EDITOR’S COMMENT When EG began its campaign on improving gender diversity in the real estate sector, properly, with the 2015 launch of REWIRE, it did so because it (well, me really) was fed up. Fed up with hearing women’s groups throw around the statistic that men will apply for jobs if they meet just 60% of the requirements, but women would only apply if they met 100% of the requirements. And fed up with the note of surrender that comes with that.
That felt like a pretty miserable excuse to me for why women weren’t getting the big jobs and I refused – and continue to refuse – to accept it.
For me, there’s a really easy solution to that “problem”. Go for the job whether you meet all the requirements or not. What’s the worst that can happen? You get a no. I did. I got several rejections from EG before I joined the team back in 2004. So far, though, it has worked out OK. And, guess what? I’m pretty sure I still don’t have 100% of the requirements for the role.
Anyway, I’m digressing. Back to that hint of surrender. And how today, I am inspired, proud and full of admiration for the very many wonderful women that did go for and are going for the big jobs.
Imagine then the huge grin that exploded across my face when I read this week’s EG Interview with Fiona Fletcher-Smith, the new chief executive of housing association L&Q, in which she quite rightly says “I’m a role model”.
Yes Fiona, you are.
“I’m an immigrant to the country,” she adds. “I’m a woman in the development and construction industry. I’m a woman leading a multi-billion-pound business. I’m a role model.”
This is so refreshing to hear. And this is exactly what we need. Women who refuse to suffer from imposter syndrome and instead see, and really importantly, own, just how important they are to everyone around them. Women and men, alike.
I am now, quite clearly, a fully signed up member of the Fiona Fletcher-Smith fan club. She is exactly the kind of voice we need to hear more of. No more feeling like a token, no more thinking your voice isn’t heard. Let’s shift that around and realise that our voices are heard louder because they sound different, that we stand out more, because we look different.
“We’ve got to walk the talk,” she says. “There’s a lot of talking in property, not a lot of walking.”
I’ve said it before on these pages that it is women’s responsibility to do the walking, to put their hand up, to speak louder, to be the role model. It is what birthed the Future Female Leaders programme and our subsequent Future Leaders programme (participants in that project will be announced later this month) and that is what is going to speed up change across the sector.
And those roles that you didn’t think you had all the attributes for are crying out for you today.
JLL, unimpressed with its slow progress on its gender pay gap figures, has now set itself strict targets to force change. “We’re not settling for the status quo,” says JLL director Alistair Meadows. “We’re impatient for change.”
By 2025 JLL wants 35% of its directors to be female and 35% of all key governance committees to be female. And the firm is not alone. There is such a strong appetite to change now and, encouragingly, it is not confined to gender balance but spreads more widely across all underrepresented groups in real estate.
The opportunities are there, and it is our job, whoever we are, to take up the challenge and honour of being a role model, to own that title, and to seize the day. To seize every day, not just International Whatever Day.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
