What does Inclusivity mean to you? Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “the fact of including all types of people, things or ideas and treating them all fairly and equally” but is it really as simple as opening the door? We have been thinking about the theory, and perhaps actuality, of ‘pink vs blue’ jobs and if there is still a clear divide of roles undertaken by each sex, at home as much as in the workplace. If so, that in itself is a huge barrier to inclusivity. Just because we promote and strive for inclusivity, does it mean we succeed? It made us wonder if we need to do things differently to make sure women want to work for us, and if we as a society have an inbuilt preconception that there are jobs that actually are more suited to one sex or the other. If we do, how do we all feel about that and how do we change it?
CC
We all know that the building and construction sector are experiencing a skills shortage. On top of this it seems that the number of women that either currently work in or look to enter our sector falls severely short of what we think it should be. According to statista.com (UKconstruction workforce by gender 2023 | Statista) at the end of Q4 2023 there were 1,821,000 men vs 297,000 women in the construction industry. These jobs don’t specifically exclude women so what’s the barrier? Is it historic institutional behaviours that put us off? For example, what woman would want to work on a building site when she hasn’t, in the past, been able to walk by one without a wolf whistle or two……. Or are we even still living the past??
Similarly, if we look deeper into our own sector, where we work with Local Authorities and Housing Associations, there are jobs that are occupied with an imbalance toward one sex or the other. We think examples include Operatives vs Resident Liaison Officers, Building Surveyors vs Customer Service Advisors. Again these roles aren’t specifically designed to be more attractive to either sex, so is it us? Is it how we behave, how we treat people and the preconceptions we cast on others? Or as a product of preconceptions that people share, where job applicants cast their own preconceptions on what they apply for. Or is it a classic case of organisations demonstrating unconscious bias?
We consider it here at Lumensol in our Data Analytics Team, with a team of five and only one woman or on the flip side our Procurement Team is all women. We absolutely know it isn’t that men are better at Data Analytics and women are better at Procurement, nor do we think the roles are better suited to men or to women, but there has been a much higher volume of male interest in one and women in another. Did we do anything that influenced that? How can we do it differently?
Of course, we know there are many other factors that affect inclusivity being successful but is pink vs blue jobs one of those or not?
Our question to you is this: what do you think, what can Lumensol do differently, and what can we all do to make our sector better?
