BA R R AT T D E V E L O P M E N T S
SPOTLIGHT ON ROB TANSEY AND BARRATT DEVELOPMENTS
Constructive progress in UK social mobility ROB TANSEY, GROUP HR DIRECTOR AT BARRATT DEVELOPMENTS, TALKS TO JUSTINE GREENING ABOUT THE COMPANY’S WORK TO FILL A SECTOR-WIDE SKILLS GAP BY FINDING UNTAPPED TALENT.
Q A
// What does social mobility mean to Barratt as a business and why it is so important?
// Our company vision puts the customer at the heart of everything that we do. In many respects it starts here. If you treat your customer right you will create a positive employer brand perception that will [also] mean people will want to work for you. And those people [already] working with you, will want to stay with you. One of the key opportunities for us is actually opening up many different pathways for people to come and work for us. We’ve had a diversity and inclusion strategy for a number of years but we’ve still got an awful lot to do. As part of our business strategy, we know that we have a skills crisis and we know that we need to look at other routes to market and other pools of employment. So it is not purely altruistic. By reaching out to those in socially deprived areas, we have an opportunity to improve our business and improve lives.
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Q//
Tell me about some of the ways you’ve broadened the range of talent coming into the organisation.
A//
Three years ago we embarked on a programme whereby we accepted that around less than 40 per cent of our workforce was female. In senior management it was around 15 per cent. Our BAME statistics were not good [either]. As a consequence, we had a programme of inclusive leadership and unconscious bias training, which everyone in the organisation has been through. They are all now in a position where they are looking at their recruitment methodology, how they treat their people and how they promote them; and they are doing it in a much more inclusive way. But we’ve got a long way to go. We have a number of graduates that work for us, who created something which I was really proud of called Built By Both. It’s a series of networking events in construction for like-minded people in all different types construction. We have lots of speakers come
