Earlier this year, we came together for a strategic planning day. Facilitated by Deloitte, the day allowed us to set down our collective goals for the coming three years and define what success looks like. We now have a united commitment to a new Strategic Plan that will see REIA and all the state and territory REI’s working collaboratively to drive better outcomes.
The new Strategic Plan has three main objectives: advocacy, education and governance.
Advocacy
From its inception back in 1924, one of the key roles of the REIA has been to represent the interests of the real estate profession at a national level. This is as true today as it was back then – and the new Strategic Plan sees us recommitting to this role.
Our goal is to be sought out and respected as the custodian of our profession and the industry, and be the trusted advisor to consumers and other stakeholders.
To do this, we’ll be working hard to create a robust, proactive lobbying program and actively build strong relationships with senior politicians and government officials. We already have open lines of communication across the various levels of government and our media presence is stronger than it’s ever been. But we know there’s always more to be done and we’ll be doing everything we can to embed ourselves in the minds of politicians, bureaucrats and consumers alike as the go-to voice for real estate across the nation.
Part of this will be strengthening the REI brand, so it is positioned in a consistent way across all states and territories and serves to bolster our advocacy efforts.
Education
Education is at the core of everything we do as agents and we know that we must work collectively to raise standards of education to improve the service agents deliver to consumers and improve the perception of agents.
While the different states and territories each have different regulatory environments that require different training outcomes for the purposes of compliance, there are also many similarities and these will form part of a new professional education program.
We’re already on the pathway toward professionalism and we’ll be working closely with all the REI’s to achieve our goal of attaining recognition as a profession by the end December 2017.
Governance
The final objective in our new Strategic Plan relates to the governance of REIA. Our goal is to establish effective, accountable, united and transparent governance that is respected by all state and territory REI’s. By the end of 2018, we will have a system of governance in place that ensures Board diversity, rotation and independence.
Measuring our success
REIA CEO Jock Krietals has prepared an implementation plan (including budget, monitoring, reporting and review mechanisms) to ensure we stay on track to achieving our goals under the Strategic Plan. The implementation plan recognises and highlights where the REI’s are making a material contribution to the achievement of our goals.
I look forward to sharing news of our successes with you.