Let me be frank: as an industry, we lack diversity – but not for lack of trying. The number of companies that lack diversity initiatives is near zero, so it didn’t surprise me to read in the Harvard Business Review that many chief executives are now frustrated about the whole issue.
Why is it, in the midst of all these initiatives, so difficult to achieve a better gender balance at the middle and senior levels? Why, despite conferences firing us up with inspiring corporate missions, are we all still talking about the need for greater diversity but failing to deliver?
A recent study from Bain & Co highlighted a key dilemma in the management of female corporate talent. In short, when recruited, almost half of female new recruits signal a desire for top management, compared with about a third of males, and about a quarter of both genders signal a strong confidence in their chances to achieve this. However, after as little as two years, this initial ambition and confidence diminishes among women and starts to increase in men.
What this highlights is that it is not enough merely to hire for diversity. Companies need to think about their diversity strategy in terms of “talent lifecycles”. In particular, they need to ensure that initiatives to hire women are not sabotaged by the subsequent lack of understanding about what management action is necessary to keep those young ambitious women in the workforce and enthused and motivated to progress.
This is not just about helping women through the child-rearing years – though that is clearly a key cause of attrition – but about establishing the sort of culture that makes women want to stay. I suspect the deployment of more and more fragmented initiatives may even be part of the problem, as they divert attention from the more strategic issue of a core practice for ensuring diversity throughout the talent pipeline.
As argued by Sophia Kerby and Crosby Burns in their piece for American Progress, a diverse workforce drives growth, captures more market share, and radically diminishes employee turnover costs.
Thus, as an area I have discussed on many an occasion with industry leaders, diversity is not a “women’s issue” or an “HR issue”, it is a value issue and a cold, hard cash issue.
So, here are some questions for property executives to ponder about not letting talent go to waste:
● Are you counting on short-term initiatives to solve a long-term problem?
● Are you wasting money on recruiting for diversity by not following through?
● Do you use the same level of care to nurture talented women as you do to recruit them?
● Do you have a strategy and culture that offers dedicated support to women to encourage them to stay on into middle and senior management?
● And perhaps most important of all, is your diversity strategy meaningful and aligned with your value production so that all employees – male and female – are in no doubt that this is a culture that really does want to ensure a gender-balanced workforce at all levels?
Liz Peace is an adviser on property, politics and the built environment
