Female Representation in Recruitment
You could be forgiven for assuming that when you call a recruitment agency, it will be a man who helps you to land your new role. It is hard to deny the historic reputation of the industry as a ‘boys club’ and previously this reputation was founded. A 2015 study by the Westminster Business school revealed that 73% of women in recruitment had no female role model in the workplace and 41% felt that the ‘old boys ethos’ still existed.
We’re delighted to report that things seem to be moving in the right direction. In 2014, ‘Women in Recruitment was founded with the mission to: “Establish recruitment profession as a ‘beacon of excellence for gender equality, provide a range of practical, accessible and valued services for all members and to engage stakeholders in supporting the Women in Recruitment vision”. A report which the organisation released last year stated that two-fifths of recruiters now have more than 50% female representation at the recruiter/resourcer level. We’re proud that Jackson Sims is one of those firms representing a new, more diverse recruitment industry.
Our Representation Ethos
It has to be admitted that at Jackson Sims, we have not made a targeted effort to increase the number of women working within the company. More notably, our thinking has always been that recruitment is a meritocracy. To develop this, we believe that anyone regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, religion or physical ability can achieve the highest levels, have they the imagination, skill, determination and work ethic to do so. It is these traits which we believe should be rewarded, rather than any accident of birth or circumstance and as such we naturally ended up with a team of which half is fantastically capable women. Whilst we want to avoid stereotyping, it is also important to acknowledge that women can tend to have stronger ‘soft skills’ which are increasingly understood and valued in the professional environment. They are often associated with higher emotional intelligence and therefore better relationship building abilities and people skills, attributes which are naturally rewarded by the nature of industries like recruitment.
We also try to work with partners who share our feelings and fortunately, the property sector is also one which is making real and concerted efforts to improve gender diversity. For example, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors found that within the construction industry, workers themselves felt that the industry was leading the way in closing the gender pay gap. Fundamentally, the majority of evidence demonstrates gender equality to be a strategy which has proven fundamentally beneficial, with a survey by Mckinsey revealing that for every 10% improvement in gender diversity, there is a 2 - 4% increase in profits
Gender Representation More Broadly
Now, we don’t intend to imply that just because our team is more representative, the issue of gender equality is suddenly resolved. Out with the office environment, there is still plenty of work to be done, with one key area, amongst many, where inequality still exists being sport.
Despite women making up 40% of sportspeople, the media coverage of women’s sport is a shocking 4%. Some sports, such as tennis, definitely have a better track record, with leaders in the ladies games being well-covered, recent history-making, grand slam winner Emma Raducanu being one brilliant example. Football, however, the most popular sport in the UK, is notoriously bad at celebrating its female side, despite the England Women’s Team recently beating Luxembourg 10-Nil in a World Cup qualifier. This is why we are so proud to support Actonians LFC as one of the club’s sponsors. It helps to know that the ladies are doing a brilliant job, so far undefeated in the league and making up one of the top five teams in the Greater London 1st division.
Of course, there are a wide number of areas in which work could be done to improve female equality, which if we were to cover would, unfortunately, take us well beyond a reasonable blog word count. So we will start with biting off this reasonably sized mouthful and hopefully give you some food for thought around other areas where improvements could be made.
So What Else?
Outside of the fact that having more women in the workspace is a recipe for economic success, evidenced by both ourselves and by the data, it also makes for a more dynamic and balanced culture which is hard to deny, is often more fun! Having a mixture of different personalities, perspectives and styles in the office environment makes it a more interesting space, which will fundamentally contribute to a more satisfied and all-around happier workforce. We know that there are other groups which require efforts to improve their representation, such as the physically disabled and we are delighted to be working with charity ‘Special Effects’ in order to support that cause. But that’s another blog post for another time! For now, we are pleased to applaud the women working within our team and who are making waves in traditionally male-dominated areas, within the workplace and beyond!
Jackson Sims Recruitment is a property recruitment company operating in the UK and APAC region. Should you be a candidate or client working in property management we have a multitude of recruitment services that can be tailored to you. Please visit www.JacksonSimsRecruitment.com for more information.
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