COMMENT The Future Leaders programme will undoubtedly provide JLL with the opportunity to contribute to real and much-needed change to diversify real estate, but we are equally as excited about engaging with the industry’s unseen talent.
I have no doubt that we will take as much away from this experience as the future leaders will. Enduring partnerships will be formed that will pose real challenges to the industry as it stands and, I hope, inspire even more people to step forward and to see a long-term career for themselves in the profession.
These future leaders are the role models for the next generation. I look forward to seeing a breadth of talented individuals more representative of the society we operate in coming to the fore and progressing.
We will get an invaluable opportunity to understand any challenges that these individuals have faced, on both a professional and personal level. And we need their views on how to open up real estate to talented people from all backgrounds and hopefully begin to understand how the challenges they might have faced can be eradicated to benefit themselves and others too. All of these learnings will be taken back to our business to help us address our own diversity challenges, and I hope the industry can benefit from these insights too – real estate lags behind on diversity and more must be done.
We are also really pleased that the programme spans the breadth of the built environment and will provide us with the opportunity to connect and engage with a talented and diverse group of people from across the whole profession. The way the industry meets the needs of its clients has evolved so much from the traditional world of surveying. It now includes experts from a broad range of disciplines that come together to deliver creative solutions to make the built environment the best it can be. And we are really excited about what we can learn from those working in other areas of real estate.
I am sure that all mentors and managers will agree that supporting others in their careers helps them to reflect on their own professional journeys – and that there is much they can learn from the next generation. The individuals from JLL that will be supporting the programme will benefit from some genuinely fresh perspectives – and understand the unique challenges that some of the most talented individuals in the industry have faced, and in some cases are still facing, as well as what can be done to address inequality.
The Future Leaders programme will also provide us with a glimpse into the future – these individuals are the leaders that businesses across the industry will be handed over to – it’s important to work with them to shape an industry that they want to be part of in the long-term. Becoming a good and effective leader not only takes expertise, intelligence and experience, it also requires opportunities to progress. The programme will enable us to play a role in providing those opportunities the people that will take the profession forwards for the benefit of us all.
Claire England is head of diversity and inclusion at JLL
