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News Release from: Chartered Institute of Building [CIOB] | Subject: Equal treatment to benefit women
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 03 March 2006
Equal treatment to benefit women in
construction
CIOB believes that women have an equal contribution to make in construction, agreeing with the Women and Work Commission that the industry is currently missing a massive opportunity.
Equal treatment policy should benefit women in construction professions The construction professions are a natural place for women as well as men with the basic aptitudes to find careers and satisfying employment
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 12 Mar 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Architecture, engineering, surveying and construction management have long been open to women.
Far from there being barriers to their employment in creating and maintaining the built environment, the professional institutions are now more than ever keen to bring the special talents of women into areas of expertise where the demand for skills has never been greater.
The question has been raised by publication of the report of the Women and Work Commission led by Baroness Prosser of Battersea.
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It was initiated by the Prime Minister to examine the causes of the gender pay gap and find practical ideas to close it within a generation.
Baroness Prosser says that the evidence uncovered during the commission's inquiry indicates the scale of the boost that could be imparted to the United Kingdom economy from harnessing women's talents in meeting the skills shortages arising from expanding house-building and infrastructure programmes, not to mention the Olympic Games preparations.
"The Commission estimates that removing barriers to women working in occupations traditionally done by men, and increasing women's participation in the labour market, could be worth between £15 billion and £23 billion or 1.3 to 2 per cent of gross domestic product".
In the construction professions and indeed the trades the barriers to women's employment have always been slender due to their traditional association with design and decorative craftsmanship.
Today the barriers such as they were have all but gone.
CIOB is among those professional institutions which is actively backing the recruitment of women into management roles in the industry.
The Institute believes that women have an equal contribution to make in construction, agreeing with the Women and Work Commission that the industry is currently missing a massive opportunity by not promoting itself to women.
It goes further, recognising that the industry would be a better place in which to work if more females were employed.
The RICS likewise has adopted a firm policy of increasing the numbers of women entering and remaining in the surveying professions.
Initiatives have been undertaken across the construction and property industries to raise the ratio of women working in professional roles.
Young women working for qualifications in the fields of property valuation and law have in interviews published by RICS shown great enthusiasm and aptitude for the work, as also in land and quantity surveying.
Women in world-wide construction.
At it happens, the date of 2006-03-08, falling soon after publication of the Women and Work report, has been named as International Women's Day.
This is being supported by Women in Construction associations around the world who have been working for years to help women in the industry break through what in America they call the concrete ceiling, which presumably is a bit tougher than the glass one.
To mark this auspicious day, Arup conducted interviews with several ladies working in the consultancy around the world about their careers.
What they discovered was a remarkable diversity of talent and skills.
"Listening to these women talk about their work, it's clear that creativity is not just about the arts".
"It's about numbers too", says the commentary.
Barbara Lane, an associate director of Arup Fire, finds just looking at surfaces and swirling shapes fascinating, capturing how they move through space using numbers.
She says she loves working with fire as a discipline and works hard at her job, being passionate about what she does.
One of her achievements has been to create a strong partnership between the Fire Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh and Arup Fire.
"I'm most proud of the whole frame structural fire response team that I've created within the firm", she says.
"We didn't have that in Arup Fire until I joined".
"It's a real change in the way we design and that's very exciting." Jenny Baster, Arup's Group Legal Director, is credited with demystifying the law for engineers.
She has been with the firm for more than 20 years, the first solicitor ever employed by Arup, and in that time she has built an effective in-house legal team.
She recounts an early experience when she first joined the firm".
"I remember a senior engineer saying to me: "'I'm so pleased that we've got a lawyer - now at last we can find out who is responsible for temporary works".
"I didn't have a clue what temporary works were, much less who was responsible for them, but I didn't like to disillusion them".
"I'm not sure I even know now who is responsible for temporary works, but there is a useful way out a lawyer can take by saying it all depends on the circumstances!".
Then there is Annie Chow, an associate director in Arup's Hong Kong office.
She has worked with Arup since 1988, starting out as a structural engineer but has since moved into project management where she has built up an enviable reputation".
""I consider it a real achievement", she says, "that I get recognition from my clients for the work I do".
"Often we get a job if I promise I'll be the one who is in charge and that's very flattering".
The projects she works on are usually challenging.
She explains that if there's a difficult one, they usually 'ask Annie'.
One girl with a spectacular career.
As to women working on site, and in this case in charge of a team of men, the Bconstructive web site, which offers to tell potential recruits everything they need to know about the construction industry, recounts the story of Holly Bennett, who in her early twenties obtained a shot firing certificate from the Institute of Explosive Engineers.
One reason she likes the job is that the end result is spectacular".
"I go to different sites", she says, "check on health and safety issues, make sure everyone is working properly, that the pre-weakening is done and that the job is running smoothly".
"Then we go and do our bit!" Holly says she is the only woman on site, "which is sometimes difficult because I am also in charge of the team".
"I know them all so well now and it works." So there is a snapshot view of a few of the resources the industry has gathered to itself in a world where there promise to be abundant opportunities for female employment.
Drawing further on this resource seems imperative if the industry is to rise to the demands of the next few years.
About this time next year instructions will be in the hands of public authorities that under the Equality Bill due to come into force in April 2007 they will be under a duty to pay 'due regard' to promoting gender equality and eliminating sex discrimination.
Private sector employers will not be obliged to adopt these policies - at least not yet.
But in view of the current situation in the construction industry, they would surely be well advised to ensure equal treatment in pay and conditions for women whose energy and enthusiasm bids fair to yield them handsome rewards in enterprise and innovation.
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