Improving the pipelining
The level of ethnic, gender and socio-economic diversity at university level for real estate isn’t less than other courses in this sector. This shows that the imbalance isn’t necessarily caused by a lack of early interest in real estate. So, the issue seems to come from either a misunderstanding of how and where to get started or barriers to entry at the management level within firms.
Two ways to improve this include real estate businesses publicising internships and entry-level positions, rather than networks and family connections. This must also include universally easily accessible ways to find these opportunities, such as on online job boards.
Cultural & behavioural changes
With reports of ‘lad culture’, jokes around accents, forms of dress and ethnic origins arising from the study, businesses need to have a zero-tolerance policy on this behaviour to create inclusive working environments.
Collecting data & progress tracking
Firms should consider internal data on the backgrounds, demographics and educational backgrounds of their staff. This can then be tracked on an ongoing basis as new staff join the company to crucially monitor progress.
Creating transparency
The research also highlighted a perceived lack of transparency in the way that leads and opportunities are shared by middle management. As well as this, some participants felt that transparency on pay rises and promotions was lacking and that those with a closer or ‘better’ cultural common ground with middle management were more likely to grow within the business. This is often due to middle management autonomy, so upper management may need to reduce this by having the final sign-off on such decisions.
Improved internal transparency and communication here is critical, and the information on how to achieve promotions, pay rises and an accelerated career path needs to be more formalised and better communicated across the entire business.
