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What are good people actually staying for when listings are thin?

It is a live question. This week Andrew told the Australian Financial Review it is “one of the worst markets I’ve seen”.

The usual answer to real estate agent retention starts with money. In Track 05 of The Edit, Jellis Craig CEO Andrew McCann argues that the answer is broader: people need to feel they belong, can develop and are recognised for the work they do. Chris Hanley adds a challenge for every principal – the leader may be the reason someone joined, and the reason they leave.

“I don’t think good real estate people leave businesses for commission splits and revenue alone.”

The qualifier matters. Pay still matters, but Andrew’s point is that a strong business gives people reasons to stay beyond the next offer.

People join leaders and leave leaders

So what does keep them? Andrew lists a safe place to be yourself, personal development, and “some fun and some reward and some recognition”. The night before the recording, 620 of Jellis Craig’s 1,200 people packed into the group’s awards night – and not every award was for sales or property management.

Chris puts the other side of it bluntly:

“My view is people join leaders and they leave leaders.”

When someone says they are leaving for the split, Chris suspects there are other reasons – and they often involve the boss.

Culture is led

Andrew describes culture as a set of standards and beliefs that leaders have to make visible. At Jellis Craig, that means bringing leaders together regularly, deciding what the business values and carrying the same language into offices and teams. He says the group is deliberate about celebrating people, community performance and growth, alongside commercial results.

Jellis Craig has 45 Victorian offices and about 1,200 people, Andrew says. The group passed 10,000 transactions for the first time in the year before the recording. At that scale, culture cannot depend on one CEO’s personality. Leaders across the business have to carry it.

Chris has his own test. He sends articles to a list of people he likes, and nearly everyone at Jellis Craig writes back to say thank you. “It’s 2026 and it’s a weird thing,” he says. His point: not everything in a business matters, but everyone does.

The conversation also asks what happens when people fall short of a standard. Sam puts the question plainly: at what point does forgiveness become permission? Andrew’s answer is to address the behaviour, keep the standard clear and give a good person room to learn.

“That conversation can be warm and educational rather than disciplinary.”

Giving back as an internal measure

Community comes up in Andrew’s induction for every new team member: Jellis Craig is part of its community, so it has to give back. Offices sponsor junior football and netball clubs and support local schools. The group’s charitable foundation, now 12 years old, takes $50 from every sale, and Andrew says it will pass half a million dollars next year. A volunteer board of Jellis Craig people runs it.

The volunteering days – feeding the homeless, working bees at managed properties for people who need shelter and care – matter as much for the team as for the cause. Andrew calls it “more of an internal measurement than an external sell”. Chris agrees: nothing lights up his team like volunteer work. (Sam and Chris had recorded Stavros Ambatzidis on community investment earlier the same day.)

Train in lanes, not for a silver bullet

Andrew’s cynical view is that real estate is “the most overtrained industry in the world”, because it keeps looking for a silver bullet. Jellis Craig trains in lanes instead, and who does the teaching matters. Leaders learn how to have honest conversations and profile their teams. Health, wellbeing and mindset have come from meditation-focused coach Steve Griffith and mindset coach Ben Crowe, whose work Andrew calls transformational for him personally. Josh Phegan has handled sales training for 14 years.

“We don’t hop around, we like consistent theming and we’re not looking for a silver bullet.”

Invest in the people already there

When Sam asks what to do if two key people have left and there is no recruitment pipeline, Andrew starts inside the business. Who can step up? How can the team cover the role and revenue for the next 90 days while it regroups? His warning is against hiring in a panic on different terms from everyone else – a decision that can unsettle the culture long after the vacancy is filled.

Andrew is specific about the damage:

“As soon as you’ve got separate rules for separate people in an organisation, you just create a rod for your own back.”

He admits he used to take every resignation as a personal affront. Now he stays calm, because most of the time the business can cover what has gone.

He reframes the recruitment question:

“How do we fall in love with the people that keep turning up for us every day?”

Development, recognition and the chance to take on more responsibility are part of the answer.

Chris follows with a practical habit: conduct stay interviews, rather than waiting for an exit interview. Regular conversations give leaders a chance to learn what people want, what is frustrating them and whether they can see a future in the business. A departure can also create room for someone previously overlooked to become the next leader.

What you’ll take away

  • Why pay is only one part of the retention conversation
  • How leaders turn stated values into a culture people experience
  • Why a missed standard calls for a clear, constructive conversation
  • What to do in the first 90 days after key people leave
  • Why training in consistent lanes beats chasing a silver bullet
  • How stay interviews can reveal problems while there is still time to act

This is The Edit

The Edit is Elite Agent’s real estate mixtape: honest conversations with people who have done the work and have something useful to share. Track 05 features Samantha McLean, Chris Hanley and Andrew McCann, CEO of Jellis Craig.

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