B Of Real Estate Under The Epidemic Situation: Organizational Shock And Downsizing Downsurge Structure "Optimization" Acceleration

Zhang Jin, who is working in a small housing company, is facing a dilemma. On the one hand, the development of the company's business is not smooth, plus the bonus which has been owed nearly 6 yuan for nearly 300 thousand months, so that he had the idea of resigning. But at the same time, the familiar headhunter told him that at present, the enterprises have generally reduced their preparation and no suitable planning sales positions.

The real estate industry has relatively strong tolerance due to the rigidity of its demand and the regularity of periodic fluctuation, but the concussion caused by the epidemic is still dull. In twenty-first Century, the economic report learned that housing prices are experiencing wage fluctuations and personnel turbulence. Housing prices have not even paid salaries for middle managers or more in February. Part of the housing sector, the regional company's layoffs can reach more than 30%.

"The epidemic has become an accelerator for housing companies to optimize their management." Insiders said that with the fierce competition in the industry, housing companies have been adjusting their organizational structure and management mode in recent two years to improve management efficiency and per capita efficiency. The outbreak of the new crown pneumonia has speeded up this process.

For many practitioners, though the process is brutal, the reality is hard to reverse.

Voluntary turnover and voluntary pay reduction

Zhang Jin's company has less than ten billion sales, and business expansion in recent years is quite difficult. According to introducing, the situation that the company owed the bonus has appeared since last year, and many middle and senior managers failed to get the year-end bonus. During the epidemic, employees were generally only able to receive basic wages due to business stagnation.

Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, wage reduction and wage arrears are quite common in the real estate sector.

In February 27th, the Cade group first announced that the board of directors and senior management will voluntarily reduce their salaries, and their director fees and basic salaries will be reduced by 5%-15% from April 1st. All staff at managerial level and above will freeze salary increase. Other employees will not be affected. The measure will be reassessed after 6 months or after the outbreak is stable.

Unlike Kade's "openness", most of the housing sector's salary adjustment is in the "internal operation". According to the twenty-first Century economic report reporter, Beijing's top 60 housing companies failed to issue the February salary of senior executives. Because the company is still recruiting, this has discouraged some job seekers. Many other companies began to pay thirty percent off to twenty percent off of executives' salaries in February.

Earlier, a Sichuan housing company named Zhong Di Bang had been unable to pay wages in January 2020 and February, requiring employees to leave voluntarily and postpone receiving wages.

"Voluntary turnover" is the default rule of the real estate industry. For a company, it can bear less compensation than "dismiss"; for employees, there is no "dismissed" record, and it is easier to find the next job.

In early March of this year, Li Xuan, a staff member of a city company in Huaxia happy Beijing area, was informed that the company asked him to "voluntarily resign". There were 15 people in Li Xuan's Department, and only 5 more after the abolition. According to his estimate, the proportion of layoffs in the city's company is 30%. Even the whole department has been cut off.

It is said that this is China's happiness to enhance the per capita efficiency, the implementation of flat organization initiatives.

The logic of "optimization"

Cash flow is the lifeblood of housing companies. Although debt default is not a common phenomenon, because of the sharp decline in sales, and some commercial real estate operators subsidized rents and property fees to merchants, the operating cash flow of housing companies is generally not as good as that of the same period last year.

In March 6th, the Shanghai clearing house revealed that the first term medium-term notes payable in the 2015 year of the new Hualian holding company with "real estate + tourism" as its main business could not pay the principal and interest in full on time, which constituted a substantial breach. 3 days later, a debt of CITIC Guoan group also suffered a substantial breach.

The documents disclosed by the Shanghai clearing house pointed out that "the new coronavirus pneumonia affected by the force majeure factors, the new Hualian holdings of cultural tourism, commercial retail, scenic spots, hotels, restaurants, oil trade and other businesses suffered heavy losses, 1-2 months to reduce operating income over 6 billion yuan."

In terms of financing, since November last year, the environment of prudent lending and strict auditing has not changed.

Zhang Jin said that since last year, the company has been looking for financing channels and even strategic investors, but it has failed. By January of this year, the company had reached the brink of default. Every sales item on the project will be placed in the headquarters immediately after arrival. It will be used to repay the debt which is about to expire, and the payment of wages and bonus will be placed on the secondary side.

After the outbreak, government departments in various parts of the country issued a lot of support policies for housing enterprises, but in the view of practitioners, this is mostly a rationalization measure to deal with the epidemic situation, and the improvement effect on cash flow is not obvious.

According to the data of the National Bureau of statistics, in the 1-2 month of this year, the national real estate development enterprises reached 20210 yuan, and the change range from "7.6% growth" in 2019 to "17.5%".

Therefore, in addition to slowing down the pace of foreign investment, compressing manpower costs has become an important choice. A well-known housing company employee told the twenty-first Century economic report that the company's "persuaded" phone call was "company encounter difficulties", "staff redundant", "last resort" and so on. He said that last year's performance was good and the ranking in the Department was not the bottom line, but it was still being optimized.

Adjustment of epidemic acceleration framework

In fact, since Vanke formally launched the "business partner" in 2014, the trend of real estate business optimization management structure is gradually rising. In addition to the imitation of the "business partner" system, there are also many housing enterprises cutting down the management structure.

"Over the past few years, the scale of housing companies has grown rapidly, but the" big company disease "has also started to grow. Beijing, a well-known central enterprise developer responsible person to the twenty-first Century economic report said that with the normalization of the property market regulation and the fierce competition in the industry, housing enterprises pay more and more attention to improving management efficiency. In the process of moving from extensive to meticulous, personnel adjustment is inevitable.

The person said that flat management and enhanced incentive mechanism are the main direction of adjustment. In the management mode, the main performance is to reduce management level, fully delegate and project responsibility system; in the salary structure, the main performance is "low base salary + high performance".

This adjustment has also greatly accelerated the flow of personnel. According to incomplete statistics, in 2019, there were more than 400 personnel turnover in the group level of Housing enterprises, involving more than 150 Housing enterprises. The frequency of change and the level of executives are higher than in previous years.

In the daily adjustment of the company, each year is the time of "personnel optimization" at the beginning of each year, which is also the peak period of job hopping.

The new crown pneumonia epidemic at the end of 2020 has obviously accelerated the process. Yan Yuejin, director of the think tank center of Shanghai Yi Ju Real Estate Research Institute, told the twenty-first Century economic report that the adjustment of management structure is usually accompanied by the adjustment of business type and regional layout, so it is usually mild and gradual. But the external pressure brought by the new crown pneumonia epidemic situation will make the situation very urgent.

"If some people are to be tailored sooner or later, then in extreme cases, it is better to cut them off at one time." The central enterprises said.

He said that the real estate industry to optimize management and improve the effectiveness of the general trend is inevitable.

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