Michael Page has been with the company for almost 20 years. As a senior member of the team, he has helped launch the company’s three latest divisions: Saracen Small Works, Saracen Facilities Management and Saracen Move Management.
o we want to bring more women into the industry? It’s a blunt and challenging question to ask but then it needs to be. Simply put, there aren’t enough women in the construction industry and there is a major skills shortage. If you address the first issue, you will, no doubt, be making steps towards resolving the other. It’s pretty crucial, therefore, that we pull out all the stops to attract more female candidates and bring them into the ranks.
We’ve got a scenario where there is a shortage of labour all around, particularly skilled labour. We desperately want new blood yet, perversely, we may be blocking access to the industry, in some form or another, to roughly half the potential candidates. Ours is an industry that doesn’t easily appeal to women and we need to look at, and address, the reasons why.
Construction is still viewed as a predominantly male industry and a sexist one at that – despite the efforts of our best PRs. The general perception on the street has been that it’s a bit of a boy’s club and that the majority of the jobs involved are more suited to, and best filled by, men. Historically, the general consensus has been that women are not particularly encouraged, and could certainly be made to feel unwelcome and inadequate, if they attempt to pursue a career in the industry.
This perception may well be antiquated and past its sell-by date, but that doesn’t make it less true in some quarters. So, is the sexist tag born of a misconception, or are we all a little bit implicit in keeping the door pushed shut?
I think there are most definitely institutional assumptions made over the years, that are incredibly hard to shake eg. a woman wouldn’t want to get her hands dirty; she’s not up to the job in the same way that a man is; and, once she’s had children, she’s not going to work as hard – although the latter example is a prejudice shared across many industries, unfortunately.
If we really want to make a difference and effect change then it’s up to all of us – each individual company, regardless of size – to make every effort to shake these assumptions and encourage a higher female ratio within the workforce. It really does lie in our hands.
There has been some movement to make changes in recent years. The construction industry has generally become more female-friendly, with more female professionals and skilled workers engaging at higher levels and in secretarial roles. However, there’s still a major gap when it comes to construction sites, which remain male-dominated environments.
Statistics reveal that men make up almost 86% of the total workforce in construction and it’s estimated that on building sites, 99% of the workers are men. This is pretty over-whelming.
No wonder then that various polls have been registered that reveal that the public at large and, most importantly, women consider the construction industry as likely to be a sexist environment. Other polls have gone further and revealed that this would be a fundamental negative and enough to put off a majority of female candidates.
Changing perceptions
Whichever way you cut it, there is one definite and fundamental truth – it’s the perception that truly counts. Much of the problem lies in the perception of a sexist environment rather than a sexist environment itself. We can change the environment, but if we don’t change public thinking then our efforts will count for nothing. We need to shift perception in order to make any head way – but where do you start?
Last year, the CITB conducted a poll of industry employers across the UK and its findings revealed that over three quarters believed increased career promotion in schools would help to improve opportunities for women. I’m definitely in there with that 75%.
‘Education, education, education’. I’m old enough to remember Tony Blair’s mantra back in the 90s and, when it comes to this conundrum for the construction industry, it’s never been more relevant.
Construction jobs need to be promoted in schools – and the earlier the better. Children are influenced from the cradle by what society expects from a boy and what it expects of a girl – what is ‘the norm’. Much has been made of this inherent sexism when it comes to clothes and toys and it’s proven that a lot of play from a very early age is divided between the sexes.
The influences have to start early and we need more female role models for a start. We don’t need a ‘Bob the Builder’; we need a Wendy to take on the title role and smash it instead. Similarly, we need to invest in an earlier education that encourages girls to design and build and we need to visit children in their own environment and talk.
When it comes to secondary education, we need some leading female industry figures to pitch up in the schools and address the masses and, like any initiative, it needs to be driven through at Government level. We need politicians, including Government ministers, to get behind this and to campaign on behalf of the industry.
Finally, if the answer to the opening question is ‘yes, we do want more women in the industry’ – and it has to be! – then, as always, we need to take some responsibility ourselves and act.
Most of us have experienced first-hand the fall-out from the recession and the struggle with labour shortages, and it’s incredibly frustrating to know that potential female candidates are being turned off by the perceptions of the industry overall. In order to combat that, we can start by creating a workplace environment that has zero tolerance when it comes to sexism and then, get out there and try our hardest to recruit more female staff, including female apprentices.
If we start by creating the right environment then, when perception does eventually start to change a little bit, we can help to validate that change.
