When Dennis Cheetham surveys the 25 acres of Beaufort Park in north London, where 1,600 apartments will be completed by next May, he sees it from more than one perspective.
Partly, he views it with a professional eye as a development manager for Consort Property Management, which manages the site. He thinks about the communal areas, keeping good relations with residents and commercial tenants, and managing contractors on site.
More romantically, as a former member of the RAF who served with the force for a decade, he sees in his mind’s eye the old RAF Hendon – an airfield with a proud history and the site from which Beaufort Park was developed.
Not surprisingly, Cheetham takes great pleasure in managing a site that used to be an RAF aerodrome. He also enjoys the fact that the RAF Museum is next door. You can take a serviceman out of the forces, but you can’t take the forces out of the serviceman.
Cheetham is one of a number of ex-servicemen who have found themselves, in one way or another, working in the property business.
Former servicemen and women are often highly rated in a wide variety of jobs for their reliability, self-discipline and resourcefulness. It does not necessarily matter what field they enter once they move into the mainstream workforce.
But despite Cheetham’s success, and that of others like him, property is not a natural area for former service personnel to work in – according to some of the specialist recruitment agencies.
David Beck, managing director of 4exMilitary Jobs, says that logistics, security and technical roles would be more usual. He says: “I can’t say that working in commercial property seems natural for an ex-service person.”
Of course, many of the jobs in the civilian world that military personnel take up are direct reflections of what they did in the forces, but the route each individual takes depends on the nature of their service role.
Beck says: “The problem comes for people who have been a tank commander or a gunner, for example, when there is no obvious parallel in the civilian world.”
But Beck is well aware that perceived military qualities can attract employers, even if a service person’s role cannot be mirrored in the outside world. Tesco, he says, is one of the companies that happily takes ex-service staff for just that reason.
Beck adds, however, that not all employers are as “enlightened” as Tesco and that some have reservations about employing former military people. He says: “Some employers seem to believe that all military people are ‘command and control’ types who won’t necessarily fit in with modern management methods.”
Notwithstanding varying employer attitudes, Beck says, it seems certain that there will soon be more ex-servicemen looking for work. The strategic defence review means that all the armed forces will shrink, putting additional former members into the civilian workforce.
Already, around 24,000 personnel leave the forces every year, and that figure can only increase as the services suffer the effects of cutbacks. And while many do get jobs quite quickly – 96% according to the Ministry of Defence – there is a darker side. A significant minority end up in prison – 3% of all prisoners are ex-military, and difficulties adjusting to civilian life can be serious. The “divorce” from life in the forces – with its strong sense of fellowship – can prove a big loss to many.
Nevertheless, it seems likely that a few will end up working in the property world in one capacity or another, particularly for employers who have had good experiences of taking on service personnel in the past.
That includes Cheetham’s employer, Consort, which manages more than 25,000 flats in 73 developments throughout the UK.
The can-do attitude of former military men can clearly be useful, but Mike Dowland, Consort’s head of operations, says that the company did not set out to employ ex-servicemen in particular – it just found them to be good when it did.
Dowland says: “They have just got certain skills that we like – good organisational skills, strong managers, disciplined. It all helps.”
The first service manager that the company took on was a Navy veteran around eight years ago and “he worked out well”, says Dowland. Before that, he remembers, “we were typically looking at ex-hotel managers”. Consort still does employ ex-hoteliers, but former servicemen have impressed the company enough that it also routinely looks at recruitment agencies that specialise in ex-servicemen for possible new staff.
“I’ve no doubt we will employ more in future,” says Dowland.
Indeed, it seems likely that ex-soldiers, airmen and sailors will turn up in all sorts of jobs in the next few years as the defence cuts bite. Even the nation’s classrooms could see the influence of service discipline, as part of the Troops To Teachers programme proposed by the Conservative Party earlier this year. Under this scheme, former soldiers could retrain as teachers, helping to improve the discipline and attitude in inner city schools.
Property companies may not have such an issue with discipline, but it seems perfectly possible that former members of the forces would have many other qualities that commercial property firms could put to very good use.
Property employers would be well advised to ponder the virtues of employing former military personnel.
Case study: Richard Harbard
Richard Harbard, development manager, Consort
Richard Harbard, who looks after Chelsea Bridge Wharf for Consort, served for nearly 25 years in the Royal Artillery and became an Arctic warfare specialist. For one period of 10 years, he spent three months of each year in Norway and later completed operational tours in Kosovo and in Iraq.
After deciding to leave the army, Harbard did a facilities management degree at Southampton University, and in 2009 became estate manager for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, leaving a year later to work for Consort. Nowadays, his concerns include the 1,100 flats at Chelsea Bridge Wharf and the Pestana Chelsea Bridge Hotel and Spa. His role is to manage Consort’s 23 staff on site and take care of contractors working on the communal areas there.
It is certainly quite a change from a war zone, but Harbard says that, despite obvious differences, the lessons learned in military life do help in the civilian world.
He says: “A lot of what I do is about problem-solving, so to that extent it is similar. Around 90% of the e-mails I get here are about problems. Very few are, ‘Hi, how are you’!”
