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Australia, Features, Projects

Gender on the tender

Gender on the tender

Construction is the third largest sector in Australia, and yet it attracts less than 12% of women to the industry according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is an industry dominated by men in senior roles while women are often relegated to the more junior positions within companies and on sites.

Although women start out enthusiastic about a career in construction, they leave the sector 39% faster than their male counterparts. So why is an industry that is so prevalent to the economy struggling to attract and maintain long-term career paths for women in Australia? 

According to research associate and PhD candidate from the University of New South Wales Natalie Galea, whose research paper Demolishing Gender Structures has recently been published, found that not only is there a culture of tolerated sexism prevalent across construction sites in Australia but her research found it not only impacts on women on site but men as well.

“Our research set out to understand why formal gender diversity policies were failing to attract, retain and progress women. We shadowed 44 construction professionals and interviewed 61 of them. When we interviewed them we really dug down deep into their career pathway and what we found is a range of things.”

“One of the key issues is a perception that the rules are gender neutral but they are actually not and have different implications on men and women.

What struck me was that men weren’t doing very well by the industry either. They weren’t enjoying the work practices and were suffering,” said Galea.

During the three year period of research, one of Galea’s findings was a varied degree of understanding, readiness and ownership of gender diversity and doing things differently by business leaders and leaders on construction sites.

“The industry has very rigid work practices and people hold onto those. There are long hours, presentism and availability and if you adhere to those it’s the marker of a good employee. We shadowed a lot of people and found there is a lot of significant time wasting going backwards and forwards.”

“There is a real lack of engagement with technology. We were shadowing people with the 1990-style Nokia phones. Site engineers who could deal with technology had no working WiFi on site, and people don’t understand they have gendered implications those types of work practices. Women carry the bulk of the social caring responsibilities and that can make it hard for women to have a career in construction, especially if your expected to be tied to the job or your expected to be doing long hours.

Galea found in the research a tolerance for sexism on site and limited understanding about what was meant by gender diversity.

“There is not one silver bullet. There has to be multiple approaches. It’s a cyclical industry and people are trying to stay afloat and win work, but our research found a lack of concrete practices that connect upfront project planning with project resourcing. If there is no science behind the project resourcing when you have people go on parental leave or are going through a divorce or they have to pick their child up from childcare, then you have no ley way in your program. It’s a tough issue that needs project and management ownership. The focus around gender diversity has largely been on why haven’t women been joining the industry.”

“Companies we researched had great parental leave policies but on site it was left to women to strategise and plan their exit, return and career survival,” said Galea.

“The industry should care because they are losing great talent and they are losing it to other sectors.”

Galea says that there has to be support for people coming back from parental leave rather than a blanket rule, which everybody must adhere to which is full-time working hours including Saturday.

“Plan for flexibility, plan for well-being and plan for parental leave. In the past there has been a plan to transition to safety, well that practice has to follow through to wellbeing.”

“These are small paper cut reminders that women are not welcome and this is not their space. I don’t think some men enjoy it either. There is a pressure for men to conform and not speak up. In construction, some things are subtle but in the real world people would say that’s not subtle. The overt stuff is what is really shocking.”

Galea says that she was told about a female employee on a site who was filmed on a mobile phone while she was showering and nothing was done about it.

“A workplace has to be a safe work place at the end of the day if those things are tolerated then its no longer a safe and inclusive workplace. Women are frustrated and it’s probably not the main thing that sends them away but it’s a contributing factor.”

“Young people coming into the industry are not going to change it either. They are the most powerless coming in. It has to be included in induction where people are told “we won’t cop it and you’ll be off site.”

“Young people just want to fit in and get on with their careers. Construction is often a confrontational environment so it would be very hard for a young cadet or graduate site engineer to go up to labourer on a site and say “take the boobs picture off your hard hat.” It’s insane we are even having a conversation about this. I label it as tolerance sexism,” said Galea.

“I was in a meeting where a person who held a very senior role was retiring, and there was a woman sitting in the room that no one knew. When the male project engineers in there 20’s and 30’s entered the room, one looked at her and said “did you bring the biscuits?” She was replacing the retiree in the senior role.

“There is still a tolerance and its practiced across the ages. I disagree when people say it’s the older guys. It’s an accepted mode of behaviour,” said Galea.

Galea believes there are two things underlying the resistance and suggests that, if gender were on the tender, then builders would respond.

“There is the suggestion that gender diversity may do men out of a job, or these issues may make the company uncompetitive. There is a sense of an unfair advantage being given to women, which is so wrong.”

 

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