Big week for us all here at JLL.  Diversity & Inclusion Week has started.  Most of you are not surprised that I am part of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee here at JLL.  I have been since I went to my first American Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong conference, the Women of Influence Awards back in 2013.

Last week somebody asked me why Diversity and Inclusion seemed to be always based around women.  I had to let them know that it isn’t about women necessarily but about gender balance.  The world of real estate is known as a “man’s world” except sometimes for Residential.  Well 18 months ago I had a team of 21 women and 2 men.  In a challenging market where we need to come together to get problems solved then a team of women isn’t good either……I have been working hard in my hiring practices and the team now has 22 women and 7 men and what a difference it has made.  Sadly we still can’t change the market but we are coming up with better results for our clients.  Embracing Diversity and Inclusion within a team is powerful whether it be gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status or other ideologies.

It is quite simple!

The week will start with a tea time panel this afternoon, where I will be asking Joseph Tsang, our Managing Director, Sylvia Lau our International Director of Corporate Appraisal and Advisory,  Carol Chu from Valuations and Jason Brown who has most recently joined the committee a few questions as to why and how JLL has and needs to continue to change our working environment so it continues to become even more focused on Diversity and importantly Inclusion.

Tuesday will have two sessions, one around mentoring and the other will be an evening of role playing – Unconscious Bias being the main topic of discussion.

The evening of Wednesday will be spent testing our knowledge.   A quiz night around Diversity and Inclusion with some 852 questions no doubt.

Art will (not surprisingly!)  play a part on Thursday.  My old man has influenced me in more ways than one!  Cath Love will be joining us.  For those of you who aren’t perhaps up with some of the work of HK Walls might not have heard of Cath. She is an artist and graphic designer who now lives here but she was born in Bangkok and similarly was brought up in Hong Kong.  Sadly she wasn’t a student of Mr Peter Spider Hindes but he would have loved to have taught her.  Some of her past clients include some our our clients and some of my favourite shoes!  Island Records, Selfridges, Nike, H&M, Jimmy Choo, Cafe O Group, Lane Crawford and Kangol.

Friday will bring a CSR and Family focus end to the week.

We have a Diversity and Inclusion team running – t shirts and all.  The JLL Urban Relay is a tradition of JLL where we give back to the community. This year HK Breast Cancer Foundation will be the recipients of money raised.  Staff and clients are encouraged to bring family.  I am hoping the rain will hold off and that it even cools down.

So stay tuned to this week by following us on all of the millions of ways you can.

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Look out for our hashtags to follow the fun throughout the week #JLLDiversityHK #IamJLL

Have a great week everyone.