VNT Share Price: $

Our people-Building a diverse team in Property
08.03.21

Building a diverse team in Property

When you're given the opportunity to build a new business unit from scratch it's like being part of a start-up, says Project and Workplace Solutions (PWS) Operations Director Adam Murone.

The appetite and drive for growth is huge, and it enables the leaders to create a diverse team that can deliver on our goals. 

Adam and the Head of Project and Workplace Solutions Nathan Munro had the opportunity to do this a few years ago as they created the PWS team (which is part of the Property business unit) sitting within the Defence and Social Infrastructure sector.

"We were able to build a team that fit the culture we wanted to create," Adam said. "That meant flexibility, diversity, passion and performance."

Adam says he and Nathan both believed in hiring for cultural fit first and skills second. 

"We figured we can teach skills, but we can't teach a lot of those intangibles that go into making up a high-performing team." 

 

The Project and Workplace Solutions team

The 35-strong PWS team are based throughout the east coast of Australia with offices in Canberra, Melbourne, and Brisbane, and a new office opening in Sydney in 2021. 

When asked how he ensured they built a diverse and inclusive team, Adam insists that what he and Nathan did to ensure diversity was nothing groundbreaking.

"The property sector generally is male dominated," Adam says.

"But there's no silver bullet here. It's about making conscious choices at every decision point."

Some of the activities Adam and Nathan undertook included ensuring any list of potential candidates for a role included a good mix of male and female applicants. If a list didn't include many, or in one case any, females, Adam would push back to the recruiters and tell them it wasn't good enough.

"When we recruit, it's a big thing," Adam says. "We've grown quickly, so it was important to do the recruitment piece right."

"There can be unconscious bias at play. Sometimes the language we use in our advertising or our interview process is overly masculine and that puts female applicants off. A major contributing factor to our business growth and success has been encouraging critical thinking through open and diverse communication."

Building inclusion and support 

Once they have recruited someone into the team, Adam notes that keeping them means building a sense of inclusion and support.

"I recently had a team member ask if she could participate in one of the senior leadership programs that Ventia runs," Adam says. "It's not cheap, but we're committed to developing our leaders to make sure that we're giving everyone in our team the tools they need to grow and develop."

"I love that she felt empowered enough to put her hand up and ask for this and even more so that our business is able to support her in this development program." 

PWS Commercial Manager Giselle Chorvat says she appreciates the supportive and inclusive environment she works in. 

"I am a big believer in the importance of diversity and working in a traditionally male dominated industry, I know it can be a challenge to achieve that," Giselle says. "It's not just about getting women into the team, but about creating an environment in which we can all flourish and grow."

"I would have no issues recommending females to join our team, not only because I work with strong and supportive women, but equally supportive and strong men. I truly believe this is attributed to the strong leadership which cultivates this amazing culture that attracts females to work here."

Adam says that key to his role as a manager is to help his team build on their skills and step up into more senior roles eventually. Whilst the annual review process is important to provide feedback and check progress against goals, big jumps in their career are only going to happen through role progression. 

Other tactics Adam and Nathan employ include nominating team members for awards, internal and external, and providing training opportunities, particularly in skills outside their day to day role. 

If there's one piece of advice Adam can give on leading a diverse and inclusive team, it's something he heard Sir Richard Branson say and he took it to heart. 

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.

It's a small industry in property, Adam says. 

"Little things can make a big difference in differentiating yourself. Spending time developing people beyond their technical skills is important for their individual brand." 

Read more about the Property team and what they can offer clients here
 

 

Related projects

SEE MORE PROJECTS
  • VBA

    Gender diversity drives positive outcomes

    In Sydney's south, our roads contract team at VBA have a leadership team that recently achieved gender parity.
    Read more
  • Australian Goverment

    Indigenous Employment Parity Initiative

    Our dedicated Indigenous Employment team was formed in 2016 and is tasked with achieving significant and sustainable growth in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and wom...
    Read more

Related news

SEE MORE NEWS
  • 26.11.2022

    Award winning women at Ventia

    The creation of a mentoring program for women and the development of a complex reporting submission were just two examples of great work being done by award-winning women at Ventia this year...
    Read more
  • 04.09.2022

    Asking questions to open up conversations

    Some of us head off to university knowing exactly what we want to do with our lives and have our career paths carefully planned out. Others, like Account Manager Amanda Morton, are less su...
    Read more
  • 19.07.2022

    Women in Property

    Moving from the construction industry into property for Project Manager Sophie Pratt was as much about increased flexibility as it was learning new skills.
    Read more
  • 10.05.2022

    Celebrating World FM Day

    With over 18 years' experience in the property industry, National Program Leader Erin Flannery has held various senior positions throughout her career, supporting facility management. ...
    Read more
  • 24.03.2021

    APP sale is complete

    On March 5, 2021 Ventia announced that it had entered into a share sale agreement with Five V Capital, for APP Corporation Pty Ltd and its subsidiaries. The transaction is now compl...
    Read more
  • 10.06.2019

    Female leadership proves strong at Delron

    In 2018, women held 30.5% of key management positions in organisations across Australia*. At Delron, the commercial cleaning company that sits with Ventia's Facilities Management b...
    Read more