COMMENT This month at CBRE UK, we are marking Inclusion Fest, our seventh annual celebration of diversity, equity and inclusion. Across our Inclusion Fest, we host a number of events designed to strengthen our culture where everyone belongs and reflect on the positive influence we can all have. Inclusion Fest offers the opportunity to learn, access support and get involved.
We kicked this off with a panel discussion, hosted by EG editor Samantha McClary, featuring leaders from across the major commercial real estate firms. It offered the chance to discuss how we can collaborate to make our industry more representative of the cities and regions in which we all operate. By coming together, sharing ideas and working collectively to prioritise focus areas, our influence and ability to drive change will be greater.
We spent time at the panel discussion praising the strength of our employee resource groups in influencing policy and culture. At CBRE, we have seven employee networks in the UK: Ability, Armed Forces, Faith, Family, Proud, REACH and Women’s. These groups not only provide networking opportunities, career development programmes and community engagement but have also had an integral role in influencing some of our most significant recent policies: our family friendly offering, menopause policy and an industry first Coming Out Guide to name just a few.
What stuck with me during the discussion is that now we have such well-established groups, our next step is to start to shine a light on intersectional issues. For example, a Muslim woman entering our organisations today can find support both from our Women’s Network, REACH Network and Faith Network, but how do we highlight the very specific challenges facing her at the intersection between these identities?
We can focus on gender and we can focus on ethnicity, but as we make progress, it’s clear a more holistic lens is going to be necessary. This needs to be developed in how we are supporting the activities of our networks, how we are considering new policies and how we are collaborating with other firms to drive change. I’m going to challenge our networks to collaborate more and encourage our business to mature its conversations around the compounding impact of intersectionality. It was evident from across the panel that we won’t be alone in this focus.
Collective effort
As we continue to open up our fantastic industry, especially via our apprentice programme and partnerships with charities such as Career Ready, we are going to have to make our business a place where everyone can thrive. Our recent next generation cohort was our biggest ever intake of graduates and apprentices, so their influence can be considerable and they need to be able to be their authentic selves from day one.
Our DE&I strategy to date has started to build up representation, which is positive and necessary, but our future success relies on ensuring that the toolbox we provide our people reflects everyone’s experiences and needs. The force of will of any one organisation alone is not going to meet the challenges for change. Coming together gives us greater reach, resources and impact.
Collective efforts across our industry, including our clients and supply chain, are the solution to make material progress, from encouraging more young people into the industry to understanding what really unlocks inclusion in the workplace. To close the panel, the leaders all committed to clear actions. I look forward to revisiting this topic next year with these leaders to see how we have progressed and how the conversations around intersectionality are further opening up our industry to change.
Clarence Dixon is global head of loan services and executive sponsor, diversity, equity and inclusion at CBRE
