Race equality has always been important, but it hasn't always been at the forefront of people's minds. Events of recent months have put it there – the shocking death of George Floyd in the States and the subsequent growth of the Black Lives Matter movement here in the UK. British Land is on a journey of understanding and action around race equality.

British Land has long had a focus on diversity and inclusion. We have seven active employee networks and were the first listed property company to achieve the National Equality Standard. We’ve always taken race equality seriously but, both as a business and as society as a whole, we just haven’t done enough.

Following the events of this year, we’ve revisited our policies and practices to make sure they align with what’s right in terms of race equality. We’ve also reviewed our aspirational strategies, looking at best practice around the world.

Our journey of understanding and action

British Land is determined that what we do is a movement and not a moment. A ‘moment’ describes those who say the right things at the time but if you go back to them six months later and ask what they’ve done, there’s been no real action. A ‘movement’ describes those who quietly move that dial, commit to doing specific things and then do them. And they publish a record of what they’ve done.

Working towards this, we’re in the middle of developing our first Race Equality Framework, aligned to our overall Diversity & Inclusion Framework, covering five important areas:

1. People and culture: this includes working more closely with our Ethnic Diversity Network to support and educate the organisation, starting with non-bias training this month. We’re also looking at objectives for managers and leaders around fairness and equality in their functions.
2. Recruitment and career progression: we already operate blind CVs for many roles and will seek ethnic minority candidates for recruitment shortlists, using specialist recruiters to help us achieve this. We’re also investigating additional opportunities to support and develop people from different backgrounds in their careers.
3. Our leadership: Sally Jones, a member of our Executive Committee, is taking on responsibility for race and ethnicity, driving progress and coordinating the five streams. And we’re gathering data to publish our ethnicity pay gap, alongside our gender pay gap, which will give new insights.
4. Our industry and supplier networks: we’re planning a workshop on race equality for our supply chain, exploring best practice together, whilst reviewing our own procurement policies. I’ve also joined the Board of Pathways to Property, which aims to widen access to the real estate profession by raising awareness of and aspirations about careers. This has successfully connected a diverse range of talented young people from different socio-economic backgrounds to careers in our sector.
5. Our places and communities: we’ve already made a start in this space, working with our community partners, such as the East London Business Alliance, and customer diversity networks, as well as through events. We will certainly make more opportunities. Great places are inclusive.

We’re sharing our Race Equality Framework with colleagues and publishing it externally because we want to be held accountable. We have also signed up to the Race at Work Charter and, as part of this, we’re committing to sharing our progress.

A smaller, faster and more agile world

Beyond any doubt, striving for race equality is the right thing to do. Everybody has the right to be who they are and live their lives in a fair and equal manner. This shows the level of maturity of an organisation, country or group of people.

It’s also important for an organisation’s brand and commercial success. As a property company, we need a diverse workforce which reflects the people who live and work in our places, in order to best serve their needs. We live in a world now that is smaller, faster and more agile. So if you don’t reflect the world around you, you will be left behind.

Race equality matters in attracting the best talent too. People looking for a job today, look at whether an organisation reflects their values, interests and community and who they are. If the answer is 'no' to any of these, then potential employees will think long and hard, particularly when they have more than one offer on the table.

For us to be a great company to work for, our policies, strategies and processes have to reflect best practice on diversity and inclusion. In turn, having that diversity of perspectives in our organisation means we’ll continue creating great places for our customers and communities.

Bring your whole self is one of our company values. Find out more about our employee networks.