Goodlord has committed to monitoring its pay, retention and promotion rates for black, ethnic minority and white groups.
The platform, which automates the lettings process, is the first property company to sign up to the race fairness commitment (RFC) launched by diversity recruitment specialists Rare.
The RFC initiative was unveiled this week and has already been embraced by 16 of the UK’s leading law firms such as Clifford Chance and Hogan Lovells.
By pledging to the charter, Goodlord commits to adopting new, data-driven measures to combat the career obstacles faced by black, Asian and ethnic minority colleagues.
Measures in the RFC include collecting quantitative data and monitoring employee lifecycles from recruitment to senior promotion to identify the points at which team members are unfairly falling behind their peers. It also involves a commitment to ensure race and racism are better recognised and talked about internally.
William Reeve, chief executive of Goodlord, said: “It’s a privilege to sign this charter and be the first property sector business to do so.
“We must all do more to tackle inequality through tangible action. How we recruit our teams and how we treat them in the workplace are two areas where more must be done. Goodlord isn’t perfect.
“But we are committed to practising what we preach and doing everything in our power to move things in a positive direction. We believe embracing the race fairness commitment is a key step in this journey.”
Donovan Frew, chief technology officer at Goodlord and a non-executive director at Rare, added: “As a black person in leadership positions at both Goodlord and Rare, signing this charter means a lot to me personally.
“For too long people have been held back from maximising their potential solely based on the colour of their skin.
“This is as ridiculous as it is pernicious. Diversity has always been important to us here at Goodlord, but more can always be done.
“By signing up to this commitment we are agreeing to treat racial diversity like we treat every other important metric in the business; measure it, analyse it and act upon it.”
Not sure I like this lot much but credit where credit is due, they are very, very good at PR. From a standing start, they’ve done well to grow and sustain a positive high profile within our industry.
I applaud their stance on RFC. Probably like many of us, they’ve acknowledged they have got a long way to go – a quick glance at their website shows of the 54 team pictures shown, 5 are BAME with only one in the 10 senior management, i.e. 10% in each category which seems low given their base in East London, where 44% of the population are BAME
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