YOUNG TALENT Attracting and retaining new talent in real estate: Building inclusive and future-ready talent pipelines

Kim Grieveson

Kim is one of the principals within the Place Team at Avison Young, here today acting as somebody who is both personally and professionally heavily involved in the graduate and training side of life at AY. I'm also an APC assessor and work quite a lot with RICS to develop and grow talent along more traditional routes.

Kim led a discussion panel at ACES National Conference on the topic of how to attract young talent into the public sector, and then how to retain it. Panel members ranged across local authorities and the education sector and discussion was of direct relevance to individual delegates in their workplace, and ACES as an organisation. 

Setting the scene 

We have to understand that a property career within the local authority and public sector space isn’t always top of graduates’ calling cards, with city investment and agency jobs often stealing the limelight. 

ACES is working hard to try and develop and nurture talent through initiatives such as its FACES group, focused on training, networking and preparation for the APC, but it is fair to say that further work is needed to ensure that the best talent is attracted and retained throughout the ACES community. 

Today we have a range of ‘voices’ from across FACES, ACES, industry and academia to debate this topic, and is probably quite relevant in terms of some of those local government reorganisation conversations and what does that mean in terms of reorganisation of resource; and potentially some different ways in which you can be attracting talent into your organisations in whatever new form they may look like. 

The panel 

Panel Discussion

Kirstie Butler, Assistant Estates Surveyor, East Devon District Council. 

Previously, a Graduate Surveyor at Portsmouth City Council. To approach this discussion as an APC candidate, due to sit in session two this year, and also a FACES member. 

Ytzen Van Der Werf, Programme Leader MSc Real Estate Management & MSC Real Estate Finance & Investment, University of West England. 

Worked in the industry for about 15 years, for a number of local councils in the Netherlands, the cities of Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Arnhem, came to the UK in 2011 and has basically worked in academia since then. 

Neil Archbutt, Valuation & Estates Group Manager, East Riding of Yorkshire Council. 

I run a fairly traditional estates office. We have small holdings and a commercial estate. Over the last 10, 15 years, I've been involved in a lot of acquisitions of properties for quite big infrastructure schemes. We have also gone into the acquisition of housing, so my job has evolved over the years. We were one of the first councils to become a unitary authority; we are nearly 30 years down the line and probably just coming to the end of the property rationalisation - it's a long-term project realigning your assets and rationalising jobs into larger locations. 

Attracting young professionals 

In reality, it can be quite difficult to attract young graduates wearing that local authority badge. How are we going to get that route to talent and the next generation coming through? 

I know that ACES is working extremely hard to try and develop and nurture talent through a number of initiatives such as FACES, which is focused on the training, the networking, and also the preparation for the APC. But I think it's probably fair to say that more needs to be done in this space to ensure that local authorities as a cohort are putting their best foot forward to try and make sure you are attracting and retaining the most appropriate and the best kind of future professionals into your organisations. 

The hope really is from the debate today and the number of different perspectives that we've got with us, that we can start to unlock and maybe share some ideas and some learnings on what some of those barriers and what some of those solutions might look like. 

To attract young professionals to work within the property team at East Riding has always been difficult and hasn’t got any easier over 20 years. We have created more of a career path, with more opportunities for people to come in and train. We have been quite successful at getting people through the APC, to the point where probably three or four of the team have qualified with us. A total pay and rewards initiative across the council looked at equal pay, to align salaries and create more points within salaries, but literally on the day that was announced, a financial emergency was also announced with a recruitment freeze! 

Kirstie’s experiences from East Devon and Portsmouth are that at the start of a career, a lot of people are looking to London and the big cities, for fast progression, good APC support, with a perception that it is harder to achieve in a smaller local authority. However, personally, I've found a more tailored approach to my APC within very supportive teams. Word of mouth seems to play more of a part when you're at university; while it is seen as the last resort to work for a local authority, but you speak to people that did go through the APC, that do work for local authorities and actually you see so many advantages to it that aren't necessarily publicised enough. Equally the powers of LinkedIn cannot be underestimated. 

It would be good to understand, based on your experience across both undergraduate and bachelor’s courses what young people are looking for in their early property career. To clarify, there are also mature and international students on University of West of England (UWE) courses. But it’s to do with visibility - ACES or local councils. You're clearly doing a lot of good things, but you're not bringing it to UWE. Within my LinkedIn contacts, only two out of 4-500 students graduating from UWE over the last few years are working at a council at the moment. We have a property construction boot camp in three weeks from now; all the big firms, the VOA, the government will be there, but the local councils are not there. You could collaborate and have an ACES stand there, or at least show our students that there are clearly very good careers in property at local councils. 

