As a leading management agent, Rendall & Rittner focuses on heavily investing in its employees and creating a company where individuals can flourish regardless of gender. In honour of International Women's Day (8th March), female members of Rendall & Rittner's senior management team deliberate what it's like to have a career in the property management industry.

It has always been important to Rendall & Rittner that roles are fulfilled regardless of gender, Catherine Orezzi, HR Director has been with the company since 2017 and explains: “At Rendall & Rittner, I feel we are doing an excellent job at promoting roles of women. We currently have a 59% female and 41% male split within our head office. All our recruitment practices are inclusive, support flexibility in terms of working locations and working hours, which can be an important factor for those who have families. We have done a lot of work recently in highlighting our benefits, which has been well received by people joining the company. 10% of our employees also work part time and we have seen an increase in this over the last year or so.”

Sam Short, Divisional Director expands: “We support family initiatives such as The Daisy Chain, a company set up specifically for parents to match their careers, while supporting their work life balance. We also have great initiatives for retaining women following maternity leave.”

Discussing the increase in women joining the property sector Alexandra Redmond, Director of Cardoe Martin comments: “As a Chartered Building Surveyor, I can see that more women are entering property and surveying in particular. Our governing body, RICS, are committed to promoting the industry as an equal and progressive industry for women to enter and succeed in.” Sue Petri, Director at Rendall & Rittner continues “I have been in the industry for 20 years now and have definitely seen an increase in women joining our industry”.

The Senior Management team are all in agreement that more needs to be done to promote the building and property management industries within schools and universities. Catherine Orezzi explains: “We need to build closer relationships with universities to talk to students about what the property industry is like. I think there is a perception that we are Estate Agents which may put some women off. At our graduate fayres last year, we met a huge number of women who were interested in a career in property.” Sue Petri expands: “I didn't come into property management until my mid 30's and I think that the wider experience gained in life and other careers has stood me in excellent stead, bringing many transferrable skills. I think that we should be encouraging everyone into this career, not just younger generations.”

A varied workforce has its advantages for the whole industry, Catherine Riva, Director explains: “I strongly believe it is important in any sector to have a good mix of male and female employees at all levels.  At Rendall and Rittner we employee and want to recruit and retain the best people in the industry and further afield – male and female.  We have created flexible working initiatives, great employee packages and engagement initiatives which appeal to everyone.”

As a male dominated industry, property can often be perceived as an industry that has long working hours and isn't very flexible, however, at Rendall & Rittner this couldn't be further from the truth. Catherine Riva concludes: “Due to the nature of the job meetings outside of normal working hours are necessary, but can discourage some women who have child care responsibilities. This is why it's important that flexible working initiatives are introduced to businesses. At Rendall & Rittner we have developed a range of flexible working and wider employee initiatives to ensure that our employees work and family life is always in balance.”

Rendall & Rittner manages in excess of 70,000 units across the UK from small high-end developments to some of London's largest regeneration projects.  To find out more about Rendall & Rittner, visit: http://www.rendallandrittner.co.uk.

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For further press information please contact Emily McKay on 0203 8745740 or email emily@oraclepr.co.uk