REWIRE: I had been reading the many stories in the media about the #metoo movement and attitude to women in business when I came across Samantha McClary’s article “After dinner comes the ethical dessert”, which discussed the Presidents Club scandal and our industry’s role in such a toxic culture, writes Gerald Eve surveyor Sarah Chicken.
In particular, GVA chief executive Gerry Hughes’ commentary stood out. He took a pragmatic approach and stated that, if we are to promote diversity in our industry, we need think to think practically. We need to start at grassroots level and get into schools to talk to young people about the industry that we’re so passionate about.
At the time of reading the article, I had been approached by four different people from various backgrounds who had either finished their degrees or were starting to think about life after university. They had all developed a serious interest in real estate and were either applying for masters degrees or were searching for work experience opportunities.
Real estate careers off the menu
The message from each of them was the same: “I wish I had known about this sooner.” None of their schools had presented careers in real estate to them as an option and, much like myself, they had never heard of a real estate management degree when they were sitting their GCSEs.
I was lucky enough to have surveyors in my family whom I could ask for advice about real estate, but most young people do not, and our industry is missing out as a result. It’s great that so many of us are talking about the lack of diversity on the top rungs of our industry, but if we are failing to reach out to young people of all backgrounds to talk about what we do, this won’t change for future generations. This is something that the law and medical professions do really well. We’ve got some catching up to do.
“Those who wanted to study law or medicine were given a private audience with the head teacher in the run up to university applications, while my careers adviser had never heard of the real estate undergraduate degree or Oxford Brookes University.”
When I was at school, there was no representation from surveyors at careers evenings. I was able to arrange work experience through friends of the family but I was the only one to visit a surveying firm. Those who wanted to study law or medicine were given a private audience with the head teacher in the run up to university applications while my careers adviser had never heard of the real estate undergraduate degree or Oxford Brookes University. I received a lot of well-meaning but ultimately useless advice, simply because the school wanted to help me but didn’t know how.
I reached out to my sister’s school with these thoughts and they invited me to talk at an event it was holding for their year eight students. It was a careers morning at which female speakers representing a wide range of career paths were going to talk to the students about the range of options available to them and run activities relating to their jobs. The industries represented included science and technology, theatre, law, medicine and engineering.
On the day, we presented twice so that the girls could be rotated to hear from all of us before being given a class of 20 students each to run our activities. I have to say, having never considered becoming a teacher, I was nervous about keeping a group of 13-year-old girls entertained and engaged for 45 minutes but was looking forward to the challenge.
REWIRE is about recognising and empowering the under-represented in real estate so that the next generation entering the profession do not need special clubs. Our goal is for REWIRE to become redundant.
In-class exercise
Having put them into groups, I presented them with a site plan of their sports fields and told them to imagine a world where their school had decided to ban PE and make better use of their land (they were extremely supportive). They were asked to look at the site and to think carefully about the surrounding uses, how the school could generate income and what the council might support. They were then asked to present their ideas to the rest of the class.
Before the day, I was apprehensive that my keen interest in real estate, and development in particular, would be deeply uncool to teenage girls but I was really pleased with how interested and engaged they were.
Although there were a couple of lazy rivers with dolphins proposed, the majority were thinking carefully about what would work and were asking me all the right questions about what they should be including. Several proposed selling off portions of the land to housebuilders to fund development that would benefit the school and one or two girls were even Googling the Local Plan.
Lesson of the day
The lesson of the day was that, although they do love Snapchat, Instagram and having fun with their friends (one group presented part of their site plan through the medium of dance), teenagers deserve a lot more credit than we give them.
If we engage with them and show that we are passionate and excited about what we do, they will respond positively. Through their questions, it became clear to me that they were interested in jobs that have an impact on the world around them, something that I know real estate is more than capable of providing.
Many of the girls came away from the day having heard about surveying and the RICS for the first time.
For me, if just one of the girls I spoke to that day is now asking questions about surveying, it was time well spent and through getting involved with REWIRE, I hope that I can be a part of many more events like this in the future.
