devcast... – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, David Young provides valuable insights into team dynamics, emphasising a strengths-based approach to exploring how to build high-performance teams.

Andrew Deverell-Smith delves into how David Young started and built his career within sports psychology and topics such as understanding group vs team dynamics, leveraging super strengths and finding the perfect balance between challenging and supporting teams.

Nicola is the owner of a renowned and award-winning estate agency nestled in the vibrant Colmore BID district. Since establishing the company in 2004, Nicola has steered the company to prominence, earning it a respected reputation as one of Birmingham's premier residential agencies.

She shares her inspiring journey to success, her commitment to the Colmore BID and what plans she has for the upcoming year.

You can watch and listen to the full episode now...

She has consistently pushed the boundaries of what's possible in the realm of luxury hospitality and unique accommodations.

Naomi has honed her expertise in real estate and property development, turning her passion for creating exceptional living spaces into a reality.

It was an absolute pleasure to have her as a guest, and I look forward to hearing what my network thinks of the episode.

How did the ‘Dear Sirs’ campaign begin?

Ellie explains the phrase “Dear Sirs” remains prevalent within the context of Estate Agency and conveyance, particularly within legal and property professions. This traditional salutation continues to serve as the default choice for initiating formal communication, whether in the form of a letter or an email directed towards a company or a collective group of individuals. 

Ellie recounts her initial experiences upon entering the Estate Agency industry, coming across her first ‘Dear Sirs’ salutation. She comments that she found it strange that her gender was clearly not accounted for, and they must have not realised she was a woman. 

Her curiosity in the matter led her to quickly learn that this was embedded into our history, and when asked politely to not be addressed as ‘Sir’ she was met by the argument that this is the way it has always been done and is a legal default.

What is the aim of the ‘Dear Sirs’ campaign?

The above experience prompted Ellie to delve further into linguistic conventions, and how she could advocate for inclusivity in professional interactions. 

Ellie developed the formal ‘Dear Sirs’ campaign, which gained traction from leaders within the industry, as well as the press. She started to write about her experience and now the campaign is working towards eradicating Dear Sirs and other non-inclusive language within the industry. 

In addition, Ellie expressed that the ‘Dear Sirs’ campaign is a hook for a much broader cultural attitude that is very male-dominant within the industry and is an umbrella for other conversations to be had regarding inclusivity. 

What do we mean by a glass ceiling?

Susan Gregory shares that the more she has reflected on her own journey and educated herself the more she questions – is it something we’ve constructed that isn’t true?

In general, the ‘glass ceiling’ refers to the limit that is set for women with how high women can go within an organisation, above that it’s very difficult to break through. If someone wants to get into those senior positions, you either can’t or have to change who you are to be accepted into the C-suite leadership positions.

The second part to this is the idea of career ladders, and wanting to get to the top, which is something Susan now challenges quite vocally. There are a couple of women that have written podcasts on squiggly careers, and Susan explains that this is what her career looks like. She has worked in places for between 18 months - 2 years and in some of those she has hit a glass ceiling, but in others, on reflection, she admits she had added all of the value she could and outgrown the business, and that has to be okay to some degree as well.

 Should we dismiss the word ceiling?

It conjures up an idea of a linear trajectory and Ellie Reese illustrates that historically and traditionally women tend to take on a large share of the childcare and the responsibilities in the domestic sphere. It has suited men to have a more linear trajectory in a career as it’s a case of climbing up and tends to be simpler. Whereas the natural breaks for women, tend to be there.

Listen to the full podcast to learn more…

Where it all began…

Matt’s professional career started in the valuation space working for the likes of CBRE and JLL as a tenant rep. This very quickly evolved into Matt working in the development world, first as an analyst with a big builder. This bought him exposure to lots of different asset classes, opening his horizons to what opportunities were available within the property industry. 2014 was the first time Matt had exposure to Build to Rent, winning the Commonwealth Games Village project which was held on the gold coast. This was a massive project with 1250 units and was delivered as a build-to-rent asset. 

What’s attractive about the Build to Rent market?

The residential space is something that everyone can relate to, as everyone lives in a home or apartment. Matt shared that Australians are obsessed with property, and even though he lives in a house he is always looking at other houses on the market. Build to Rent combines the fundamental grassroots side of property, with the nuts and bolts of commercial, retail or industrial. 

An update on the Australian Build to Rent market.

Matt shared that PBSA was always about 7 years behind the UK market. This may sound like a disadvantage, but it enables them to decide what they like or don’t like and witness the mistakes that the UK have made and learn from them. He shares this is the same when applied to the Build to Rent market, when they were building the Commonwealth Games Village in 2014, the UK had already built that asset with the London Olympics in 2012.

In terms of the state of the market, Matt shares that the build-to-sell market began to slow down from around 2018/19 when the offshore purchases that existed to fuel that market on the residential side of things slowed down. Build to Rent is the only asset class right now that is firing on the residential side of things, and because of that rather than being quite a niche market in Australia, it has become potentially the only solution to solving housing affordability. 

Influences from around the world

Born in Sri Lanka, David’s father managed tea estates and David followed him around the world throughout the early years of his life. He lived in South India for ten years, then moved to Uganda for 3-4 years and finally to Canada. Throughout those years travelling, from the age of 8 David was flying back to the UK to go to boarding school.

