COMMENT In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, nurturing and developing careers is crucial to an organisation’s success. As the workforce demographics shift and new generations enter, companies must recognise that investing in young professionals not only secures a pipeline of future leaders, but also brings fresh perspectives, diverse skill sets and innovative ideas.
A multi-generational workforce means it’s natural there are going to be some differences in ways of working and opinions. I was intrigued by Forbes’ analysis that says five generations are currently active in the workforce. This is certainly evident at JLL and while there are benefits for all, it’s possible that young talent may face obstacles, be that people or processes.
We’ve all heard the phrase “that won’t work here” and it’s important younger colleagues feel confident to challenge and are empowered by the opportunity to be part of the change across the industry.
As a leader, I see it as my responsibility to set an example, to enable our young talent to progress their careers and fulfil their aspirations, empowering them to think differently. But it’s more than that, it’s facilitating the ability for our young leaders to have a meaningful impact.
Each year, we see significant uptake of our graduate and apprenticeship scheme. And over time we have increased the different pathways in response to the change in environment. For example, around a third of our graduates specialised in sustainability last year.
I recently read an interesting statistic, shared by the British Property Federation, which found that 57% of businesses surveyed find it difficult to recruit employees with the right skills to deliver their strategies. What this emphasises to me is the importance of retention, development and the need for diverse skills within organisations to deliver the desired results.
We encourage all employees to create a career development plan, including short and long-term goals, so they can actively use this to stretch themselves. Personally, I’ve always had a development plan and thought about roles I might like to do next and what I might need to do to get there. This supports me looking at my development areas in a more holistic way and has resulted in me finding new and challenging opportunities.
We are constantly looking at ways to upskill, particularly in areas that respond to the needs of our clients, namely technology and sustainability.
In July we announced JLL GPT, the first language model purpose-built for the commercial real estate industry. Developed by our technology division at JLL, the bespoke generative artificial intelligence model is now being used by our global workforce of 103,000-plus to provide CRE insights to clients in a whole new way. This is just one example of innovative, forward-thinking projects that don’t rely on a traditional ‘real estate’ skillset.
Similarly, in sustainability, we have been investing in market-leading products and businesses that help our clients reduce their impact on the environment, while also delivering cost and energy savings. For example, JLL’s acquisition of Hank, which combines AI-driven data analysis, remote monitoring and engineering to generate significant reductions in energy use, and we are seeing impressive results on our client’s assets.
Our early careers team work particularly hard to equip our junior colleagues with leadership skills through initiatives such as “The Talks”. Founded by our graduate committee, The Talks is an event that provides an invaluable opportunity for graduates, interns and apprentices to think outside the box and present a TEDx -style talk to colleagues across the organisation on a topic important to them. This event has given our graduates the chance to obtain mentorship early on in their career and to push themselves to present their views on current topics in the real estate industry. The theme for this year was “Driving impactful change in the built environment”, with finalists covering diverse topics including nature, sustainability, privilege and the housing crisis.
It has become one of my favourite days of the year and it shouldn’t surprise me (but always does) to see how good these insights and presentations are. While we have a winner, this year we are sponsoring all five finalists because their ideas could be so impactful.
The real estate industry is interesting and dynamic. I came from outside the sector, which I hope could be an inspiration to our next generation of future leaders. Demonstrating that to acquire a senior, high-ranking role, a broad skill set is applicable to our industry because of the convergence of issues that every industry needs to face head on – AI, sustainability, data, technology, and transformation, to name but a few.
We are all going to need to evolve the industry to stay relevant to talented individuals looking for fulfilling careers. Personal and professional growth is a two-way street and doesn’t happen without everyone’s energy and commitment.
Stephanie Hyde is UK chief executive and chief executive of EMEA markets at JLL
