FACILITIES MANAGEMENT JOURNAL JOBS
FM CAREERS - RECRUITMENT
LEADERSHIP RACE To help promote race and equality, the FM sector needs to take a proactive approach to developing BAME workers
for senior roles, says Matt Chapman, Atalian Servest’s Chief Marketing & Development Offi cer (UK & Ireland)
It is beyond cliché to state
that 2020 so far has been
a tremendous challenge
for all; a year of global
change, social readjustment
and economic upheaval.
Now, as schools tentatively
reopen and workplaces align to the ‘new normal’,
sustainable actions underpinned by a strong vision
are naturally key. For both me and Atalian Servest
however, this year has not just enforced a strong
message of physical safety and hygiene but one
of diversity, equality and opportunity. Now is the
time for actions as well as words, even if that brings
potentially uncomfortable conversations.
We talk a lot in FM about the financial and tangible
benefits of ‘promoting from within’, so how do we
ensure that the diversity evident in the entry level
roles within our industry is carried through and
developed into senior leadership positions?
This is not really a piece on “Black Lives Matters”
but more the actual pressing matters that have
clearly come to the fore in the last six or so months.
Recent events such as the death of George Floyd
have indeed helped air society’s underlying
issues and posed direct questions for all. For me
personally, I’ve always wondered why, especially at a
management and senior level, does our amazing FM
industry not appear to reflect our country’s vibrant
diversity? Is this part of a wider, unconscious issue
that also feeds into low BAME representation at the
top end of government, sports and media? Atalian
Servest is now asking questions such as these while
becoming more equipped than ever to find the
answers and act on them.
RACE AT WORK CHARTER
Our reinvigorated commitment, built around the
Business in the Community’s ‘Race at Work ’ charter,
is not about box ticking, click-bait or buzzwords
but about expanding our deeper expertise. In many
ways this blueprint is the backbone of a wider
promise of embedded excellence, a commitment to
open mindedness that connects the frontline to the
boardroom and all points in-between. New voices,
new approaches, new solutions.
In my previous roles based in London at both The
Guardian and Arsenal Football Club, I contributed
to and developed within dynamic and diverse
workplaces. I learned from others di erent to myself,
they learned from me. This indeed broke through
the very common concept of ‘homophily ’, the basic
and unconscious need of people to be drawn to
people who think and o en look like themselves.
Familiarity actually breeds validation and stimulated
pleasure centres in these situations; in short, we
are o en inherently drawn to those like us, they are
our unconscious ‘internal preference’. Embracing
diversity will lead to sustainable, deeper rooted and
further reaching benefits to an organisation. We
have asked ourselves several times this year: do we
truly want our business to identify improvements
that others miss and attract the very best in talent?
We do, so we need to broaden our thinking and
approach even further.
The author Matthew Syed has previously written
about how it has been said over the years that
codebreaker Alan Turing would have never cracked
Nazi Germany’s Enigma code machine in the Second
World War without Marian Rejewski, a now lesserknown
name of Polish descent, who built a sightunseen
replica of said machine. A mutual willingness
to embrace diversity and opportunity some 80 years
ago paid eternal dividends. Contrary to this, the lack
of cultural and religious diversity in the 1990’s CIA
teams is deemed to be one of the key reasons there
was a failure to spot trends, that others may have
seen, leading to the atrocities seen at 9/11.
MODERN APPROACH
Beyond our promises, our recharged modernday
approach has an actual acid test, an exciting
system in place. The gauntlet is down. We are now
committed to capturing baseline ethnicity data as
fuel for a culture that mentors, closes the ethnicity
pay gap and eradicates all harassment and bullying.
Beyond this, we are committing to increasingly
strategic engagement initiatives and recruitment
processes. Goals will be met (BAME representation in
at least 10 per cent of our senior positions by 2023,
for example) and progress published. Is this in line
with the 18 per cent who identified as non-White
British in the 2011 UK Census? No, but it is a positive
step forward. Crucially, however, this can only be
done with a united work force, one that embodies
and models all of the charter’s rhetoric. Six decades
on from the dream of Martin Luther King, it is time to
step up and stand out.
We need to cohesively stand together in this
ground-breaking industry for this to work. We need
to literally join together and practice what we preach.
I feel we will as part of a sustained journey, not a
token, ‘of-the-moment’ reaction. Sadly, for many this
could all be too late. I think of a close black friend of
mine from West Africa, a friend who arrived to the UK
as a graduate with a first-class honours degree and
fluent in English, a friend who took almost 15 years
to progress in the UK from cleaning a high street
chain store to being a manager. His challenges now
flow into my company’s challenges to find answers
and solutions going forwards.
Atalian Servest are leading from the front with our
Board members, myself and our Legal Director, Laura
Ryan, as the company’s two assigned ‘executive
sponsors’ for our Race, Ethnicity and Faith network.
We are united and ready. I’m not advocating any kind
of overreach, imbalance or preferential treatment for
anyone, we’ll be actively pointing out that here and
now, there is no hiding place on race.
WHAT YOU CAN DO NEXT…..
• All companies can commit and sign the Race at
Work Charter by going to www.bitc.org.uk/race/
• Appoint an Executive Sponsor for race
• Capture ethnicity data and publicise progress
• Commit at board level to zero tolerance of
harassment and bullying
• Make clear that supporting equality in the
workplace is the responsibility of all leaders and
managers
• Take action that supports ethnic minority career
progression
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