Talking Property | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) – Challenging the Paradigm

Featuring Ingrid Massey, Steven Moses and Jackie Linton
Thursday 1 April 2021

IM:
Hello and welcome to Talking Property with CBRE. A podcast where you hear the latest from industry leading experts on trends shaping the property industry. My name is Ingrid Massey, I'm CBRE’s Director of Talent, Learning and Diversity here in the Pacific, and I'm your host for today’s episode.

Today we're talking Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and how both companies and individuals can challenge and shift their paradigms to create a more diverse and inclusive culture for their employees. I'm joined by my colleague Steven Moses. Steven is a Director of Business Operations in our Property Management team, based in Melbourne, Victoria. I’m also joined by Jackie Linton. Jackie is Founder and President of JL HR Solutions. 

Steven has worked in the property and facilities management industry for more than 20 years, building on the rich technical and leadership experience gained in manufacturing electro mechanical maintenance, and (and this is my favourite part) - he has been in the United States Navy's Nuclear Power Programme. Jackie joins us from Philadelphia in the United States with more than 20 years of executive leadership experience. She is the Founder and President of JL HR Solutions, a full-service HR consulting firm, President of Philadelphia's regional chapter of the Society of Human Resources Management and most importantly for this podcast today she is Steven’s mum. 

Thanks for joining us, Steven, and Jackie. It's lovely to have you both here today.

SM:
Thanks for having us. 

JL:
Thank you so much Ingrid, I appreciate the invitation.

IM:
So shall we get into it? 

Steven, first question for you I think, I'll start with the son. Your entry, many would say into the property industry would be considered non-traditional. So you left home early age of 18 to join the U. S. Navy, where you joined the Nuclear Power Programme, which at the time was probably considered the most difficult of all the programmes in the military and this experience would have taken you around the world. Many of the places where your friends had never even dreamt of going. So, can you share with us just to start us off a little bit about your background, touching on when you first felt different to the others and how this broadened your perspective of the world.

SM:
Absolutely thanks Ingrid. So, I think that experience of feeling different is not a unique experience for a child and certainly not unique for a child of colour growing up in the South. But for me, it really sort of came home how different I was when we moved to Georgia, which is about as southern as you could get. I was assessed by my new school, and they made the decision for me to take my maths and my English classes with the sixth graders at the time I was in the fifth grade. So that obviously makes you stand out as someone who's different by default. You're a lightning rod for every bully in school, who wants to make a name for themselves and it gave me a really good opportunity to look around at my peers and see how they felt or how they approached education and knowledge and I knew straight away that we were worlds apart. 

So, it was really that piece about education and knowledge that was the first massive differentiator I felt between myself and my peers. But I have the advantage of having grown up with my mum as the strongest influence in my life and really making sure that we understood that there was nothing that was out of range for us, we just needed to think broadly about what we wanted to do and to go on and do it. So, I think that perspective served me well, especially in the face of many other experiences where I did feel different. I never was afraid to back myself in those experiences, and I think because of that I've I got the advantage of being able to take hold of a lot of those opportunities.

IM:
Certainly in the workplace Steven, you've never been afraid to back yourself. So, kudos to Jackie there and yourself, of course. So how have these personal experiences influenced your career in the property industry?

SM:
Great question. So, starting out of the Navy. Obviously, the Navy is known for being an environment where people can typically travel or any military branch for that matter but especially the Navy. I was in a particular part of the Navy that was travel heavy. I was out at sea a lot, I got to visit a lot of foreign ports. I got to experience a lot of different people and cultures, and it really opened my mind and it really drove home to me what I think is the most important thing that I could have learned, which is that there was so much that I don't know. All the things that we might think of as being written in stone and in fact, and that's the way it is - we sell ourselves short when we don't challenge those. I learned pretty early on, especially with that experience in the Navy that I should continuously challenge what I do because there was so much more out there and a lot of opportunity could be missed if you if you fail to do that.

IM:
Great, choose to challenge. So, Steven, what advice, with all this experience would you like to give to people who are taking brave steps to breakthrough biases and challenge their thinking?

