Elizabeth Higgs Midlands Doyenne Ambassador
What's your favourite inspirational quote or mantra?
Don’t let the bitterness 🍋 steal your sweetness 🫶🏼
Can you share your happiest memory from your time in the industry?
Winning Property Manager of the Year at Doyenne IWD 2023, at the time I wasn’t aware that you could win any awards for Property Management and I had accepted that generally recognition was just from the residents, I was a month into my notice period as a PM and I was going through some emotions where you look at what you’ve done in all that time and weigh up how you feel about it all. I was so surprised to win and it felt like a recognition of the hard work I’d put in over the years, I was so happy and it gave me such a positive closure to that period of my working life. My mum still talks about it all the time, she was so proud.
Around that, probably an amalgamation of different moments where leaseholders have expressed that I’ve made a difference, that they feel listened to, that you’ve turned their perception around, and the characters I’ve worked with, everyday things that combined have made this industry stand out for me.
How do you balance your professional responsibilities with your personal life?
Since I’ve been fully remote, it’s been a very different challenge, the lines easily get blurred and the balance tips one way or another without you recognising that it has happened or why, there is no physical barrier between work and home.
I’m still defining what the healthy version of that looks like, so far it’s been a toss up between making sure I have a routine whilst also embracing the flexibility, I am a people person and I also thrive off of variation, I live alone so making sure I get in enough social interaction throughout the day and change up my environment at least once or twice a week is very important and has to be prioritised, especially when I’m not seeing anyone for work in person that week - I’ve found that otherwise 40 hours a week in solitude minus teams meetings adds up very quickly for me regardless of how social I am outside of work hours.
Often I prioritise a long phone call with a friend or working somewhere different often with someone else - where I may not have 2 screens and silence to focus - but actually that was much better for my brain that day and as a result I procrastinate less, I’m happier overall which is ultimately the most important thing and will overall make for a more productive me in general.
I’ve stopped defining my overall productivity by how much work I do in a day, but by how well I balance each day.
How do you unwind after a long day?
As work is usually in my house - I like to get out of the house, vent with my friends, find a way to laugh about things that weren’t funny when they happened.
I also recently got this app called “endel” which is all about ‘sound wellness’ - sounds like I’ve joined a cult of some sort - but I actually have been finding it really helpful to relax and cut out anxiety in general, help me focus and also address the noise in my head after a busy day.
What motivates you to get up and go to work every day?
This is a difficult question, because there are so many days when there is no higher calling, like in the winter months where I tend to struggle, but “so I don’t get sacked” would be a really poor answer to this question. So I will say, not letting myself on better days down and not letting the people who need me that day down.
Some days you wake up motivated and you know what you’re going for in life at that moment, other days I think it’s okay to say you know that the outfits won’t pay for themselves and I think that’s fine, we’re calling it balance.
If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
My mum's lemon pudding, happily.
What is the biggest challenge you've faced as a woman in this field, and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge I’ve faced, yet I’m asking myself if this is light enough? Is it fun? - Is it something I should talk about & is it controversial to talk about this? And then whether I should even be asking any of those questions, so I will talk about it anyway.
Between the large majority of normal, nice, respectful people I’ve worked with and around, there have been many times when I’ve been undermined and (frankly) there has been too much weird behaviour, some blatantly sexist behaviour, some harassment.
There are three aspects to this, the behaviour that is undermining your professional competency - that is mentally taxing, and it can affect your confidence, what I classify as “weird” behaviour, and then what constitutes harassment. So I’m going to talk about the grey areas.
Clients aren’t supposed to stroke a property managers hair like they’re a pet, they definitely shouldn’t touch your legs, they shouldn’t offer to give you business on “unofficial terms” and directors aren’t supposed to compare their property managers dress size with their wifes - mid way through the monthly progress update on a major works project. In the same way that leaseholders shouldn’t chase you up the street shouting at you because you sent out a letter about their belongings causing a fire hazard, but it always feels more difficult to challenge.
I feel like when a small 5ft 2 girl turns up in your carpark enthusiastic to manage your home, maybe people sometimes think “she seems nice, I’ll just stroke her”…???