David shared that looking back, having these influences from around the world has shaped who he is today, his perspective on life and the way he does business. Visiting and living in all of these diverse countries, gave him the chance to experience the extreme differences between countries such as the climate and poverty.

All in all, it taught him resilience, opened him up to influences from everywhere and gave him the ability to look at the world from a unique viewpoint.

Leading people

David became the joint Managing Director of ARGENT in 2006 and the sole Managing Partner in 2012. Almost half of that time has been spent in some sort of leadership position.

Aside from the plethora of iconic projects that he has worked on within his career, David shares the part that he is most proud of is the business and its people. To be able to say that the values that he sees within the organisation today that are driving people to create great places are the ones that the business was built upon 30 years ago is something that he is extremely proud of.

David shares that he has always wanted the business to be admired AND respected. He reveals he has instilled and maintained those values within the business by firstly articulating them to the key stakeholders within the business as well as hiring people into the business that share the same values and will flourish under them.

Net Zero Carbon Building Standard Initiative

This is something that David has always been extremely interested in, and a topic that Argent has been implementing in all their projects – to be as climate change friendly as possible.

David became the Chair of the trustees of the UK Green Building Council in 2017 and to this day is a trustee. After having a discussion about what things are of critical importance within the property industry, David shares there was a unanimous agreement that the industry needed a single definition of what net zero carbon was for the entire market.

They have now brought together a whole group of property professionals, including RIBA, RICS and the Carbon Trust to bring the initiative forward by the entire real estate industry. The initiative has been formulated by professionals with the intention of getting it adopted by everyone from the people that own the building, the people that build the building and the people that lend money to those people.

David shares that if the industry has a single metric of what net zero really means, then we can all account for it, and that’s the key. As soon as the industry can find a price for carbon and measure it, everyone will start to adapt their real estate to ensure they end in a net zero position. 

The gender pay gap vs equal pay

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​Susan Gregory explains that the gender pay gap concerns the difference in hourly pay between men and women. This is where an organisation will calculate the earnings of their male employees and divide that by the total number of men in the business. They will then do the same with women and the difference between those numbers is what the gender pay gap represents. This often highlights a disparity of earnings between men and women.

The gender gap is not comparing those that are working in the same role and are being paid a different amount (however some are), it’s highlighting that women are often in lower paid, less senior, and less decision-making positions.

​Ellie Reese explains that the gender pay gap goes further by separating the mean and median average into lower, middle, and upper quartiles. Usually, if you have work for of majority women which most estate agencies do, most women are sitting in the lower pay quartile, showing they are in those more supporting roles.

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The estate agency world

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Considering only companies with over 250 employees need to publish what their gender pay gap is, Nicola, asks how this impacts the estate agency world where most of those businesses are going to be working under that number. They discuss that it is difficult, however, the 20-odd organisations in the industry that so qualify for that number represent well what an estate agency looks like. Most of the small independent agencies will have structures and processes like those of bigger, corporate estate agencies. Corporate businesses have a responsibility of setting the tone because they are highly visible within the industry.

Why is the conversation around the gender pay gap becoming more prevalent?

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​Ellie Reese suggests that the aftermath of the pandemic has changed the landscape of the working world in general and has highlighted so many things that are based on gender. Furthermore, there has been a rise to the surface of dissatisfaction in general since the me-too movement, and we are more open to having these honest conversations.

As a society we are becoming more aware of the world around us, what is good and what is acceptable, leading to the gender pay gap being on people’s minds which is in turn reflecting the culture of the workplace.​

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The steppingstones to success

After dropping out of her history degree at 18 because it wasn’t the right fit, Fiona landed herself a job at Dublin City Corporation as an office administrator. She was handed two envelopes to decide which division she would sit in, and she picked the housing department over vehicle taxation which could have taken her down a very different career path.  

She shares the culture shock she experienced from living in a small town in Ireland, adapting to working in Dublin, and realising that housing was an actual reality. She had never seen flats where she lived, and then suddenly she was looking after Dublin’s only high-rise building at that time.

Widening her career

The Dublin City Corporation gave her a career break, and she took the opportunity to go travelling. She landed in London and fell in love with the city. She shares it was so different to Dublin in the late 80s. She adored the diversity and energy of London and found her next career step in a small housing association, working on a lot of local authority projects.

 In the back of her head was always the desire to finish her university education so she headed to Newcastle university where she studied surveying. This widened her housing career where she branched out into working on assets and development appraisals. She shares she spent the next 30 years working within the public sector. 

Housing is a fundamental piece of the property sector

Fiona explains the value of housing and how our lives start with a safe and secure home. Somewhere free of disrepair, dampness, and mould and somewhere your family feels safe. Even down to having a productive education where you aren’t moving all the time due to temporary accommodation, and you have the space to do your homework. It’s such a fundamental part of what we do, as well as being an incredible asset that has value, especially in a place like London. 

Barum discusses what he thinks good learning is, how learning has evolved to bite-sized learning and how the leadership team at deverellsmith has a responsive approach to their employee development.