Coalition launched to promote diversity in UK’s construction sector

The construction industry has launched a coalition to tackle the lack of diversity in the sector. Twelve major construction firms have set up a new initiative to improve equality, diversity, and inclusion in the male-dominated and aging sector. Current data shows the construction sector is just 15% female, with just 6% coming from ethnic minority backgrounds and nearly a third of the industry’s total workforce is set to retire in the next decade.  

The Construction Inclusion Coalition (CIC) will focus on improving gender representation in its first year. It comes as new polling revealed only a third of Britons would feel confident that their female family or friends would be safe and respected if they joined the industry. CIC chairperson and Toolstation managing director, Angela Rushforth, is quoted in both Building magazine and Personnel Today. She says: “There is no doubt that the future of our industry is at risk if we don’t create an environment where all our colleagues feel safe, empowered, and confident. I want all young women to see the construction sector as I do – full of opportunity.”
The Coalition is endorsed by the Construction Leadership Council, the leading body which draws together business leaders from across the construction sector and links them with the UK government. CLC’s co-chair and CEO of Mace, Mark Reynolds, says: “The Construction Leadership Council has long been advocating for businesses and organisations in our sector to collaborate to make our industry more welcoming and inclusive. It is clear that ensuring a consistent approach to equity, diversity and inclusion will be vital for the future of construction, which is why we’re pleased to support the Construction Inclusion Coalition. There is much work to be done, however I am confident that sharing knowledge and raising standards, we can make a meaningful impact across the sector.”

The CIC plans to establish a network to share knowledge and resources across the industry, with progress being tracked annually and shared in a public report. 

Of course, we have many clients in this sector, firms which have long recognised this problem. Stuart Neilson has been advising them on ways to help plug the skills gap and improve diversity and he joined me by video-link from the Glasgow office to discuss this:
Stuart Neilson: “I think it's a massive problem at the moment. We are seeing it across a very wide range of our clients that are operating within the infrastructure sector. I think before we had the pandemic, you know, there was always quite a bit of turnover in terms of the jobs in the infrastructure sector but I think almost all of our clients are reporting that their turnover levels have gone up, so they are losing more people, and part of that might be to do with the pandemic, people retiring, because the age group within the infrastructure that tends to be 40s 50s is predominantly where you've got a lot of the people sitting. So they're leaving, and then there's a real struggle in terms of getting more people in. part of that might be to do with Brexit and so we were left with this kind of situation where businesses in the infrastructure are losing people, and probably at a higher rate than they were before the pandemic, and there is a shortage of skills and the ability to bring people in, and you see that across the wider economy with the number of the vacancies that are in the economy and, unfortunately, infrastructures is very heavily hit by that and at a time, when you know, there are some pretty major infrastructure projects taking place in the UK at the moment.”

Joe Glavina: “It does seem there is an inherent problem for the sector, Stuart, because it is male dominated, as we know, so the pool of diverse talent to recruit from is a very small one.”

Stuart Neilson: “Very much so and I think that's one of the massive challenges for the infrastructure sector and I think there is a great desire for more diversity and, of course, diversity in any business is great, from the point of view of bringing in people with slightly different approach to things, you're getting different views, different challenges, that's great for business. With diversity you are also obviously widening the potential applicants that are for any particular role, so you hope to have a broader, bigger pool to fish in. The problem is just, unfortunately, within the infrastructure sector the pool is quite narrow and there are a couple of things which lead to that, I think. If you look, say at those graduates coming out of universities who've maybe done engineering, it might be mechanical engineering, or civil engineering, is still very heavily male dominated. The problem is the candidates leaving school and going into university is very much still attracting boys rather than girls so there's a big problem there and that's a problem that probably needs to be dealt with at the school level, and society level, of encouraging a more diverse intake into the universities doing some of these degree and graduate courses that the infrastructure industry is very interested in. Then even more generally, at the kind of operative level, it's still very much seen as a kind of men's work and not necessarily being that attractive to women. So, I think there's still quite a lot of work to be done in terms of making it an area where it is more attractive to people, both male and female, particularly and also, I would include within that people from ethnic minority backgrounds as well and, to be fair, a lot of our clients are doing a lot of work in that area, but it's a bit of an uphill struggle.”

Joe Glavina: “One of the points they make is that it’s important for the sector to show-case the career prospects and lifestyle opportunities available these days and that things are changing.”

Stuart Neilson: “Absolutely, and we've got a number of clients who are doing a lot of work in that space, very much focusing on the kind of life-long learning and prospects that people have. So, you know, a lot of talk about sort of apprenticeship programmes and training programmes, but a lot of the bigger infrastructure companies are spending a lot of time and resource in making sure that they've got really good programmes in place to encourage people to come into the business and to the industry and then to look after them throughout the lifetime of their career and give them the opportunities to reskill. I think particularly with the generation now that is coming into the workplace one of the key things that they place a lot of value on is the fact that the employer will provide them with opportunities to train, to reskill, to advance their career, and that there will be options for them to do different things in a variety of different ways within the workplace. So, they're not looking at just coming into our workplace and only doing a job for the next 20, 30 years, they they're looking for a much greater opportunity around how their career might progress and change over that period of time.”

Joe Glavina: “You work closely with clients in this sector, Stuart. What are they saying to you?”

Stuart Neilson: “So a lot of clients ask is where can we make the difference? We've got the skill shortage problem, we've got diversity inclusion as an issue, how do we address that from a practical point of view? I think there are a number of key steps that, obviously, our clients are taking, and can take. To some limited extent they can do their bit to try and influence getting a more diverse intake to the universities and onto graduate programmes, through outreach programmes, getting in touch with schools and colleges and that type of thing, and so there's a bit of that happening. I think in terms of their own policies and how those are structured within the workplace, there's a lot more emphasis on trying to make them more attractive, and family-friendly and that applies both to men and women in the workplace today. So, things like family leave, maternity leave, parental leave, are all things that employers are having to look at very closely and perhaps make them more generous. I think culture is a massive thing. Culture on, particularly, infrastructure sites has always been seen as being quite a macho, male-orientated culture, and I think with more technology coming in, though, as well, they need to move away from some of that and I think businesses are recognising it. So, they're putting in place a lot of training programmes trying to, you know, just to, I guess, polish off the edges sometimes in some of these workplaces and make them a little bit more user-friendly for people from more diverse backgrounds is a key thing around culture. Finally, I’d say probably because of the impact of the pandemic and remote working return to work has been quite a big issue and, again, I think we're seeing a lot of businesses adapting how they approach that. I think if we'd had the pandemic 10 or 15 years ago, I think on the return it would have been right everyone back in the office back, back onto the sites full time, no quibbling about that. Nowadays, I think we're thinking right, okay, we need to make this more attractive, we need to have flexible working, so we're seeing a lot of the industry moving to more like 60%, 70% requirement to be on site or in the office. That does depend on individual circumstances, but much more flexibility I think, which I think is an encouraging thing and will help to get more diverse workforce.”

That Personnel Today article is called: ‘Coalition of firms sets out to boost diversity in construction’. We’ve put a link to it in the transcript of this programme.

LINKS
- Link to Personnel Today article: ‘Coalition of firms sets out to boost diversity in construction’