Real estate remains to be one of the least diverse sectors in the world. To fulfil our purpose to “change real estate to serve the whole”, it is therefore only natural that Home.Earth also plays an active role in increasing D&I in the sector. 

This is for several reasons – the main ones being that:

a) To chart the path towards a new real estate paradigm, we need diverse voices, ideas and minds in the room. Without diversity, we will not be able to break through conventional wisdom.

b) We see Home.Earth as a change agent in real estate holistically. We would like to see the real estate sector become more diverse in the future and we therefore want to play a role.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent study on RE diversity in the US:

According to a study from 2017 by Bella Research Group and the Knight Foundation, more than 75 percent of senior executive jobs in the U.S. commercial real estate industry were held by white men, while only 1.3 percent were held by Black men. White women held 14.1 percent, while nonwhite women held fewer than 1 percent of senior executive-level jobs.

When it comes to ownership, only 0.7 percent of the 889 real estate investment management firms included in the researchers’ data set were owned by women, while just 2 percent were minority owned.

…in other words: we as a sector have work to do!

Becoming a diverse company starts with monitoring our performance on diversity, ensuring that all employees are aware about our D&I performance and aspirations, and ensuring that we create accountabilities for diversity just like we create accountabilities for other business-critical projects and roles. We also spend time educating our team members to think holistically about D&I and go beyond visible traits such as gender or race, to also think of, e.g., socio-economic or educational diversity.

As noted earlier, we expect all team members to fulfil accountabilities regarding D&I. To facilitate the process of becoming more diverse and inclusive, we have created a role in Home.Earth specifically responsible for this, placed in our People, Culture & Organisation circle.

How do we ensure that our recruitment practices are fair and promote diversity & inclusion? These are the steps we are currently taking:

1. We scan our job postings for non-inclusive or gendered language, to ensure that our postings appeal to a broader section of society. We also include a diversity statement in all job postings and on our careers website.
2. We keep a close eye on our role pipeline at all times to give us sufficient time to build a diverse group of candidates for each role.
3. We always speak to a diverse group of candidates before hiring for a role. If we are not able to attract a diverse talent pool ourselves, we invest in a recruitment partner to help us.
4. We proactively seek candidates from minority backgrounds for each role by engaging with student organisations, groups, forums, and partners who can help us get the word out to non-traditional candidates.
5. We train all hiring managers in these practices and stress the importance of a diverse hiring process, where candidates meet a diverse group of Home.Earth team members before being offered a role.
6. We keep our language informal and down to earth to avoid jargon and an artificially high barrier to entry in the sector. :)

D&I is deeply embedded in our culture in Home.Earth – here’s some examples:

1. The way we structure Home.Earth matters
   1. We have decided to structure Home.Earth as a Holacracy, which means that we’ve replaced the classic hierarchy with principles of self-management and distributed leadership. This enables our team members to work in the way that is most successful for them.
2. The language we use matters
   1. We try to avoid gendered language (e.g. Chairperson vs. Chairman)
   2. With so many experts on the team, we will often be in situations where one person knows much more about a topic than another. In those situations, we never talk down to people and maintain inclusive language.
3. How we conduct meetings matters
1. We always check-in before we start longer meetings. This both allows team members to bring their whole selves to the meeting and explain why they might be distracted, but it also ensures that everyone has said something before we start the discussion, which research has shown greatly increase participation in the rest of the meeting.
2. All our weekly tactical meetings have a facilitator appointed to steer the discussion.
3. The loudest voice in the room does not take precedence and meetings are structured in ways that enable all types of voices to be heard.
4. We get to know our colleagues, so we are able to know when those who find it difficult to participate in group discussions have things to say, and encourage them to do so.
5. We are mindful of different communication styles within our organisation.
4. Making room for friction and discomfort matters
   1. Diversity doesn’t lead to higher-performing companies because of magic, it improves performance because it creates friction and discomfort thanks to diverse opinions and ways of thinking. That friction raises new questions, new perspectives, stopping to explain things, and that teases out better answers than a homogenous group.
5. D&I performance transparency matters
   1. We survey our team’s satisfaction with our D&I performance and progress every 2 months and share the results transparently.
   2. We keep our general D&I performance and targets transparent.
6. Training on D&I matters
   1. We regularly share resources and invite experts to speak about D&I – we have for example had the pleasure of having Siri Chilazi (Harvard) giving a talk to our team.

Great minds at Aula Education (now Plot) have collected this fantastic D&I library in their Brain that we share here to raise awareness. So, here’s a list of introductory diversity and inclusion resources to begin your journey towards active allyship and inclusive behaviours. 

Watch and Listen

📹 'Sometimes You're a Caterpillar' - animation demonstrating privilege, power and equity (3 minutes)

📹 'Understanding unconscious bias' - an introduction to unconscious bias (3 minutes)

📹 'Kimberlé Crenshaw: Defining Intersectionality' - snippet from Crenshaw's talk explores the ways in which power and oppression intersect across different identity categories (7 minutes)

📹 'Reni Eddo-Lodge: Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race' - interview with the author of the same title on the relationship between power and race (12 minutes)

Read

📰 Michelle Kim, Allyship (& Accomplice): The What, Why, and How - Medium blog which considers examples of thoughtful allyship (7 minutes)

📰 Rowan Adams, Complicit By Default - Medium blog on actions we can take to support the Black Lives Matter movement (7 minutes)

📚 Audre Lourde, 'The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action', - essay by activist and scholar, Audre Lourde on the power of speaking-up (15 minutes)

Action

🧮Project Implicit - put your unconscious bias to the test (10 minutes)

Read more

📚 More great resources here!