SM:
I think first, you know, they've got to be congratulated for taking that first step to challenge their bias. We've all heard the term unconscious bias. There are things that we might tend to think that we're not even aware of. I think understanding that first of all, is an important step and then really doing some hard self-work to figure out what those unconscious biases might be and to make sure that they [future employers] don't see them and cost you any opportunities when they’re making decisions. 

If you're a hiring manager who is looking to fill a role, you've got to think outside the box in most cases. You know, we live in a pretty diverse world right now, a pretty dynamic world where people are coming into and out of industries in non-traditional ways and they bring skills that may not have, 10 years ago been thought to be relevant to that particular industry or that area. Hiring managers have to think more broadly, and they have to challenge what they think they know, about their industry and about the role and about the people, particularly who apply for it. I think for candidates I think you have to go into any role that you're pursuing knowing that your as good as any other candidate, you've got to believe that this role is suited for you, you've got to believe that the opportunity is yours to seize. And I think if you have that confidence, if you've got that strong self-belief, you're going to set yourself up for the best chance of success.

IM:
Look, and that's a great call Steven. I do know that there's a lot of disappointing data over the sort of the last two decades of certainly immersive unconscious bias training for hiring managers, for example, that the dial has not shifted in terms of what you're tracking in diversity stats, gender ratios, for example in Australia, often the research is coming through that it is the larger organisations. It's not just the education or the potential biases coming up, but it's putting in diverse recruitment practices, ensuring the ads have been checked by software like Textio, for example, for any gender race bias etc. So it's an inclusive and welcoming ad. The interview panels mixed in terms of their diversity and the individual candidate gets multiple experiences and touch points, and we should almost strike a line through that comment “we didn't hire them because they're not the right cultural fit” that is a red flag in the world of talent acquisition. What do you mean by that? That affinity bias, that confirmation bias “I hire people like me” is something that we absolutely need to stamp out as we move forward to meet our inclusive objectives and drive a culture of inclusivity. 

So my next question. I'll direct to you, Jackie. You've had extensive experience in human resources, working in multiple executive leadership roles, building your own HR consulting firm from the ground up and now in your role as president of the Philadelphia Chapter of Society for Human Resources Management (I hope I got that right), I'd love to get your perspective on some of the changes and progress that you've seen in the diversity equity and inclusion space throughout your career.

JL:
Well, that's a very big question. My career has been extensive in terms of numbers of years, and a lot has changed during that period. You know, I started my career is an industrial engineer, and at the time there was very few women and very few people of colour who were in that field and so it was really easy, as Steve mentioned, to stand out in terms of being different. The expectations always felt higher because there weren't people who had come before who had, set the standard for what to expect. At the time, I felt like I always had to work harder, be better, do more because of that, and I've often thought how much of that was because I was a woman and how much of it was because I was black and it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, the experience is what was most palatable for me at the time.

So fast forward once I got into HR, I really began to be much more thoughtful about the causes and the implications of some of the things I had experience as an engineer and I can, in broad strokes, say that the changes that I have seen have evolved from having a more affirmative action approach where people were focused on the numbers and hiring a quota of people who were different. To moving more to a diversity perspective where people really tried to understand the benefit of bringing people into the conversation who were different to the inclusion perspective, which is not just having them there but really engaging them and the thoughtful differences that they bring. Moving into equity, which is really making sure that we can take advantage of the differences that people bring in a fair and equitable way. So, there's been a lot of changes over the course of my career that I've seen and if you were to stand in this place and look back, we've made a lot of progress. But if you stand in this place and look forward we still have a long way to go.

IM:
I can't believe we're still having the conversation of our gender for example, 20 years on and Jackie, I like your point around quotas and data and pushing a kind of compliance lens on this DE&I space. 

At CBRE we'd like to think of it as a maturity curve, and we feel, fortunately that we've moved past that kind of the entry level of this space. Which is, is it a legal thing to do? Do we have to do it for reporting purposes, etc. Then we move up, to it's the right thing to do, and we acknowledge many of our executives in this space and this is reflective I’d say of broader Australia that DE&I is the right thing to do. But where we can really get that traction and that game changing is when we move further to it's the smart thing to do the outcomes of diverse and inclusive workplaces productivity, earnings per share, etcetera, innovation. Ultimately, we don't need to overcook it – it’s mirroring the client base, the society base within your organisation. Then ultimately, at that top stage of that maturity curve, it's the best thing to do. Are we attracting the right talent? Those folks, who want to be in a progressive best practice organisation. So, we are moving but a long way to go as you say. So, Jackie, what are some of the barriers that you face working in this DE&I space and how did you overcome these?

