Why we must tap into the rich source of diversity

Take a look around your office, or in the case of lockdown, your daily Zoom call. Check out your company board of directors. Other property leaders. Have you noticed they all have a lot in common? That the majority are male, and an even greater majority are white? Do you get the impression that a lot of them probably met at public school or the university rowing club? The lack of diversity in property is no secret. It has long been perceived as an overwhelmingly male, pale and stale industry. This judgment comes with good reason: according to the RICS, just 14% of the sector’s workforce is female, while a mere 1.2% of people who work in the built environment are from non-white backgrounds, according to BAME in Property. As a result property is missing out on the benefits that diversity can bring to businesses. As WiredScore’s head of London markets Hamish Dupree explained in a recent comment piece for EG, a drastic shift is needed in the way businesses recruit and the types of people they are aiming to attract into the sector. He outlined how black people are being excluded from the sector as a result. “If we only attend university careers fairs we already exclude the talented black students who are not reaching that stage,” Dupree says. “Businesses in real estate need to proactively engage with young black students to showcase what the industry has to offer and, importantly, provide a framework that inspires and removes the barriers to entry.” If recruitment is a catalyst for boosting diversity in all its forms, then how can companies expand their net to make sure they are catching and attracting different types of talented individuals? If, like Dupree says, you find yourself trawling the university graduate career fairs circuit as your main source of recruitment, then you could be missing out on all the talented individuals who may not have gone to university because of social and economic barriers to entry. While Office of National Statistics figures show the number of BAME students increased from 13% in 2002/03 to 20% in 2016/17, this still means propcos are likely to be fishing in a talent pool made up of predominantly white candidates. Alternative routes Offering alternative routes into the sector, such as apprenticeship schemes, is one solution. CBRE’s UK and Ireland chief executive Ciaran Bird set up such a scheme in 2013. He has long voiced his frustration that the sector remains largely unrecognised as a career path in schools, with most falling into the sector through family links. He set up CBRE’s apprenticeship scheme to offer young people an alternative route into property. The scheme inspired other agents to do the same. JLL offers similar apprenticeship and intern schemes. In its effort to diversify its talent pool, it operates a One+1 work experience programme. For every young person who is offered work experience in the business through connections with the industry, a work experience offer is made to a young person with no contacts in the sector. Paul Read, talent acquisition lead at JLL, says: “For our current employees we ensure those who joined via non-traditional, non-graduate, routes have equal access to training and development. As a result, 85% of our apprentices now have permanent roles with JLL.” Enabling ability The programme is similar to the Pathways to Property Summer School, set up by the University of Reading’s Henley Business School, to get young people who have had limited interactions with the industry into a career. Each year (this year’s course will be virtual), around 100 students in their first year of A-levels take part. Programme delivery manager Louise Welland says students largely come from backgrounds where they have no links to the industry, often have no family experience of higher education and live in areas of deprivation but aspire to find out more about a career in property. “Many opportunities in the industry come from family and friends,” she says. “For many people who are not part of these networks, they aren’t afforded the same opportunity to learn and get initial opportunities to get on the ladder. “There is a need to break this cycle of hiring the same people and to think outside this framework to embrace candidates who can bring different experiences to the business. It should be less about who you know and more about what your unique experience can offer, paired with the ability and drive to succeed.” Research has found there are multiple benefits to employing people with disabilities. In a Disability Rights UK and Reed in Partnership survey of more 300 businesses, 84% of respondents said disabled employees had made a valuable contribution to the workplace. And that contribution is financial too. Official figures reveal that even a 5% boost in employment of disabled people would add £23bn to the UK’s GDP by 2030. However, a cursory look around the industry will show that the number of disabled property professionals is even lower than women and people of colour. But that is beginning to change. M&G Real Estate has signed up to the Change 100 programme, which aims to tap into the benefits of employing more people with disabilities by enabling students and graduates with a disability or long-term health condition to gain a work placement. Two interns will be placed in its real estate and fixed-income investment specialist teams. M&G chief property portfolio officer Sajeev Sharma says the initiative is part of the company’s aim to attract a more diverse range of candidates into the sector and offer different ways to help develop people’s careers. “The interns will be embedded in these teams for the duration of the internship, as well as participating in numerous senior business speaker, networking and virtual social events,” he says. Accelerating the agenda For Real Estate Balance managing director Sue Brown, now has never been a better time to address the lack of diversity in the industry. She says Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have highlighted how important the issue really is to business. “What I’m hoping is that Covid-19 enhances the fact that we’ve got to be kinder to each other,” says Brown. “People clearly need to look at Black Lives Matter in a sense of making people think more about what people of colour face in their day-to-day lives. People should be talking about this, and accept that some people have been excluded from work because they are a woman, or because they are black or because they are gay.” Accepting that the industry needs to do more is a critical step in making real change, says Brown. And realising that setting up a stall at a university careers fair isn’t going to fix the industry’s crippling lack of diversity is one part of that critical step on the long road to a more inclusive, vibrant industry. To send feedback, e-mail lucy.alderson@egi.co.uk or tweet @LucyAJourno or @estatesgazette