EDITOR’S COMMENT: Big kudos to the British Property Federation this week for inviting BBC journalist Amol Rajan to be guest speaker at its annual dinner.
He was an inspired choice for an event where president Helen Gordon used the platform to further underline how the BPF wants to redefine real estate.
Amol was talking to a crowd that has started to understand – and make small but decent progress – on many of the big issues facing the industry. Issues that I make no secret of being close to my heart. Issues like gender and ethnic diversity and the vital role that real estate has to play in saving the planet.
The industry understands these issues now. It knows that it needs to take action on these things. And while change may not be happening as fast as many of us would like, it is happening.
What Amol had the chutzpah to do at London’s Guildhall in front of a largely white audience, from a largely middle-class background, all suited and booted in their black-tie attire, fresh from quaffing champagne, was talk about the very real and very big class gap that exists in most businesses, real estate most definitely included.
Research shows that poor students who go to top universities and get a first-class degree will earn less and be less likely to make it to the top than privileged students who went to the same university but got a 2:2.
A recent Yale University study adds to that depressing truth by revealing that job interviewees are judged based on their social status just seconds after they start to speak and that the higher that social status is perceived to be, the more likely they are to get the job. I’m paraphrasing – and massively overly simplifying – here, but essentially it takes just seven words, pronounced perfectly and plummy-ley, to make a good enough and posh enough impression to be considered for a role.
It was a really brave speech to make in front of the audience gathered – and I certainly heard some discussions afterwards that weren’t entirely supportive – but a really necessary one and one that clearly got people thinking.
Addressing social mobility is the next important step that the industry needs to take if it really does want to redefine itself.
How we do that I don’t quite know (yet), but it surely has to start with us as individuals. I know I’ve certainly “poshed up” and used my “telephone voice” to sound like I’m smarter and more important than I am from time to time. I don’t know why I do it.
I’m not ashamed to say that my background is less than privileged, that I went to a comprehensive school, went on Haven, not foreign, holidays and qualified for a full grant at university. Maybe it’s because in my subconscious I know that’s what society needs me to sound like if I want to succeed.
But it doesn’t have to be what real estate needs its people to sound like.
If the redefinition of real estate is as a sector that is authentic, an enabler and creator of spaces and places for the whole of society, then dropping a few Ts, not going to the best university (or going at all) or never having been skiing in Courchevel, should perhaps be a reason to make it to the top.
Of course, there is also nothing wrong if you do come from a more privileged background, but diversity of thought isn’t going to happen unless the demographic widens. And at a time when the industry is trying to be more customer-centric, if you can’t connect with your customers (and have you thought about how diverse they really are?) your business’s chances of success are slim.
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