COMMENT Savills has become the first of the major agents to report on its gender pay gap this year, and let’s give it at least a little bit of a pat on the back for starting to move the dial in the right direction.
While 82% of the top earners in Savills are still male (disappointingly up from 79% in 2017), the group has reduced its mean gender pay gap from 45% in 2017 to 39% last year.
Granted the gap has not been closed, but in just the second year of reporting, even a little nudge in the right direction deserves a bit of celebration.
“Fully closing this gap is going to take time,” said UK managing director Richard Rees. “But we are committed to achieving gender balance and have implemented a range of initiatives to help reduce the gap, working with colleagues from right across our business to ensure an open and transparent process.”
This week we are celebrating International Apprenticeship Week and International Women’s Day with a special edition of EG.
It would be remiss of me not to take the serendipitous opportunity in my first week as the second female editor of EG in 170-plus years not to dedicate a few pages to the diversity and inclusion agenda.
First up you will get a sneak peek at some of the wonderful “how to” guide book written by CBRE’s Amanda Clack and RICS’ Judith Gabler about how to manage diversity and inclusion. It’s a guide predominantly for chief executives but has advice in there we can all use. And, if you like what you’re reading, and want to buy a collection of the books for your management team (many of your peers already have, by the way), we are offering you a very special discount.
Alongside that excerpt, we find out what Real Estate Balance’s newly installed managing director Kaela Fenn-Smith and chair Vivienne King are doing to bring men into the gender equation, hear from the female-dominated team at Ellandi about how they are making sure the internal make-up of the business reflects the communities they serve, and take a look at the sorry state of affairs when it comes to funding for female founders and what we as an industry can do to improve the figures.
There’s also thought-provoking comment from EG Rising Stars BAME in Property founder Priya Shah and Transport for London apprentice Kimberly Hepburn, and Taylor Wessing’s Clare Harman Clark.
Now, I may be looking at the industry through different eyes from the big chair, but I’m entirely encouraged by the path it is on. We may be preparing to head down to that most traditional of industry gatherings at MIPIM, but I am hopeful that the industry but will be anything but like its old self.
This week, at our first EG TechLive of the year the audience was deliciously diverse, in gender, age, ethnicity, sector, even outfits – not just the blue-suit brigade – and the discussions held were refreshingly broad, spanning people, culture, healthcare, happiness, security and societal impact.
It will be very easy, one year on from the President’s Club scandal, to look back at how awful things were. It will probably even be quite easy to tell a story of how little we have moved forward. But we have moved and we will continue to move. And while we might not get there overnight, it is the progression we should seek and celebrate, not just perfection.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