JL:
So, it depends on whether we're talking about personal barriers or barriers in my role as an HR professional, because I think in some instances, they are the same but they're also very different. One of the things that from a personal perspective, I am a diverse person. So, I am always a diverse person. So, I live that experience all the time, and it's important for me as an HR professional to keep my professional expertise separate from my personal feelings. And so, one of the challenges is to not get caught up in the emotion of DE&I and really, as you said, thinking about not only what is the right thing to do, but what is the best thing to do. My experience as an engineer, I think, really helped me with that. It really taught me how to think about things very logically and it made it much easier not to get caught up in the emotion of it, because when you are living the emotion, you know that’s a good place to start or is a typical place to start. So, I would consider that to be one of the challenges and I have learned over the course of my career how to manage that and adapt and keep those two things separate. I really pride myself on the fact that I can look at a situation and really be able to identify both sides of the equation and try to help people come to a good place in the middle. 

You know, one of the things that I've discovered about this work is that most people are really good people and they want to do a really good job. It's often the reason why they don't is because they either don't know how or they don't know what a good job looks like. So, as an HR professional I see that as a really good space for me to add value into and contribute to be that place where I can help them to see how they can add value in this space. That's with DE&I as well as other HR processes as well.

IM:
Well, Jackie, that skill to put yourself in the other person's shoes is a lifelong pursuit for many of us so well done for achieving that one. I guess off the back of that question, have you Jackie observed any challenges facing managers, particularly today around inclusivity? We've got a lot of hybrid workplaces, so we have our people working in the office, half of the team at home, maybe someone at the coffee shop. Have you seen any challenges around that?

JL:
Yeah, for sure. I think the biggest challenge is the mindset. Just to step away from that a bit, when the pandemic hit in the U. S., one day everyone was going to the office business as usual, and the next day the majority of the company was working from home. It was like an instant change and how everyone operated and before this happened, typically the mindset was that you needed to have people in the office so you could see what they we’re doing so that you could manage them and jobs just could not be performed effectively if people were working from home. That paradigm changed almost instantly when the pandemic hit, and I think that's kind of what it is what's happening with DE&I, though it isn't an instant change, it is an evolution where people at one point in time used to think about who was the right person to be involved, they had to have a certain kind of pedigree or a certain kind of background or set of experiences in order to be able to add value. I believe that over time people are coming to the realisation when they experience it, that there are people who can add lots of value because of their differences. So back to your question, I think the biggest challenge for managers is to manage their paradigm around who can add value and who doesn't. 

You know, in the U. S. Companies are in different places around this. Some of them really take this to heart. They really seek out different opinions from people who have had different experiences while others there I don’t want to say are ‘stuck’ but they are more inclined to think business as usual, “I want to deal with the people I have always dealt with”. So it's much more difficult for them to be able to allow new ideas, new ways of thinking about things to come in. But it shows up in lots of different ways. 

In the US, one of the biggest changes that's related to diversity is around younger people coming into the workforce and more and more young people are coming in. Now majority of the folks who are working are probably under 35 or under 40 years. People think about things differently, and we call them Millennials, and lots of people who are in my age group will say, “oh, these millennials are like this and they're like that and they want this and they want that, there must be something wrong with them”. But if you were to just stop and think about the experiences that they've had and the ideas that they could bring and the wonderful things that they can do that are so different from us, it's not whether it's good or bad the difference is what's so important. So the challenge, I think for leaders, is to be able to open their minds enough to think about those things and to be able to really embrace them and get the value from it. In this hybrid workplace now is even more important because you can't see people, you can't look them in the eye. Zoom is a poor example of being able to do that. So, it's even more important for you to be, as a leader to really be open to those ideas that people bring to the table who are different from you.

