Foxtons has reportedly hired senior consultants to help improve working conditions at the estate agency.
The company’s reputation has taken a hit of late following a number of damaging allegations.
Last month, two former employees of the estate agency made fresh claims of alleged sexual harassment and racism.
The latest allegations came just a few weeks after a Bloomberg investigation revealed detailed claims of groping, sexual propositions, and racist language at the company – an alleged practice that Foxtons promised to address.
A MailOnline report revealed allegations relating to a two-year period from 2021 to 2023, ranging from unwanted sexual advances during team parties to a poster that called a homosexual colleague a “gay *****.”
The publication states that it has seen the flyer that pimped out the male worker with a phone number typed on tabs underneath.
According to MailOnline, two staff members were sacked over the poster, while another worker who was suspended is believed to still be employed by the agency.
Two former Foxtons employees told MailOnline how they were subjected to and witnessed sexual harassment and racist abuse and described working at the firm as like being in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’.
MailOnline also reports that between 2021 and 2023 two male colleagues placed a wager on who could ‘get’ a 19-year-old girl first when she started working at a branch in West Hampstead, NW London, which has since closed.
A female colleague, who wished to remain anonymous, told MailOnline how she befriended the new starter after overhearing the sleazy wager and said they were both ‘randomly touched’ in the staff kitchen by one of the older men.
The former female employees told how they would be pestered by male colleagues on work nights outs.
Another female employee claims that at a team building night out she was a approached by a male colleague who asked., “Do you want to come to the car park and suck my d***?”
Foxtons, led by chief executive Guy Gittins, is determined to clean up the company’s culture and has now responded to negative media reports by bringing in external consultants, according to Investors’ Chronicle.
Gittins reportedly wrote to Foxtons employees on 11 April to announce an external cultural review, two months after the initial report and shortly after the Daily Mail article.
“We are working with an external company to help us further explore our strengths and weaknesses, so that we can improve where needed and harness the best parts,” Gittins said in an internal email to staff with the subject line “Foxtons Culture Review”.
“Over time, this will build on the work and training we have already done with external organisations and internally to help further embed the transparent, safe, and supportive working environment everyone is striving to achieve.”
He added: “When I rejoined Foxtons in September 2022, I spent my first few months conducting a forensic review of the business. One of my key findings was that the culture at Foxtons needed changing.”
A spokesperson for Foxtons told the press that the company had “thoroughly investigated and taken robust action where incidents of inappropriate conduct have been reported”.
“We have made progress improving our culture in recent years, introducing mandatory annual respect, inclusion and driving safety training, strengthened [equality, diversity and inclusion] policies, and enhanced whistleblowing and speak up processes, but there is more to do and further initiatives are underway,” the spokesperson said.
