The commercial real estate brokerage industry has become a more favorable place for women professionals, but men and women disagree on the extent of the progress, according to the latest Apto National Broker Buzz Poll, which was conducted before the Fourth of July by commercial real estate software company Apto.
Women believe there’s been some progress; men believe there’s been more.
“It’s one of the interesting differences that the poll revealed,” said Apto CEO Angela Tucci. “While most respondents agreed that the industry has made improvements in the way it treats women — and this is something we should certainly celebrate — the representation of women in broker roles and leadership positions still remains low. Just like in the tech industry, we should be pleased that workplace gender relations are generally getting better, but we should aspire to achieve greater inclusivity and even further diversity.”
Another difference highlighted in the poll: Men and women have different attitudes towards work teams. Women are more inclined to think teams should be gender-balanced. Men are more neutral on the issue, inclined to think that gender makes less of a difference to the success of work teams.
Of the female respondents, 77 percent said they’d be comfortable wirh their daughter working in the business considering how women are treated, while 23 percent said they would not. However, this view differed somewhat when respondents were asked if they’d be comfortable with their daughter working at their own firm. To this question, 88 percent yes, 12 percent said no. Out of the male respondents, 92 percent said they’d feel comfortable with their daughter working in the industry, while 8 said no. Ninety-six percent said they’d feel comfortable with their daughter working at their own firm, while four percent did not.
Women and men, when asked: On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being “Not at all” and 10 being “A lot,” how has the #MeToo movement affected how you interact with people at work?, the average response was 3.
