Sometimes it’s subtle. It’s the throwaway comment made in the office kitchen area about where you come from (no, where you really come from), or a “joke” after a few drinks at a networking event about not “sounding very Black”.
But most of the time, it’s much less subtle. It’s systematic. You look around the room and realise no one looks like you. Or you notice that your board of directors are all white. Or you’re overlooked for a promotion, again. Or you’re told it will be hard for you to succeed in property “as a Black female”.
These are all experiences that people from Black, Asian, or minority ethnic backgrounds working in property have had. And while the vast majority of us will agree that racism like this is completely unacceptable, there is often a tendency to sweep the issue under the carpet and say that it happens infrequently.
In fact, EG’s race diversity survey has revealed that institutional racism in property is, unfortunately, very much a norm. Hundreds of BAME property professionals have spoken out to EG, saying they feel let down, shut out and silenced working in this industry. Many think progress has been glacial, minimal, and half-hearted.
However, when racism and discrimination has been put under the spotlight more than ever before as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) professionals are now urging property to acknowledge how far it has fallen short in tackling the issue – and act before it’s too late.
‘I really don’t believe there is a chance for me’
EG’s race diversity survey, which ran between April and August this year at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, paints a stark picture of the barriers that people from BAME backgrounds face.
BIPOC property workers said the sector continues to be dominated by white people, with 81% believing it has failed to attract people from different non-white ethnic backgrounds.
And once diverse talent does make it into the sector, property is failing to nurture their growth and promote them. Approximately 76% of BAME/BIPOC workers said they thought the industry had failed to hire BAME people into senior leadership positions.
Balfour Beatty senior development manager and founder of Black Women in Real Estate, Hanna Osundina, says that compounding these two barriers could explain why nearly two thirds (65%) of BAME people think employees from ethnic minority backgrounds are choosing to leave the profession.
She says BIPOC professionals working up the ranks could become “disenfranchised” with their company and sector at large if white people dominate the top ranks of businesses. If people “can’t see a way of moving up”, many may move into different sectors where their skills are transferable.
This is echoed by many respondents. One professional in middle management wondered whether she would be able to succeed in the industry as an Indian woman.
“As a BAME woman I do not see anyone that looks like me in senior leadership,” she said. “I do not feel the opportunity exists for me to progress to this position.”
One Chinese respondent said that they “definitely feel the glass ceiling” and did not feel like they could meaningfully progress their career.
“I see a lot of white women getting promoted, and I am happy for them as it’s such a male-dominated industry,” they added. “But as a person of colour, I really don’t believe there is a chance for me to be made director – no matter how hard I work.”
‘You get to see many ugly truths’
While BAME people are fighting to break through these barriers, EG’s survey results reveal that the rest of the industry remains, on the whole, ignorant to the extent of these struggles. In fact, the sector thinks it is doing a much better job than it actually is in levelling the playing field.
On every single (relevant) question asked in the survey, white people were more optimistic about the state of race relations in property.
The most significant divide in perceptions occurred in three areas. Just 38% of white property professionals said the industry is failing to retain BAME workers, 23 percentage points lower than what BAME professionals thought. Roughly 40% of white people said property is genuinely trying to increase diversity compared with 27% of BAME professionals.
Some 39% of white people thought racism wasn’t an issue – almost double what BIPOC professionals thought (20%).
I see a lot of white women getting promoted, and I am happy for them as it’s such a male-dominated industry, But as a person of colour, I really don’t believe there is chance for me to be made director – no matter how hard I work
People occupying positions of power also lacked insight into the obstacles that BIPOC property professionals face. Of the 191 board directors and senior leaders who answered the survey (85% of which were white), nearly half (48%) believed the industry had no issue retaining diverse talent.
An overwhelming 77.6% of all survey respondents said property was not genuinely trying to increase BAME representation in the industry.
Axion Property Partners director and founder of Black Property Network, Ayesha Ofori, who was also an executive director at Goldman Sachs for six years, says lip service is often paid to improving racial inequalities in the sector, but “no real change” has happened.
“From my experience, there is quite a noticeable difference between the professional behaviour of people in SME property firms versus what I call corporate property firms (larger or public companies),” she says. “In small, privately owned businesses, people tend to behave however they like, and you unfortunately get to see many ugly truths.
“On the corporate side, in reality, it may not be too dissimilar behind closed doors. However, publicly people generally need to be seen to be saying and doing the ‘right’ things.”
‘I feel exhausted recalling racism’
As the survey results show, many property professionals believe that racism is not an issue. But hundreds of BIPOC property professionals told EG of their first-hand experiences, and state that unconscious bias about people from different cultures is ingrained in the sector.
