Property Manager, Claire Herd on #IWD23
What is your role at The Carling Group?
As Property Manager within the Carling Group of businesses, I manage our portfolio of residential, HMO and commercial properties, ensuring all our tenants are happy, and properties are properly maintained.
What does equity mean to you?
Equity to me means making sure that policies are fair and available to everyone over the business. I love being part of a team that gives the ability to let each individual grow, contribute and make an impact with a great positive attitude.
Whilst our immediate team in predominantly female, our wider team of tradespeople who maintain the properties on our behalf, are almost exclusively male. Everyone in our team is treated with respect and fully supported in whatever role they do.
Have you experienced positive change over the past 5 years, or is everything still the same?
For all of the negatives, Covid seemed to have a big positive impact on the property industry over the last 2 years. I think the pandemic force us to try new things and take a proper look at all of our processes.
We have always had a lot of flexibility in when, and where we work, providing it doesn’t negatively impact the business, but the pandemic allowed us to try home-working, remote-working, virtual property viewings, and we revamped processes to suit our tenants. Flexibility is important, especially when it comes to women with children, having the ability to adjust to suit all of the unexpected things that parenthood throws up is a huge positive, and I think will have a lasting impact on the number of women in senior positions.
What is your hope for the future?
I love working in a high-performing team. I always want to surround myself with like-minded, strong people, who inspire and encourage me to achieve my goals and hit targets.
I hope that we continue improving women’s rights and #embraceequity for all, so that everyone can pursue a career/ life that they want, and that the only barrier to women achieving their goals, is their own commitment to doing it.