IM:
Thank you, Jackie. I would concur that its similar challenges that we face in Australia. I guess from the property lens, there is so much opportunity in the DE&I space certainly for those with disabilities, for example. Traditionally, if you’re in an agent or a client facing role, there are requirements to be socialising out of hours and sometimes that has opened up opportunities for those in carer roles to be able to connect further with clients. So, there are many positives and I feel that, with all the negatives that have come with COVID we as HR professionals and business leaders, should be looking to propel our DE&I objectives 10 years down the road and not slip back once those vaccines come in. 

I think as well from a lens of learning and leadership you touched on the different generations when our folk, our younger folk do come into the office how can we craft those experiences generally, and we are using the generalisations here that often the socialisation for the younger folk has been through technology using chat functions, Slack, whatever is appropriate in your business and to help these people have the conversation, set up structured networking and giving kind of areas of time and places to socialise and taking people out to lunch or a site visit or whatever's appropriate and helping, often those who are less familiar at the other end of those generations with technology who just want to pick up the phone, helping them use the collaborative tools such as Microsoft Teams and sharing documents, etc. So fantastic Jackie, if we have a little look at your own experiences in this DE&I space, how have you instilled these values in your own son?

JL:
Well, he's probably in a better position to talk about that than I am, but I can say what I tried to do. I really tried to teach my children that they could do anything and that they should not be confined into a box that someone else creates for them. I tried to do that, as I modelled that for myself, in the way I started my career, changed my career, and I really tried to support them when they were growing up in a way that allowed that to happen. When Steve left to go into the service, that would not have been my first choice for him at the time -

SM:
But I was thinking outside the box Mum, which is what you taught me.

JL:
[Jackie laughs] And I could not, in all honesty, I could not say “no, you can't do that” because that would have really been inconsistent with everything I tried to teach him. So, yeah, I think the biggest thing that I tried to do is to instil in them that they could do anything and all they had to do is want it badly enough, and I would support them in it.

IM:
Wonderful. So question for you, as we draw to a close Steven. Diversity, equity and inclusion is often regarded as one of the same, with a heavy focus on that diversity element. So, what are some practical ways companies can encourage inclusivity in their culture, building an ecosystem of DE&I versus just back to the legal side of things, just ticking the box.

SM:
Look, I think when we talk about practical solutions, there is a big risk of it sounding like ticking a box. But I think one thing that companies can do is find out what causes and interests and communities their people are involved in and get involved with those as well, so that their side by side with their people in trying to advance these various aspects.

IM:
And Jackie for you, what is some practical ways that in companies can encourage inclusivity in their culture?

JL: 
So I believe that if companies are clear about why they want to embrace diversity and inclusion, it becomes much easier for them to create this eco system if you will. Because what happens a lot of times is that companies will latch on to a new idea. “Oh, let's go do this” and it's really inconsistent with other parts of the organisation. 

I believe that companies need to have, a good foundation built about why they want to be a diverse, inclusive, and equitable company. It needs to be part of the foundation of how they operate, and then their systems and processes are built on that. Then it's much clearer to employees why they are supporting this cycling team or why they're not supporting another philanthropic adventure, but rather than them just saying, “oh well, supporting the cycling team is a great idea”, there is another charity out there that is also important to people that isn't supported. So, I believe that that approach is not very helpful or constructive. They really need to have a good foundation of the why first and what it is, why it's important to them and what they want to achieve and that becomes part of their values. That becomes part of the foundation in terms of how they operate. They build their systems and processes around talent with that in mind, and the employees understand it and can relate to it. So that's how I think you get people included and doing that with input from the organisation is really, important. This should not be a top down only kind of process. It should be a process that people from across the organisation get involved in so that you could get input from people who you may not interact with every day and that's where you really get the benefit of inclusion.

IM:
Thank you, Jackie. Yes, there is the challenge, it is so important to have that clear communicated strategy because there are so many great ideas, so many things to do that with limited resources and time and capacity, you just want to pick 1 to 3 things and do them well and get them done and embed them and move on. So that’s great advice. 

Well, Jackie Steven, thank you for being here with us today to share your story and wealth of knowledge on building a diverse and inclusive culture. 

JL:
Thank you so much for having me Ingrid, it's just been a pleasure talking to both of you.

SM:
This has been a great conversation.

IM:
Thank you for listening to Talking Property with CBRE. If you like the show and want to check out more visit cbre.com.au/talking-property or subscribe through Apple or Spotify, where you can also leave a review. 

Until next time.