Late last month, the RICS held its second annual diversity conference. Misa Von Tunzelman, lead director for marketing and communications and diversity sponsor at JLL, was there to report back on the progress made on widening diversity in the real estate sector
Five days on from the referendum, with the industry still making sense of the uncertainty we find ourselves in, I wondered how many drop-outs there would be at the RICS’ second Annual Diversity and Inclusion Conference. I needn’t have worried. Granted, some of the chief executives you’d hope to see were understandably missing and a few people were popping out for calls or e-mails, but there were 200 people in the room, with most of the major firms represented and more besides. Perhaps diversity is being taken seriously in our industry after all.
Amanda Clack, the new RICS president, used this, her first external engagement, to call on senior leaders to incorporate diversity into their business strategies.
Some have already done so. During its first year, there have been some 100 signatories to the RICS Inclusive Employers Quality Mark, representing some 45,000 employees. In reality, however, it takes more than signatures and commitments.
Last year’s conference was a good starting point, with an emphasis on building the business case for diversity. Now all but the most stuck in the mud have bought into the “why” of diversity and inclusion, the key is “how”?
And the “how” was very much the focus this year, with practical examples of what is working.
Simon Kirby, chief executive of HS2, opened the conference by challenging us to follow the example of the banks and professional services firms to speed up change. With his company creating some 25,000 jobs in infrastructure and construction, he was focused on adjustments to the recruitment process to remove barriers such as exclusive requirements in job specs (for example, it is hard to find many women with 20 years’ experience in signalling); holding “get onboard” events for women looking to return to work or for a career change; anonymising CVs to avoid unconscious bias in all its forms; and, crucially, creating 2,000 apprenticeships with two dedicated colleges being built to provide training and skills development.
Kirby explained the value he got from reverse mentoring and how his leadership team now pick each other up and call out the wrong kind of behaviour. “I liken diversity to safety: if you let the small things go, you might have a big accident.”
With £8.6bn of civil engineering work up for tender in the near future, HS2’s focus on diversity and inclusion in the supply chain should have a meaningful impact on the wider engineering and construction industry too, with Kirby adamant that action will speak louder than words in the bidding process.
Practical advice came from Vinay Kapoor, UK head of diversity and inclusion at BNP Paribas, who explained how diversity and inclusion is a business imperative for the group, not an HR initiative. A similar story to other best practice examples unfolded with a focus on recruitment processes, training, and staff networks. With a third of staff involved in one or more staff networks, they have a big part to play in building connections across BNP’s business.
Kapoor also explained how he was able to be at the event because BNP’s carer support benefit had enabled him to get emergency care for an elderly parent when his normal provision fell down.
Pam Duke of the RICS’s zChanging the Face of Property group and I got on stage in one of the lunchtime breakouts to talk about staff engagement. It was a great opportunity to highlight the impact that the group has made in schools and at careers fairs, promoting property as a place to build a career and hopefully encouraging more colleagues to get involved.
The 10 firms involved in Changing the Face of Property have found that the diversity and inclusion agenda has helped to increase staff engagement with our firms as employers, as well as building an understanding of the issues facing minority groups.
Examples – such as the schools’ Insights Week and the careers advisers CPD training organised across our firms, Urban Plan, CBRE’s recent Pride in London breakfast and JLL’s award-nominated #cantbelieveisaidthat video series – are all things that have worked for us and can be shared more widely across the industry.
The most useful presentation for me came from Maggie Stilwell, EY’s managing partner for talent in the UK and Ireland, who gave the audience some insight into the firm’s five-year plan to increase diversity at the highest levels.
She advised the audience not to be scared to put in and publicise targets, and highlighted where firms often go wrong despite having clear targets and an inclusive recruitment policy at junior level.
She highlighted the key barriers EY had identified to achieving its diversity goals: attrition of diverse talent, performance ranking and promotions of diverse talent, and selection of experienced hires as well as junior talent. EY is tackling this with a commitment to three principles: fair representation at all levels, no regression and no dilution.
It was a worthwhile day with some good ideas and suggestions shared and a definite spirit of collaboration, but no silver bullet as to how to crack the diversity and inclusion conundrum once and for all. One question asked at the end of our breakout summed up the challenge for me: “We have the agreement to go ahead with a diversity programme but we just need to get going – how do we get the agreement off the piece of paper and into action?”
Over a glass of prosecco later that evening, I got talking to a graduate who had recently joined a large drinks manufacturer. I asked what brought her to the event and she told me that on joining her company a few months ago, she was surprised to find they didn’t have an LGBT network, so she and some colleagues had set one up and it is now operating across the whole of Europe.
I asked how they got their plans off
the ground and got a puzzled look back. “We just got on with it,” she said.
