Thinking differently to drive social change
Reimagining its role can help the property industry drive change on a host of issues – diversity, domestic violence, housing affordability and homelessness among them – says the Property Council’s national president, Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz.
The chief executive officer and managing director of Mirvac, Lloyd-Hurwitz oversees a company with more than $17 billion in assets under management. Last week, Mirvac reported that its profit increased by 13 per cent, to $1.16 billion, over the 2017 financial year.
Lloyd-Hurwitz is also driving an ambitious social agenda which challenges the role that property companies play in adding value to communities and shifting the dial on a host of issues relevant to our cities.
Mirvac’s Building Balance initiative, for example, aims to challenge attitudes and behaviours embedded in the construction industry. Mirvac’s construction employees are being asked to rethink the way processes and procedures are undertaken, so that their workplaces can support a better quality of work-life balance.
Lloyd-Hurwitz says Mirvac is seeing “an increase in the number of people accessing formal or informal flexibility arrangements, including from men”.
Mirvac’s experience is reflected in an industry-wide trend. The Property Male Champions of Change second annual report, released in July, revealed significant progress on diversity, particularly around flexible working arrangements and the number of women at senior levels.
“Ensuring that all employees, both men and women, have the tools and support needed to work from a variety of locations is essential in helping people to be focused, productive, and balanced,” she says.
While workplace flexibility supports gender diversity, “where we really need to see progress is in closing the gender pay gap,” Lloyd-Hurwitz adds.
The Male Champions of Change coalition has today launched the Closing the Gender Pay Gap report, which outlines the steps to ensuring equal pay for equal work, drawn from strategies and tips developed by some of Australia’s top businesses over recent years.
“At Mirvac, we very proudly have a zero per cent gender wage gap on like-for-like roles. Thinking through all the factors that lead to inequity and then closing gaps is key.”
In 2016, Mirvac developed a framework that measures the company’s social return on projects, “so we can do more of what our customers value, and work with government and community groups about proposed design and investment opportunities,” Lloyd-Hurwitz says.
Among the measures are improved safety, sense of community, active living and sense of place.
“We know that feeling safe and connected to our neighbours are powerful drivers of social return, and we’re able to measure how the aspects we design in can deliver significant benefit over and above norms captured by the census.”
Lloyd-Hurwitz says Mirvac is “very conscious” of using its purchasing power ethically, and “also mindful of the enormous potential we have to affect positive social change just by thinking differently”.
One area where Mirvac is ‘thinking differently’ is around social procurement.
“Where we can divert existing spend to include providers in our supply chain which are for purpose, not just for profit, we are beginning to do so,” she says.
Mirvac’s ‘profit for purpose’ café at 200 George Street in Sydney is an example of this philosophy in action. The Song Kitchen is run in partnership with the YWCA NSW, with all profits supporting programs for victims of domestic violence and women’s homelessness.
“If you visit our head office reception area on level 28, you’ll see a productive and social meeting place where collaboration and coffee go hand in hand,” Lloyd-Hurwitz says.
Lloyd-Hurwitz is also championing the build-to-rent model, which she says can “bring certainty and quality to tenants”.
“With so many Australians, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, experiencing mortgage stress, and a growing group of people experiencing rental stress, there really is a job to be done between property groups, governments and others to change our thinking,” she says.
“We’ve welcomed the NSW government’s recent statements on this, and we are preparing to invite investors to join us in delivering a better customer experience for people to live in a well-managed, full-of-amenity home where the tenant is the customer, not the landlord.”