Colliers: Elevating Women in the Workplace
Colliers continues our commitment to elevate and advance women in our workplace in North America and globally. Both our Canadian and U.S. CEOs, Brian Rosen and Gil Borok, are individual signatories of the CREW Pledge and have shown their commitment to advocate for gender parity in all Colliers’ North American workplaces.
As part of our commitment to Colliers’ global diversity, equity and inclusion goals, Colliers made a first-in-industry statement in 2021: Achieve a 40% female share of Colliers total employees and management roles, in our regional, investment and mortgage businesses, by 2025. This is codified as part of our “Elevate the Built Environment” environmental, social and governance strategic plan. We since identified a global baseline of Colliers female representation at 37.6% of total Colliers’ professionals, and also tracked 42.3% of total female managers, exceeding this portion of the goal. We continue to progress globally and within each country against these standards through the continued hiring and promotion of senior leaders as well as a number of strategic investments.
Since signing the CREW pledge in 2021 (but not just because of it), we have launched or grown the following additional programs enabling the recruitment, development, support and retention of women in commercial real estate:
1. Established the Colliers North American Executive Diversity Council (EDC), now the guiding body of Colliers’ DEI investment and action plan. The Council provides support, scholarships, internships and recruiting opportunities for women and other diverse professionals in partnership with organizations like CREW, Project REAP and AAREP (African Americans Real Estate Professionals).
2. Evolved a college campus recruiting program targeting students considering the real estate industry with a focus on Women in Business, Women in Real Estate, Latino Business Clubs, and dedicated real estate student groups at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)
3. Increased dedicated investment in associations fostering increased CRE industry diversity, such as Colliers’ investment in CREW (with over 160 active members nationally). Colliers invests in CREW’s scholarship program that sends female professionals to attend and receive training at the CREW Emerging Leaders Retreat and the national conference.
4. Developed and grew intentional education, training and mentorship to boost company culture. Three major training programs have accelerated Colliers’ women and general diversity-related momentum: (1) DEI Learning, (2) Acceleration Program and (3) Management Development Program.
DEI Learning is a virtual training program presented annually through all Colliers-owned offices, presenting 3,300 hours of instruction since inception in 2020. Topics include Becoming an Ally to All, Inclusion & Belonging, Managing Unconscious Bias, and Inclusive Leadership.
The Acceleration Program, geared toward newer brokers, focuses on foundational skills and behaviors required for success. Launched in January 2022, the program develops new brokers while empowering them to think differently and embrace an inclusive culture. One measurable outcome of its inclusive mission - 48% of its participants are female.
Since 2018, Colliers’ Management Development Program for aspiring and current people managers has enjoyed steady enrollment growth. Over the last five years, there have been 272 participants, 55% of whom have been female.
5. Introduced pay transparency initiatives across multiple states when posting for opportunities at Colliers. Equitable pay for women has long been a complex issue across the industry and Colliers’ People Services team is working to create a uniform job architecture throughout the company followed by a planned deep dive into pay equity through the launch of a pay equity study and survey. The team is developing solutions to the challenges involved in ensuring that everyone is paid fairly based solely on the work they do.
6. Enhanced policies and benefits valuing women employee priorities. Colliers recently made improvements to its Paid Parental Leave policy and added a new travel reimbursement benefit for those needing to travel to receive reproductive health services. Feedback from the company’s annual employee engagement survey also resulted in an added enhancement to Colliers’ prescription drug benefit.
We have created eight active Employee Resource Groups (ERG), with nearly 1,100 members and growing every day, including the Women’s Network, Working Parents & Caregivers, PRIDE, LIDER (Hispanic/Latino/a/x), Pan-Asian Network, Veterans Initiative, WorkAbility and the Black Professionals Employee Resource Group. Specific to women, the Colliers Women’s Network is the largest of the company’s ERGs. This ERG has attracted nearly 800 members, organized into seven geographical regions. Each group provides networking, mentorship, training, current events updates, discussions and volunteer opportunities.
We believe our ERGs are critical to achieving a truly inclusive culture that will empower women and all employees to be their authentic selves and achieve a true sense of belonging in our workplace. Led by our employees, our ERGs foster more creative thinking and help us serve our employees, clients and communities better.
Third Party Recognition
The marketplace has recognized Colliers for all of these efforts to move the needle when it comes to equitable women representation in the firm. Among a number of national and global awards, in December 2022 Forbes named Colliers a Top Female Friendly Company Worldwide for the year. This recognition is the result of a survey of over 85,000 women across 36 countries. Forbes assessed over 4,000 companies in their evaluation with 400 awarded, and Colliers is one of only two commercial real estate firms included in this list.
Colliers was also recognized by The Globe and Mail’s fourth-annual Women Lead Here benchmark of executive gender diversity. The annual editorial benchmark identifies Canadian businesses with the highest executive gender diversity. We were thrilled to be the only commercial real estate firm in Canada recognized by The Globe and Mail for our ongoing efforts to impact gender diversity in the workplace. Additionally, Olivia MacAngus, now president and CEO of Colliers Project Leaders, was a recipient of The Globe and Mail’s 2022 Best Executive Awards.
We know that our culture differentiates us, and we are incredibly proud to celebrate diversity, encourage inclusiveness, and work toward ensuring all of our people are engaged equally as we work to enhance it.