'All Troglodytes Welcome': This DE&I Event Will Give Practical Insights To Improve Your Business

Some real estate leaders are still unwilling — or too busy — to engage on the subject of diversity, equality and inclusion. But they should, because the level of success they can achieve as a business is directly influenced by it.

This is the view of the panellists at the upcoming Rise event. These industry experts will share their insights on what it takes to lead a DE&I strategy, including how using data can create an effective strategy. At the same time, attendees will hear from Rise honorees about their successful initiatives.

LaSalle Vice President and event panellist Jon Zehner said that even those reluctant to engage on the subject of DE&I will find a way to help make their business more successful.

“All troglodytes are welcome,” Zehner said. “This is not just another diversity event. Leaders set the tone in their company by what they do, how they act, how they encourage teams to consider diversity. But the wider industry organisations need to play their part as well.”

The most important tool an organisation needs in order to improve DE&I is data, said British Land Head of Employee Relations and DE&I Ade Onagoruwa, a panellist at the event. While many businesses carry out employee surveys, what they do with the results divides them into three categories.

“The first carries out a survey and does nothing with the results,” he said. “The result is employee apathy. The second takes some measurements and tackles the easy fixes, then says ‘look what we’re doing’. The third, of which there aren’t many, actually listens and interrogates the feedback, cutting it up using data points to make choices. They can tell employees what they can’t do and what they can do, then do it.”

British Land falls into the third category though it hasn’t always, Onagoruwa said. The organisation now analyses data from employee surveys by sorting it using diversity-related filters. All new recruits are asked a range of diversity questions, including about gender, ethnicity, disability, age and whether they attended university or received free school meals.

British Land also tracks promotions and retention in an attempt to uncover challenges and areas that need improvements. At the Rise event, Onagoruwa will share insights that British Land has derived from the data it collects and how this has led to actions.

“Being able to focus on the less obvious areas makes for fascinating reading,” he said. “For example, it’s less obvious that employees with a disability were less engaged. Or I can tell you that the age range 35-44 is the least engaged at the moment. This informs our DE&I strategy and creates day-to-day applications for what we need to address until the next survey.”

Event panellist Esmee Vermolen, partner and head of technology and innovation at executive search firm Granger Reis, said that measuring diversity is an important tool for organisations. She is working on a global study of how senior women in real estate view diversity in the sector. The survey asked questions focusing on the challenges they face, whether their company is supportive of women and how inclusive the sector is.

Vermolen will outline the results of the survey at the Rise event and give her insights into how real estate organisations are currently approaching DE&I.

“A company like ours gets feedback from all parts of the industry, so we have a helicopter view of organisations,” she said. “Clients say things to us about their drive for diversity and when it comes to employing people in leadership roles, we need to make sure they commit to this. To create a truly diverse search process, you have to have an open mind to different profiles, which could also be opening a search to people from other industries who have transferable skills and could bring a different lens.”

More widely, measurement is just not happening across the industry, said BGO Strategic Capital Partners co-Head Cherine Aboulzelof, a panellist at the Rise event. It’s possible to count on one hand the number of organisations that are leading effective measurement of DE&I.

Another problem is that not enough organisations ensure all employees understand the need to improve DE&I.

“If leaders don’t role model a DE&I strategy and communicate and articulate it all the way down an organisation, it just doesn’t get implemented,” Aboulzelof said. “A lot is to do with socialising the initiative. What is the end goal within the entire company? If a strategy comes from the top that’s fine, but it will fail where it is not filtering through.”

All the honourees who will be profiled at the Rise event have been selected because of the tangible impact they are having on the organisation and the wider industry. Attendees will learn from live examples of what is working. This is the kind of knowledge that will help an organisation to succeed, not just in DE&I, but as a business, Vermolen said.

“There are many studies showing that diverse organisations are more successful,” she said. “In the worst-case scenario, you will have a better culture and a company that people want to work at, which doesn’t sound like a worst case to me.”

Zehner said that the wider industry is increasingly asking organisations to consider and improve on DE&I. While some people naturally understand that having a workplace with diversity of thought is more constructive, others may wait for industry pressure and the need to disclose data.

“The big institutional investors of the world have a tremendous amount of influence,” he said. “They have to decide the criteria on which they make a commitment. For some it will be the quality of technology or track record, for others it will be sustainability. But if you consider more subjective criteria, DE&I is an area where investors can push hard, which is pushing transparency for us.”

Overall, attendees at the Rise event will learn from those sharing best practice in two areas, Onagoruwa said. Firstly in the area of engagement and retention and secondly in terms of retaining competitive edge and increasing profitability.

“Those two boxes are what you need to understand as a leader to make a company go from being good to great,” he said. “I’m not saying the event will have all the answers, but people sharing their lived experiences and knowledge will mean people will walk away with more understanding of what they need to do.”

Bisnow's event The Rise Initiative UK: Elevating Diversity Within CRE will take place on 22 June. Sign up now to attend.