MIPIM UK NEWS: No one will notice your talent unless you make it easy for them.
That was the message at EG’s REWIRE debate, supported by Blayze Group, at MIPIM UK last week. The discussion, on the changing perceptions of success, covered everything from personal and professional confidence to flexible working and the importance of role models in the workplace.
Lucinda Bell, chief financial officer at British Land, who made the comment, stressed the importance of not underrating personal performance when it comes to pay reviews and job interviews.
“It is well known that women don’t tend to ask for pay rises, but in a way we have to take responsibility for that. You have to go and push for these things and be happy having the uncomfortable conversation. You are not always going to get it, but you’ve got to ask,” she said. “Are you marking yourself down before you get there so you don’t have to have an uncomfortable conversation?”
The situation is one that fellow panelist Sadie Morgan, co-founder of dRMM Architects, encountered when she was made a visiting professor of interior architecture at the University of Westminster earlier this year.
Morgan said she argued the case for being awarded a salary in band A, which only 5% of people get and rarely straight away.
“Six months ago I would have assumed I would be entry-level C, but I read through the criteria and felt certain I am an A,” she said. “I am not an academic, but my skills are transferable. So I wrote my reasoning for why I was good enough to be an A, thinking they would send it back, and they completely accepted it. It was entirely my own immediate sense of not being good enough.”
• SEE ALSO: REWIRE – giving women in property a voice
The discussion turned to the gender pay gap, which this year sits at 23% (2015: 26%), according to the Estates Gazette Salary Survey.
Carter Jonas partner Alexandra Houghton said the issue with the gender pay gap in property was the average. She noted that women in similar roles to men were paid similar wages, but there were just more women in support roles than there were men, which brought the average down.
However, she added that a shortage of women in senior roles did not mean that ambitious women in property were without inspiration. “The most important thing is having role models so that women can see there are good paths to success. But role models are not always at the top,” she advised. “Search the middle tier; inspiration can also be found at other levels of the business.”
For all of the panel, confidence played an important role in pathways to success, regardless of gender.
“My career has developed because of confidence,” said Morgan. “The minute I started putting myself out there and had confidence in what I could do, my career just blossomed.
“Success is about your place in the world and how you feel you are contributing to it,” she added. “It is about understanding that your contribution doesn’t have to be your name up in lights, a contribution to the world can be something much quieter, but that doesn’t mean it is anything less.
“If you roll with the punches and work out what skills you have as a person, regardless of gender, if you find out what you are good at and how you articulate that, that is what is important.”
Showcasing those skills is vital, agreed the panel, and sometimes being the only woman in a room full of men is the perfect opportunity to stand out from the crowd.