One problem is that many public authorities are not, singularly, big enough or flexible enough to run regular recruitment at the optimum time of the year. But I think collectively, one thing that perhaps ACES could do is perhaps coordinate to try and go to some of these careers fairs to raise the profile of the organisation. The selling points are the variety of the work, the opportunity to work on multidisciplinary projects, and work much more collaboratively with, say, lawyers, planners, engineers, corporate property, your corporate landlords. It is a really interesting and good career. 

Another selling point is flexibility at different stages of a person’s career; to be more adaptable to personal circumstances. Large firms can have a more regimented structure and fixed pathways, whereas you are generally trusted with your workload, are not micro-managed, and as a consequence have a good sense of job satisfaction. 

A lot of UWE students, especially the undergrads, want a placement after year two. There should be opportunities within local councils, but over the last 10 years that I've been at UWE, I can't recall that anyone went to a local council for a placement. Yes, VOA; yes, major firms; maybe the different cohorts of mature and international students: there might be a market there to tap into, as they typically seem to struggle to get a job with the big real estate agencies. It's also a competitive market for our students that leave university with a master's or undergrad degree: the top 20 or 25% will find a job relatively easily, but there's always a number that are a bit shyer maybe, or they have different ambitions. 

LinkedIn is a place that people do tend to go to more and more, but then equally social media does seem to be really at the forefront, possibly something that we don't engage with as much, but I think at the moment that is definitely becoming more and more prominent. However, face to face interactions are also important. 

At the East Riding of Yorkshire, we do have - which is quite useful and it has been commented upon during recruitment - is a web page with team photos and a description about what we do, so when we advertise a job, we can just make a link to that. We keep it updated, so it's quite useful and avoids huge job adverts. 

ACES could have a specific objective for people who either are wishing to start their career or develop their career, the opportunities that there are in the public sector and perhaps have a public-facing website or just a web page with some case studies, or just some useful information, that could be disseminated to the universities. 

Other routes to the profession 

We have talked a lot about graduates and those from an academic background. Attending university is expensive and not an option for many. It would be good to reflect on what other routes into the profession might look like. And really, if we want to create a more inclusive profession, which I think we're woefully out of touch on really. We need to think about what the next five, ten years need to look like across the industry, irrespective of whether it's local authority, academia or private practice. 

UWE is doing a lot of work with Bristol Works - a Bristol City Council initiative to support a diverse workforce. It is aimed at Year 10 secondary school students across the whole property sector. As an aside, Neil Webster of ACES has commenced a Year 9 initiative. 

Assoc RICS and apprenticeships are becoming increasingly common in the industry (albeit still making up quite a small proportion of the overall offer). This is a route which could definitely be explored at local authorities. There is also a modular approach for assessments and support for a route from Assoc RICS to MRICS. 

Apprenticeships may be a bit more difficult for smaller teams, but it can work really well with good team support. 

Career visibility and progression 

We have talked about some of the barriers which limit interest from young professionals into the surveying space but it would be good to reflect on what that career journey looks like for those that made the decision to join the profession. 

It’s important to acknowledge that progression and visibility is not just down to promotions and pay rises. Local authorities do not necessarily pigeon-hole you into a specialisation and you have some leeway on your own career path. LGR may give opportunities to work with different teams, different people, different companies, and you're not just held in one role or place or position. But bear in mind, not everybody wants to work up to the top or be a manager. 

Councils need to keep a corporate knowledge of their estate, their assets, and continuity – and knowing the tenants. Once you lose that, opportunities are missed. Conversely, students are looking short-term at the year ahead, getting their first job. 

Reflections 

We have talked a lot about the barriers to attracting and retaining talent. What suggestions and ideas do the panel members have on how local authorities can position themselves better in this space. 

In terms of recruitment, a more general approach for graduates would be that rather than having to look through individual council websites, a positive step forward would be for ACES to publicise opportunities, also using Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. 

Additionally, more of a presence in universities, colleges, and schools would hopefully help recruitment and understanding that the public sector is a good place to work and develop your career. Equally, universities should make more effort to liaise with the public sector, possibly via ACES. 

Concluding bullet points:  

• Pan-LA graduate scheme 

• Using the power of organisations such as ACES as a conduit for recruitment 

• Strengthening links between local authorities and universities 

• Work experience offer to students (a big sell for students) 

• Focusing on the benefits of public sector employment  including autonomy; breadth of work experience; the ability to make a difference locally; better work life balance; inclusive culture 

• Increase online/social presence 

• Consider when you recruit in the ‘cycle’ - be clear that the private sector ‘big 4’ are likely to be a pull for many graduates and don’t try to compete directly.