Real estate bosses may have to be prepared to fire employees in order to foster a more diverse work culture but should take care about promoting currently under-represented groups over the heads of more experienced male staff, our London Property Club event has heard.

Amanda Clack, Head of Strategic Advisory at CBRE, outlined the conclusions of her recently published book ‘Managing Diversity & Inclusion in the Real Estate Sector’ at the event. The book, which she co-authored with Judith Gabler of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), claims to be the first to put diversity and inclusion at the centre of successful real estate and construction business.
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Responding to questions, Clack said that it may be necessary to put measures in place, which will hit the pocket of employees whose behaviour does not fit with the more diverse workplace of today, in order to send out a message to the wider organisation.

She said: “It may be one or two people leave the organisation because their values don’t fit within the organisation.”

However, she said that organisations had to tread carefully on the issue of positive discrimination: “If setting yourself a target, you’ve got to be really careful on this subject. We’ve seen situations where men can get really disillusioned and leave the organisation if they see people who are not ready being promoted over them. Doing things like that is an important start, but you have to be careful and understand what you can and can’t do.”

As a case study of successful diversity and inclusion efforts, Clack pointed to Hashi Mohamed, who came to the UK as a refugee from Somalia when a boy. With “sheer effort and determination”, he had risen to become one of the leading planning barristers working in England.

“A teacher saw something of value in him and now he is one of the top planning barristers in the country.”

Our next London Property Club event is set to take place on the 12th July. Find out more here > 
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