live on the phone or, frankly, I use chat and text a lot, and I think it’s just real time, like it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. By the time you see it, it’s sort of like a day old. Things have happened. Things are more I mean, like the pace of change is, you know, the fastest has been, the slowest will ever be. Like, email doesn’t align with that, you know. So I prefer chat, I prefer context, I prefer human connections. And it’s just, you know, I focus my time on more strategic, you know, aspects of our business.

Trish 31:52
I’m really glad that you said that you don’t prefer to read emails, because, again, I think it’s one of those things you have to almost plant that seed in people’s heads, like that’s an okay thing to do. And mine wasn’t quite that extreme. I did more of if I haven’t answered an email within X amount of time. Back when I was in corporate HR, I would I had a folder that I would just like, take them all and just like, put it over there. And I thought, if, if it’s that important, someone’s gonna bubble it back up, and then anyone that really needed to get a hold of me. I worked in a hospital system. They knew that the best direct way at that time was Twitter DMS, so they had to sort of meet me where I was a little bit if they really wanted to get my attention. And yeah, it does work. I love that you’re having your own sort of personal philosophy on how best to communicate, right?

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 33:55
And look a lot of times, I’ll get an email, see like the header, and I’ll pick up the phone and call someone or I’ll just chat. And it works for me, and I think it works for others. You know, once the cadence becomes more comfortable for people.

Steve 34:11
Yeah, I love it. I mean, I’ve been pushing for that for a while, and my dream someday is not just retirement Tanya, it’s, never having to read another email again.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 34:22
That’s, I’ll join you in that.

Steve 34:25
That’s my real dream. Last thing, Tanya, and then we promise we will let you go. We’re heading into it’s the beginning of 2025, right? So many organizations are trying to figure out, where are we at with like there’s rumors that another wave of resignations may be coming. You know, there’s, you know, the the next generation entering the workforce, and what are they thinking about? And like, what are some of the are there? Are there one or two things you’re thinking about, kind of macro things, whether they’re trends or just things you’re seeing in your business and how the organization. Is going to need to maybe adapt in 2025, kind of leading people, retaining people, engaging people. What’s on your radar?

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 35:07
It’s a big one. So first, I think it’s an exciting time to be in HR, but I think only if you are like a change agent and and you’re comfortable working in ambiguity, because there’s a lot going on. There’s some really big trends that I think are going to stay with us, and they’re all going to happen at sort of, you know, the same time, so simultaneously. But there’s, you know, clearly a big push on automation with the whole Gen AI and during the workforce. And, you know, the fear factor that hopefully company companies are trying to, you know, overcome, because we believe here at anywhere that Gen AI is a major enabler to allow employees to do, you know, sort of different, better, more creative things that only humans can do. And so we’re trying to lean into that with a whole bottoms up approach. But that means people have to work differently, and that’s hard for many. You know, for most, I should say, you know, with that also comes just the, you know, what skills are needed in the work environment. And, you know, there’s a couple of stats I think are important to share. You know, 66% of jobs are exposed to automation. So there’s a big, you know, we just have to rethink that 40% of the global workforce is projected to be independent, and that means that we have to augment our sort of staffing strategy in a pretty significant way, like we really need to be looking at the global workforce. And, you know, historically for any type of, you know, offshoring, outsourcing, near shoring the lead was cost. And frankly, it’s not cost any longer. It’s skill shortage. So with the, you know, Gen AI, or just technology enablement, shifting skills to, you know, different skills to be required, and having to look in different areas like those are big trends that you know are keeping me up at night. But it’s important to, you know, think about them as big opportunities going forward. So I think creativity is going to be, you know, a real big one. And we’re trying to, you know, think about how to solve for some of those skills. And some of the skills I mentioned earlier are probably most relevant going forward, the connections, you know, human centric leadership is, I think, the biggest leadership gap today. I think there’s partly, you know, tied to COVID, part tied to technology. But you know, how do we solve for that? And again, even more difficult, arguably, in a remote environment. So there’s a lot that, you know, we’re thinking about, we’re trying to lean into, versus sort of avoid or be fearful of, and we’re trying to really lead from the front when it comes to these in a very transparent way, at least with our organization.

Steve 37:50
Tanya, thank you for that. There is a lot there, right? But as you said, it represents a lot of opportunity, and I think a really exciting year, maybe next several years, right for people, the people business, and for HR professionals, and we didn’t, yeah, Gen AI and skill. I mean, it’s all the things that are happening make this the CHRO, the CPO role to be essential in the organization. And what an exciting one to have. So I figured I’m encouraged about as we start 2025 as well.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 38:21
Lots of fun ahead as am I.

Steve 38:23
Awesome. Well, this has been super fun, Tanya, it’s been great to meet you and learn a little bit more about your business and your philosophies and anywhere, of course. And like I said, you know, the man I grew up like seeing the Century 21 blazers, right? I don’t know if they still have them.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 38:40
They have them in another part of the world. Actually, they’re very prominent in countries like Japan and Spain. Yeah, those were pretty cool.

Steve 38:48
They were. Get on eBay and get myself into those.

Tanya Reu-Narvaez 38:51
I can help you out with that.

Steve 38:52
All right. I’m gonna work on that. But it is swag, yeah, so it’s Anywhere Real Estate, Inc, you could check out their careers page if you’d like. I was reading it some this morning, really cool, and talking about, like, just the commitment to employees, some of the stuff about the great place to work, it’s really fascinating. Way to kind of learn a little bit more, kind of pull the cover back, a little bit about anywhere, but also to hear from Tanya directly here, as we did today, to learn a little bit more about what it’s like at anywhere. So thank you so thank you so much for joining us. Thank you both. Appreciate Trish, good stuff. I love it. We’ve got some family friends and real estate game, and I think I’ve learned a little bit more about it.

Trish 39:33
I know, and I think just as someone who has been a customer of some of these brands over my history of buying and selling homes, it’s it’s kind of refreshing to see what’s going on behind the scenes for the people I was working with. And now it makes sense. It makes sense why I was having the good experience I had in all those cases. It doesn’t make sense. Really fun.

Steve 39:53
All right. Great stuff. Thanks again to Tanya and the team at Anywhere for doing a great job here. Thanks so much for joining us today. Make sure to hit subscribe, get all the episodes on the podcast network. New episodes coming out each week is going to be a big 2025, Trish and I are super excited about it. Thanks, of course, to our friends at Paychex. Maybe we’ll mention this in the next show. Huge news from our friends at Paychex that was announced today. We’ll have to talk about some as well, but that’s very yes for our guest, Tanya Rue-Narvaez, for Trish Steed, my name is Steve Boese, thank you so much for listening. We will see you next time, and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai