Diversity has been a buzzword across the industry this year, but has there been the action to support the intent, or are agents still operating in the dark ages?
All the rhetoric would have you believe that the UK’s agency fraternity was focused on rebalancing its workforce to be more diverse and reflective of the population at large. However, Estates Gazette’s latest Top Agents survey reveals it still has a long way to go before it can drop the fraternity moniker.
An analysis of partner/director posts held by men and women shows that of the respondents that provided gender breakdown, men held 88% of the positions. Across the firms surveyed, there are 2,569 male partners or directors compared with just 359 females in the same position.
In administrative or support roles the reverse was true. Men held 1,312 of the 4,878 positions, while women represented 73% of that workforce.
So is the industry really working hard enough to diversify?
In this year’s Estates Gazette Salary Survey, the pay gap between men and women held firm as respondents reported a 23% difference – the same as last year but a big leap compared with just 18% in 2012. This year the difference came in at an average of just over £12,000 based on an average male pay packet of £55,256 compared with £42,481 for women.
And this year 21% of all respondents felt they had been discriminated against at work (up from 17% last year) with half of those saying it was based on their gender.
The low numbers of women in senior positions is often attributed to life events such as motherhood and a failure, unwillingness or inability to return to work. However, just 15% of the 51 firms that responded to EG’s survey had any sort of returnship programme in place to help people who have taken an extended break from their careers get back into the business. And just 15% more said they were considering setting one up.
Furthermore, 57.5% of the UK’s top agents had no formal diversity monitoring programme in place. Only 27.5% did.
Programmes that do exist include Changing the Face of Property and Stonewall’s diversity champions programme. JLL has taken a strong position on diversity and has established a number of staff networks, including Building Pride, Race for Change, and women, working parents and apprentice networks. It also recently ran a language campaign to highlight the subtle (and not so subtle) comments and behaviours that can make people feel uncomfortable or excluded.
While the percentage of those firms that do have a formal system in place may be low, some 52.4% said that they had introduced policies to promote the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.
But promoting diversity is not all about women and sexuality, it is also about getting people from a broader range of backgrounds and education into the industry.
While almost three-quarters of firms are taking on either the same number of graduates or more this financial year, they do not appear to be widening their graduate recruitment pool.
Some 90.5% believe that the traditional real estate universities, such as Reading, Oxford Brookes and University of West England, are providing the calibre of graduates required for their businesses. Only 41% have widened their recruitment pool to include summer placement programmes and non-property universities, etc.
Fewer than half of the firms surveyed had a structured internship in place or apprenticeship/school leaver programme – 48.9% and 42.9% respectively.
However, more than 100 apprentices are set to join the property world this year through 17 separate firms.
With staff retention being labelled the biggest challenge to business over the coming 12 months, the UK’s agency sector may need to look at these results and respond in a way that helps attract, rather than block, a more diverse workforce.
As the Salary Survey shows, cash is no longer king when it comes to attracting and retaining staff. Today, the atmosphere and character of a firm can be much more powerful than a golden handshake.
Charitable giving
Despite its reputation, there is philanthropy within the property sector. Every year the industry donates millions to charities including LandAid, Variety, Coram, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and many more.
According to the Top Agents survey, just over 70% of the consultancies that took part donated a proportion of their earnings to charity, with just over half giving more this year than last.
CBRE has a policy that sees it donate 0.5% of EBITDA to charity, so a good year for the business means a better year for the charities it supports.
But it is not just the big firms that do their bit. The smaller firms often do more comparatively. North West surveying firm Roger Hannah & Co, which has a turnover of less than £2m pa, this year donated £50,000 to local charity the Oasis Centre. The firm undertakes free work for the charity and is engaged in a transaction that is set to raise £1m in developer’s profit, all of which will be given to the Oasis Centre to help build a new day centre.
The 16 firms that revealed exact figures for their charitable donations provided almost £840,000 to a wide range of benefactors last year.