Jokes aside, because it’s way too easy to have a sense of humour about it - as a result, I internalised a lot of it because it was easier to go back to the office and laugh about the things that didn’t feel serious, the only differentiation was verbal and physical.
Mentally, it’s difficult to genuinely believe you’re doing a good job, even if you know you worked hard and you’re making good progress, if in the same sentence you’re told you’re doing a good job, the director also just told you have nice legs or started stroking your hair.
There is a stereotypical view that a win is a win, that as a woman you should see that as a strength, and when I’ve spoken about this before, the response is almost that it’s working in your favour, so why would you challenge it.
So, should a woman have to leave that situation questioning whether she actually did a really good job, instead feeling as though her worth / her value in that situation was based on her thighs?
Or is the healthiest way to accept that for yourself, you just add it to the ego bank like people tell you to do - to just think I’m good at what I do, I did a good job - and maybe I do have nice legs?
And to elaborate on that, how is it supposed to make you feel when you tell a colleague that you got good feedback and they say “I’m not surprised, if it’s him he’s probably after the honey pie”, there’s banter and then there’s questions why is that narrative accepted and how does that make you view yourself?
Over time, if you add it all up you start to question whether you are taken seriously.
So mentally for me, I accepted that I fell into the category of “surprisingly competent” and I felt like I had to compensate so much, prove myself tenfold as a professional - essentially because people had acted in an undermining or inappropriate manner in all sorts of different ways. Somehow you just roll your eyes, some you question yourself and the person's intention, did they stroke my hair endearingly? Was it weird? Would it be weird if a woman stroked my hair in the same way? Why is anyone touching me actually? You know, where is the line? Am I normalising things that are gross? There are others where you think should I have challenged that behaviour more than I did or in a better way.
I think where it was difficult to challenge, I relied very heavily on maintaining professionalism, relying on good supportive management teams backing me - or where that hasn’t been the case, you then have to aspire to become that person.
It can be mentally taxing, especially if you feel like you may be questioned as to whether something actually happened or whether you are being overly sensitive.
I know someone who was recently threatened on site on her own and refused to go back to the site, but it was then questioned? Was that person actually acting in a threatening manner or were you reading it wrong - was she overreacting?
So if that happens when you are actually being physically threatened - in terms of taking advice it doesn’t always feel clear cut, for yourself you have to decide whether it just a comment or action that made you feel undermined, did it make you feel uncomfortable and whether you feel it’s genuinely sexual harrassment and depending on the severity of the situation you take a different course of action.
You then need to report it to a manager and/or you need to put in place a plan - weighing it up - this client made a few inappropriate comments and those are signs - so next time perhaps you don’t meet them in their home, make sure the meetings are held in the office, be polite, be professional but don’t let the fine line stop you from taking any bullshit, have confidence in the work you’ve done regardless and don’t let anyone else’s integrity effect your own.
If it’s physical sexual harassment then it’s a whole different ball game, but ultimately in any situation take care of yourself, take care of your mental health first, and if and when you feel that you are ready, speak up about it. If you feel like you can’t talk about it at work, tell a friend, tell someone, and there is a whole here community here for example full of strong women who will support you.
At any level, challenge the narrative if anyone else perceives it otherwise, if it’s happened to you previously and you feel as though you didn’t deal with it in the way you would advise someone else too, still give that good advice. Ultimately, none of it is worth sacrificing your self-confidence or your mental health. It shouldn’t have to be your problem, you just turned up to do a job.
What are the biggest lessons you have learnt in life?
A competitive mindset can be good for productivity but is not sustainable. Mentally you cannot thrive if you are constantly in a competitive or comparative mindset - even if you are competing with yourself or comparing yourself to the “you” you were in a different phase of your life - eventually you will burn out.
That you have to choose happiness, luckily sometimes it just comes to you but the rest of the time you have to choose it, even if that’s through adversity.
Most importantly, try to enjoy where you are now, don’t spend your whole life chasing the next goal.
Stop being nice to everyone else but hard on yourself (hopefully that one sinks in soon).
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