The jobs cull at LSL was already under way before this week’s announcement of redundancies among Reeds Rains and Your Move staff.
Some 47 jobs had already gone after the decision to close a lettings support centre in the north and move it to an existing operation in the south.
A spokesperson for LSL yesterday confirmed there had been 47 job losses.
It is understood that the centre at Cheadle, Manchester, employed up to 150 people.
It has now been merged with an existing hub in Southampton.
A spokesperson for LSL told EYE: “We confirm that, following a review of our lettings operations across Your Move and Reeds Rains at the end of last year, and following a period of consultation, the decision was taken to centralise our regional lettings support centres into our existing Lettings Hub in Southampton.
“This was part of the LSL Property Services plc ways of working programme which began in the second half of 2017 and progressed through 2018 in support of its objective to deliver improvements to Your Move and Reeds Rains operational performance and enhance their market competitiveness.
“The relocation of our lettings central support activities began last year and is now coming to an end.
“Our priority continues to be in supporting our staff, 47 of which have been made redundant, and customers who have already been informed about the change.”
Comments (13)
Very sad news this. Hope all the staff made redundant find work.
This is horrid. Truly horrid when it happens to anyone.
LSL have reported excellent figures for many years; especially when you look at how well they have done compared to Countrywide, so to many this will seem like a surprise.
This change of plan perhaps signals a change in the way house sellers are choosing their agents nowadays.
The time has come for the independent “truly local” agent, who knows their town and community to provide a stronger more personal offering.
This will be the choice of the future; strong local or cheap on-line. The corporates and regionals with no local connection will find it harder, especially with their high fixed overheads and ivory tower directors taking too much out of every fee.
Good luck to those who are experiencing these tough times.
This has been an incredibly painful time for all staff and comments regarding service or lack of frankly are insulting and unnecessary at this time. Many staff read this website who have been personally affected. This has obviously been a reaction to the marketplace and the need to deliver a PLC profit. Are those making sarky comments perfect – one suspects not! LSL will not be the only corporate reconsidering its position and it is obvious that the fee ban would have an impact on staffing and outlet numbers. There are some incredibly skilled and talented staff now available for other Agents to benefit from. At a time like this think about the personal impact it has had on many who were proud to work for the brands affected. Redundancy wherever it takes pace is brutal and however delivered a bitter blow. Watch others follow suit.
You’re quite right there will be many people that will be put in awkward situations due to being made redundant, I and probably the majority of posters on the site feel for them but the finger of blame can only be pointed in one direction and that’s the decision makes at the top, this goes for all other companies corporate and independent alike, when they made the decision to fleece tenants to make a profit.
I’m not perfect and I don’t profess to be but our letting business was set up around landlord fees and not tenant, yes we have some but the fee ban will have minimal impact. Maybe if others in the industry had done the same then those affected by redundancies wouldn’t be in situation they find themselves.
Please point to any comment on this thread that is sarky
Regretfully l found Woodentops comment unnecessary. Many agents get negative reviews and are unable to defend themselves publicly. Having dealt with complaints of varying types and sizes there is always two sides to a complaint and like it or not the customer is not always right!
Staff try their utmost in sometimes challenging situations. I have lost several over the years due to the abuse that they have received.
Social media basically allows a feeding frenzy without the full story. It a very difficult time and negative comments like Woodentops seem petty and yes sarky.
Dare l say you don’t last 150 years plus doing it that badly!
No intention on my part to be sarcastic, only speaking from experience. My corporate career ended in redundancy along with many my colleagues. Without exception they took the redundancy payment and started their own agency, 95% of whom are still trading profitably 18 years later.
We all believed in what we were doing, strived to be the best in each location. They called it Sequence after we left and ended up shutting most of the branches in our area.
Maybe this is an opportunity for some the staff to go their own way. It didn’t feel like it at the time but redundancy turned out to have been the best thing for me.
TF1968, I don’t think Woodentop meant any malice, unfortunately LSL like all the big corporates treated tenants like cash cows and landlords as just a reference number so it was bound to happen at some stage. You’re quite right saying that customer are not always right and that their are two side to every story but sadly in this day and age there are too many so called charities taking tenants sides and not looking at the full picture. In the end it is always the hard working people at the bottom that suffer.
I would hazard at a guess and say the majority of redundancies will be in their letting division. LSL and many many other agents built the business around tenant fees. Now having lost that income they just wont have the fee income to support the number of staff employed. Unfortunately this is just the beginning and worse is still to come.
I know of one local independent albeit a large and well established one with a few offices and fingers in various pies will be losing around 250k pa
So the customers in Manchester will have to contact Southampton. I suspect they will be losing many landlords. The local agents in Manchester can look forward to a mini boom as the landlords desert. Having spent the first 14 years of a 30 year career in a corporate I am not surprised. This company will be a shell of it’s former self within 18 months.
You want to see the bad reviews the Manchester call centre had! Can only get worse for landlords.
The Your Move customers always did have to use the Southampton hub for lettings, only RR was in Cheadle. That is why landlord turnover at YM was so high, the processes in Southampton are a shambles and there will always be a negative taken from people dealing with a customer service team on the other side of the country, especially when mistakes happen.
One can only imagine the lack of decorum applied to their admin staff during the process.
So not only is there a very unsettled work force at risk but also this will apply to a vast number of their landlords and tenants.
This is a toxic cocktail and makes this business very vulnerable in my opinion.
“…and customers who have already been informed about the change.”
Let’s hope they informed the customers of the change in a more professional manner than they informed their staff eh?