For decades, real estate operated on a relatively straightforward talent equation.
Projects started. Teams assembled. Buildings got delivered. People moved on.
The model made sense when developers handled fewer projects, operated in limited geographies and relied heavily on contractor-led execution. Talent flowed in and out of projects much like materials and machinery.
But the industry's operating environment has changed.
Projects are larger. Buyers are more informed. Compliance requirements are tighter. Developers are managing multiple projects across cities simultaneously. In that environment, the workforce model that once gave the industry flexibility is beginning to reveal its limits.
According to Mohan Monteiro, Chief Human Resources Officer at House of Hiranandani, the challenge is no longer simply finding people to execute projects. It is retaining organisational capability at scale.
"The cost of repeatedly rebuilding capability exceeds the cost of retaining and strengthening it," he says.
That observation sits at the centre of a broader shift unfolding across the real estate sector.
Why flexibility is no longer enough
Real estate has traditionally depended on project-based hiring because the business itself was organised around projects.
Teams came together for delivery and dispersed once work was completed.
Monteiro believes that equation begins to break down when organisations start operating across multiple locations simultaneously.
Continuity, he says, has become a business requirement rather than a workforce preference.
The reason is simple. Construction may end when a building is completed, but execution does not.
Quality standards, regulatory compliance, customer experience and delivery consistency must travel across projects, cities and business cycles.
At the same time, the sector faces rising hiring demand alongside a shortage of skilled talent.
The result is a growing tension between workforce flexibility and institutional consistency.
Customers increasingly expect the same experience regardless of which project they buy into or who executes the work.
That expectation changes the accountability equation.
As Monteiro points out, customers expect institutional consistency whether execution is managed internally or through contractors.
The industry's real debate is not permanent versus contractual
Workforce discussions in real estate often get reduced to a simple question: should companies hire permanently or rely on contract labour?
Monteiro believes that framing misses the point.
The real challenge, he says, is maintaining flexibility without sacrificing accountability.
Certain functions, particularly project management, quality assurance and customer experience, directly influence what customers eventually receive. Those capabilities need to remain anchored within the organisation.
At the same time, flexible workforce models still play an important role on construction sites where labour demand fluctuates through different project phases.
What has changed is the level of oversight.
Developers are facing:
- Greater customer scrutiny
- Public tracking of project timelines
- Increased regulatory accountability under RERA
- Higher expectations around delivery consistency
In this environment, ownership and visibility matter as much as workforce flexibility.
The question is no longer whether labour is permanent or contractual. The question is who remains accountable when something goes wrong.
The overlooked risk hiding in India's labour ecosystem
One of the most significant challenges facing the sector receives surprisingly little attention in strategic discussions.
India's construction industry employs approximately 71 million people, making it one of the country's largest employment generators.
Yet much of that workforce remains embedded in informal or semi-formal arrangements.
Daily wage structures, project-to-project movement and limited continuity remain common.
The problem is that construction work itself has become far more sophisticated.
Today's premium residential developments involve:
- Complex MEP systems
- Advanced façade engineering
- Smart home technologies
- Precision installation requirements
The skill requirements have risen sharply.
The workforce ecosystem has not necessarily evolved at the same pace.
Monteiro identifies three major risks emerging from this mismatch.
The first is quality.
Workers operating within informal structures often have limited incentives to invest in long-term skill development, even as technical complexity increases.
The second is compliance.
As enforcement of the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Act strengthens, developers increasingly carry responsibility as principal employers.
The third risk is continuity.
Skilled workers tend to follow projects rather than employers. Critical trades can disappear midway through execution, creating disruption for projects backed by institutional capital and committed delivery timelines.
Industry efforts such as e-Shram and NSDC certification are pushing formalisation, although progress remains gradual.
The sales model is also under pressure
The conversation around workforce transformation is not limited to construction sites.
Monteiro believes real estate sales functions face a similar inflexion point.
Historically, sales teams operated under high-incentive, high-attrition structures designed for a broker-led market where buyers depended heavily on sales professionals for information.
That environment has changed dramatically.
Today's buyers often arrive after conducting extensive research online.
They have already reviewed project details, checked developer track records and examined timelines before engaging with a salesperson.
The role increasingly revolves around informed engagement rather than aggressive closing tactics.
At the same time, the cost of attrition may be significantly higher than many organisations recognise.
Monteiro notes that replacing an employee can cost roughly six to nine months of salary.
In real estate sales, the impact often extends beyond replacement costs.
When sales professionals leave during active projects, customer relationships can become vulnerable.
Although modern CRM systems help preserve customer history, trust and continuity remain difficult to transfer overnight.
For organisations focused on repeat buyers and referral-driven growth, workforce stability becomes a commercial advantage rather than simply an HR metric.
Talent is slowly moving from cost centre to business asset
Perhaps the most important shift Monteiro describes is philosophical.
Real estate has historically evaluated talent through the lens of project economics.
Training, retention and leadership development often struggled to compete with immediate project cost considerations.
That mindset is beginning to evolve.
According to Monteiro, larger developers increasingly recognise that execution quality, customer experience and delivery consistency depend on long-term capability rather than project staffing alone.
The transition remains incomplete.
The industry still carries strong project-cost instincts.
Yet scale is forcing change.
Developers managing multiple concurrent projects are discovering that retained expertise creates advantages that cannot easily be replicated through continuous hiring cycles.
Institutional knowledge, once treated as a by-product of operations, is increasingly viewed as a strategic asset.
Breaking down silos may become a competitive differentiator
Another area undergoing transformation is organisational alignment.
Historically, site teams, sales teams and corporate leadership often operated in separate streams.
That separation becomes difficult to sustain when customers have access to real-time information and expect consistent communication.
According to Monteiro, leading developers are investing in:
- Integrated ERP systems
- Connected CRM platforms
- Shared review mechanisms
- Real-time project visibility across functions
The objective is straightforward.
Every stakeholder should be working from the same information.
When project updates, sales communication and leadership decisions become disconnected, customers notice quickly.
The consequence is not merely operational inefficiency.
It is erosion of trust.
As Monteiro observes, customer trust is rarely built by a single department. It emerges from organisational alignment across the entire enterprise.
The next growth phase may belong to capability builders
For years, discussions about growth in real estate largely revolved around land acquisition, project pipelines and access to capital.
Monteiro believes the next phase will be different.
The differentiator may increasingly be organisational capability.
Three shifts stand out in his assessment:
- Greater workforce formalisation and skill development
- Leaders with cross-functional understanding of execution, finance, customer expectations and risk
- More data-driven HR functions focused on workforce planning, retention and capability forecasting
Those changes may sound operational.
In reality, they touch the core of business performance.
As projects become larger, timelines tighter and customer expectations higher, workforce decisions increasingly influence commercial outcomes.
The industry's traditional model delivered flexibility when flexibility was the primary requirement.
The next stage of growth appears to demand something different.
Continuity.
And in a sector built around projects, that may prove to be one of the hardest capabilities to build.