One mixed-race Black female recalls an incident when she asked her line manager whether she could attend a meeting for BAME property professionals: “She said: ‘You look white’ and I was told that I’m not mixed [race], that I look like I’m covered in fake tan, and that it’s all fake make-up.”
A Black female said staying in the industry was a struggle because of the preconceptions people make about her based on the colour of her skin.
“[I get] comments about my hair (‘afro-kinky’), my speech (‘surprisingly good English speaker and very eloquent at that’), not bringing lunch in for fear of the scrutiny and over-shoulder sniffing, my ‘aggressive confidence’, my attire… I feel exhausted just recalling,” she said.
Another Black respondent said systematic racism is prevalent in property. “At work I would not receive the same acknowledgement or praise as my colleagues,” they said. “When bringing forward new ideas and insights, they seem more likely to be heard or accepted when I communicate it via my white colleagues.
“I have also experienced fewer opportunities for promotion but offers of sideways moves or lower roles. This is also the experience of other BAME people I know in the industry.”
The majority of BAME professionals answering the survey had a story to tell about their own first-hand account of discrimination. But sadly, many said they held a sense of hopelessness about their future in the industry, sceptical about whether attitudes towards ethnic minority communities will ever change.
“Unless a BAME property professional is a D&I manager, in HR or IT, it is rare to see progression in the industry,” said one respondent.
‘I have been ridiculously affected by what I have seen’
Progress in making genuine headway in increasing diversity in property has been glacial for quite some time. But this year, the murder of US citizen George Floyd sparked a worldwide movement that has put race relations under the spotlight. Many survey respondents believe that property must seize this opportunity to make meaningful change – but have been left feeling underwhelmed by the sector’s response.
“The deafening silence of the industry initially when the Black Lives Matter protests started is not something that would have been tolerated had the issue been about anti-Semitism, LGBT persecution or discrimination against a disabled group,” one respondent claimed.
Another said: “When it comes to publicly supporting groups like Black Lives Matter, [property companies] tiptoe around the edges without helping.”
The deafening silence of the industry initially when the Black Lives Matter protests started is not something that would have been tolerated had the issue been about anti-Semitism, LGBT persecution, or discrimination of a disabled group
Bola Abisogun, founder of Urbanis and founder of DiverseCity Surveyors, says he was “gravely disappointed” by property’s silence over these recent events.
“I have also been ridiculously affected by what I have seen,” he says. “This is mainly because of my journey in this profession and what I have had to go through as a Black professional in surveying, which has largely been a white middle-class profession that was never designed to receive people like me.
“I was looking for leadership, and I haven’t seen anyone, I haven’t seen anybody of senior stature and presence in this sector speak out.”
‘We are going to have a tsunami of people leaving’
Speaking up and standing beside BAME communities in the face of such troubling events is the first step property needs to make. But Abisogun says property must put into motion a plan of action to finally address and remove the issues that BAME property professionals experience. This, he says, starts with senior leaders.
“Institutional racism is at the core of everything, and to unpack that conversation properly, it needs to start at the top,” he says. “Leadership needs to understand what this means, because otherwise we are going to have a tsunami of people leaving because they just don’t feel valid.”
Senior leaders need to ensure their company has a “laser-focused approach” to identifying and removing barriers that BAME property professionals face, says Karl Brown, a partner at Clarke Willmott and chair of the Bristol Property Inclusion Commission.
“You’ve got to constantly monitor the data,” he says. “It is important to get data on what the overall problem is and provide context, but you’ve got to constantly monitor this.”
Good practices could include introducing a policy whereby all managers have to log an explanation for why they chose to promote certain individuals above others. If the company received a lack of diverse applications for a role, Brown says, then companies must start to interrogate why this might be the case.
Suggestions from survey respondents also included using an independent party outside the company to investigate allegations of racism, putting in place mentoring schemes to get BAME professionals into senior and leadership positions, and setting up widespread education programmes about BAME communities.
Property companies must have targets and plans to hold themselves to account to in relation to improving BAME lives in real estate, one survey respondent said. Otherwise, any other attempts ring hollow.
“Issuing blanket statements saying: ‘We do not condone racism’ doesn’t equate to actively trying to stop racism,” they said. “I’ve been incredibly disappointed by the actions (or lack of action) of the company that I am currently employed by.”
Actions, after all, speak louder than words – especially at a time when the Black Lives Matter activism is gaining pace. If property does not act now, then it may lose the best chance it has been presented with to make a powerful change.
The question is: does it really want to?
To send feedback, e-mail lucy.alderson@egi.co.uk or tweet @LucyAJourno or @estatesgazette
