• For Organisations
• For Individuals
• Events and Workshops
• Investors In People London
• Case Studies
• News
• Contact Us
• FAQ's
• CQL Home

Cushman & Wakefield offers a full range of commercial property services and represents a wide range of clients including multinational corporations, financial institutions, pension funds, developers, small and medium sized companies.

Cushman & Wakefield is one of the top three global property comsultants.The UK office now sits within the Europe, Middle East, Asia (EMEA) area of the company which embraces 30 countries and employs over 1,500 people.

The European division of Cushman & Wakefield was going through a period of growth in the 1990’s and having to meet new competitive challenges mostly from a rationalization and polarization towards strong niche players at one end of the scale and very large practices at the other. They were also beginning to outgrow their UK base of operations despite being the largest privately owned firm in the property sector and commenced a relationship with their future American partners, Cushman & Wakefield Inc. based in New York.

They became more aware than ever that the development of people, both professional staff and support teams was critical to future success. They needed to attract, retain and motivate high caliber professionals across the board, from graduates to partners. Investors in People were fundamental to becoming an employer of choice and leveraging human capital. They had outgrown their old ways of engendering trust and commitment simply as a function of size and needed something else to act as a framework to build the culture.

The first assessment reinforced beliefs in the processes they knew were good and gave C&W tremendous confidence. It also provided tangible benchmarks for yet further improvement and later found further reinforcement from such standards as ISO 9001 which naturally complemented IiP. There was also clear evidence that a more consistent approach to development was paying dividends in higher levels of competence, retention and client feedback.

Latterly, they also found a by–product of the external audit meant they could ‘tick the box’ needed for public sector clients who required real evidence of people development strategies. IiP helped enormously during the significant upheaval of moving from their traditional home to a modern building, well away from the traditional haunt of London property firms. Decision making and focus groups extended to all quarters to ensure employee engagement and resulted in design features and facilities in the offices that were not originally anticipated. Even after the move the consultation process resulted in further refinements.

There was a strong belief that in a deal–driven professional environment, where the client is at the centre of everything, that people would progress on merit. C&W had always been mindful of the potential barriers in the firm to a learning culture and decent culture. They came in three main guises. Firstly, the potential differential between professional and support teams. Secondly, that the firm would become a training ground for smaller practices and niche players and therefore lose more people after qualification. Thirdly, that being so client and deal driven, training would be subjugated and people would only attain promotion through evidence of fee–earning.

Today the firm has moved from a push to a pull system with complete transparency and accessibility to training resources for every employee. This is done through a web based training portal and has significantly reduced administration costs while also raising awareness of opportunities. This also provides immediate real time metrics and evaluation systems are more robust, sophisticated yet simpler to conduct.

Paradoxically, the more training provided, the lower the attrition rates. In fact it has proven to flush out those who try and hide within their comfort zones. It illuminates the dark recesses where training has become less of a focus. It’s a business health–check that keeps the culture healthy, reduces complacency and acts as a fitness plan between assessments should the firm be tempted to develop any bad habits!