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This post was updated Apr. 7, 2025.
Life is busy when you are a top-producing agent, and working in the office is not always a perk. Remote work for agents has been a flex for years, but now, with American corporate culture shifting back into “return to office or else,” many agents who have been very successful working from home or their own spaces may be feeling peer pressure to occupy space back at the mothership.
Top-producing agents know the value of a distraction-free environment and are also savvy about not being charged additional fees for equipment use and renting office space they already have well-appointed elsewhere.
While brokers and franchises are battling out splits, tech, and the latest and greatest shiny object to tempt top producers to their side of the street, coaches and team leaders know that training and education are key elements as well. However, there’s one area that even top managers fail to fix: hostile work environments. Those environments are a major contributing factor to whether an agent chooses to work outside an office.
Let’s break down what is considered a hostile work environment, common complaints from agents, and solutions to solve sticking points. Keep that new agent you worked months to recruit producing for your team longer than six months — and staying for the long haul.
Normal office problems or hostile workplace?
There is a big difference between your oblivious co-worker microwaving broccoli and salmon every day for lunch (and smelling up the whole office) and a hostile work environment.
It’s not that you have a few annoying agents sitting next to you making TikToks; it’s regular neglect from management and harassment from others occurring multiple times over a long period with no correction or attention from higher-ups.
Indeed defines a hostile work environment as follows: “A hostile work environment is one where the words and actions of a supervisor, manager or coworker negatively or severely impact another employee’s ability to complete their work. Any employee can be responsible for creating a hostile work environment.“
Now that you have some context, here are eight indicators that your “fun” place to work may be anything but.
1. ‘This is the best place to work. We are like family’
Here is what I know after years of speaking with agents and admins. If the manager or broker has a “We are like family” mentality in the office, it can often be a symptom of a bigger problem. It means that while there are many great aspects to working for that team, there are usually major issues with work-life balance and making excuses for long-term agents who have really terrible habits and behaviors that have gone unchecked for, potentially, decades.
- Are you going to get coached and mentored? Or are you going to get called into the “living room” and yelled at by someone who is correcting you like you are their child (instead of an independent contractor) when things go sideways?
- Is loyalty to the team pushed so hard that some team members are not getting fair treatment “for the good of the group”?
- Are there “family favorites” who get special treatment?
- When agent Bob says crazy inappropriate things in the office and comes in to drink coffee and harass the admin staff for an hour because he still doesn’t know how to use the scanner, does the broker make excuses or do they actually do something about the agent’s lazy behavior?
This is where “we are like family” comes into play. Are there respectful work relationships, or are team members over-involved in your personal life?
Before moving to a new brokerage, make sure to ask current agents what the management style is like, and if there are any problem agents in the office. This will save you a ton of headaches. Always take some current agents out to lunch to get the real story.
2. You don’t take Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion seriously
There is no code of conduct, there is no official fair housing training follow-up, and someone is walking around the office repeatedly saying that DEI is what is ruining our country and that we need to get back to “traditional values.”
Many real estate offices do not offer any type of HR support at all to make sure that agents have a place to check in with regular office and management issues, while the lack of support and oversight from a third party can also create issues.
3. Tantrums and tea
There’s a now-classic scene in the movie Office Space where frustrated employees take the fax/copy machine that never works and destroy it with a baseball bat. If there are folks in your office (including yourself) who have regular violent tantrums, sprinkled with profanity — this is a major red flag and can be a compounding issue of why other members of your team do not stick around.
Unfortunately, as fun as it may be to dish some piping hot tea with your friends, an office atmosphere that is constantly embroiled in the latest gossip can also create a hostile environment that serious professionals will quickly decide they don’t have time for.
If there is constant drama in the office, and you are not on Bravo, you probably need to get a handle on the work atmosphere.
4. Room for activities … and parking
One thing that creates hostility quickly in a workplace is workstations that do not allow for privacy, are poorly constructed, uncomfortable, contain messy conference rooms that no one wants to clean, and — the worst of the worst — don’t include enough parking for team members and customers.
The cleanliness (and smells) in the space can also contribute to a hostile environment. Don’t cut corners on professional cleaners; no agent wants to be assigned a chore chart when they come into the office.
Make sure that essential office supplies are available, and if you can provide a few healthy snacks, it shows your crew that you are invested in their well-being.
Make sure that your office space is not so posh that it is not ADA-compliant. Creating a cool, hip boutique brokerage is, of course, the “fun” part of developing your brand, but if the furniture is uncomfortable, and someone with a wheelchair can’t access your restroom, workspace or conference room … then you have a major problem.
I have also had agents tell me that they have not chosen a brokerage because of the style and culture of the office; they felt like they wouldn’t fit in with the “clique” that worked there.
5. You constantly have a vacant admin position
If you cannot keep an admin working on staff for you, you may have all of the problems above and then some. I find that the best-run offices are not looking for an “office mom” and a “babysitter” but understand that a great admin who is a pro at transaction management is worth their weight and gold — the secret sauce to attracting and keeping top-producing agents who get things done.
6. Bullies, bros and hazing
When it comes to sales coaching and motivation, if your office looks more like a frat house or the bullpen from Wolf of Wall Street, there is a major problem in your office. It’s not Rush Week, it’s not the ABCs, and you shouldn’t be forcing agents to cold call or door knock against their will. If the antics in the office are out of control, then you may have a serious problem.
A beer fridge and a video gaming system, cigars and a whisky room shouldn’t be the selling point in your recruiting strategy. Professional training, an agent conduct handbook, and educational resources should be available and easy to access for all members of your team. The drinking problems in our industry are out of control, and every brokerage should offer a sober option for agent events and social occasions.
7. Rookie agents who need help with no manager on site
Top-producing agents do not have time to train or teach rookie agents, and it is common practice for newer agents to ask “Can I pick your brain?” or “Can you show me how to be like you?” to busy agents who do not have time for mentoring in their schedule. One of the fastest ways to chase a top agent out of the office is to have them surrounded by new agents who are begging for help, lead referrals and other guidance.
What’s worse is if the top-producing agent has their own assistant or admin that they have hired, and other agents in the office try to use them as well or distract them so that they cannot finish the work for the top-producing agent who hired them. (Also see No. 5.)
8. No accessible spaces or furniture that is difficult for clients to navigate
Top-producing agents often meet clients in coffee shops or restaurants because their offices are not accessible to their clients. Parking, privacy or kid-friendliness can be a real issue. If the office conference room has bar top stools for everyone to sit on, that will not work for clients with mobility issues.
If the office is designer-posed to function like a social media studio but is not child-proof or if it has no area where kids could sit and color and not destroy stuff, agents may not feel comfortable bringing clients into the office. If the public restroom is not handicap accessible or not clean and in good order, that would be another reason agents would not want to bring in clients.
If there is unprofessional behavior in the office regularly, like yelling on the phone or frat house antics, top-producing agents will absolutely not bring their clients into that space.
One of the top stories recently was about some less-than-flattering ways agents make themselves look unprofessional. As a broker or team leader, it’s your responsibility to have a handle on the level of professionalism you expect in and out of the office.
If your office space is “hostile,” then it doesn’t matter how great your guidance, and packages are. You cannot put a price on a clean, safe and peaceful place to bring clients or to come into and quickly knock out essential tasks.
It’s up to brokers and team leaders to make sure that their office is not a chaotic or uncomfortable space. Try to find the Zen for your agents. They will appreciate it.
