Don’t #ChooseToChallenge, Choose to Change: Three ways engineering and construction leaders can support women this year.

International women’s day is a celebration of the contributions and achievements , and it is so much more than the flowers and videos and appreciation and events and commitments optimistically sprawled on a sheet of paper held up with a smile. 

It’s a reset. An opportunity to look at the year past, and the year ahead and reflect humbly on the next action you can take to end gender inequity.

If you have read any of my work then you know—because I commit to sharing vulnerably—that I’ve had a difficult few years. Last year, I left a 10-year career in engineering and construction to pursue a passion, but also because I was tired of fighting.

Regardless of the intentions of people (which are usually good!), unconscious bias, microaggressions, and institutional sexism are pervasive in engineering and construction. It is not an easy career to be in as a woman. It’s an industry that has been built by and for white men—not maliciously—but simply because they were the only ones in it for decades. 

It’s a mold that many acknowledge has to change. Evolve or die.

Before I go on, here are some base-level facts that I’m assuming the reader is aware of (and a reference in case you are not):

• Diverse and inclusive cultures benefit everyone
• Empowering women contributes to the economy
• Women were more severely hit by the impacts of COVID-19
• The lived experiences of women and minority groups are very different, but there are synergies in the solutions. Creating a culture that includes one, is a step towards including all. The below is about women, but the solutions benefit everyone.

As for this woman’s story, in engineering and construction in the office and at site across three countries, I experienced first-hand the “everyday sexism” that catalysed fourth wave feminism eight years ago. 

Some small: being called “sweetie” or compared to a daughter (read: not your professional equal); some bigger: sexually explicit graffiti, cat calls, persistent unwanted attention despite polite refusal; some vague: seemingly slow promotions or assumptions about my career preferences; and some blatant: like four months into my career when I was asked by a manager to walk slower so he could “see up my skirt”. 

And that wasn’t even the worst one.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time in engineering and construction. I got to work on challenging projects, was surrounded by many kind and talented and inspiring people who became my family. There were brilliant allies and passionate leaders, but unconscious bias, microaggressions, and on some days sexism were part of the package. 

If you think that this is an isolated experience I’m sorry to tell you that you’re wrong. This isn’t one company or one team or one bad apple, it’s a system that’s been set up to sweep these things under the rug. The majority of the workforce has not experienced how this stuff feels, and so it is comparatively unimportant against safety, quality, and production.

I don’t want to segway into all the reasons why, but if you’re in this industry—or any industry where women are an extreme minority—you know someone who has faced one or all of the experiences I have, if not worse. 

But it IS changing.

I see the engineering and construction industry waking up. I see more training, programs, and communication about wellbeing and inclusion. I meet more and more women in the industry who I can support and lean on. I see more and more leaders championing cultures of care, respect, and inclusion. 

So for all of those leaders on International Women’s Day, here’s three practical, tactical, tangible steps we can take this year not to challenge but to change:

1. Go deeper than fatigue management to address burnout.

If you read “fatigue management” and chuckled sarcastically, therein lies the problem. Our industry has a reputation of overworking people; fatigue management procedures are often either the bare minimum or not adhered to. 

For women, the cumulative effect of microaggressions and feeling like an outsider means that they have a much higher emotional load just from doing their day jobs—let alone any responsibilities at home. They need to take even more care to build personal resilience and manage their energy to avoid burnout.

Resilience training, Employee Assistance Programmes, and mental health support can help people cope, but (even though I give resilience training) it is not actually addressing the root cause. 

Create a fatigue management policy that centres peoples health and wellbeing—not production or lawsuits—then measure to it, and have consequences for violators and their managers. This also means allowing and encouraging PTO or holidays. Taking your assigned days off is not slacking off, it’s a necessary part of mental and physical wellbeing.

But even fatigue management is a band-aid. 

In the face of the global pandemic, less than a third of companies adjusted their performance review criteria so many employees—especially caregivers—now have to choose whether to fall short of unrealistic pre-pandemic expectations or push themselves to work unsustainably. Even before the pandemic long hours, tight deadlines, and high stress were an integral part of our culture.

Ultimately, we need to go beyond fatigue management to set more realistic project and performance goals and staff teams appropriately to achieve them—but in a world of performance factors that particular solution will take much wider culture change and massive innovation to bring down costs.

This importantly does not only impact women, Mental health struggles are on the rise among men. White, middle-aged men have the highest rate of suicide among the general population, and more male construction workers take their lives than any other industry. This helps everyone, and may even save lives.

2. Create flexible work policy

Women are more likely to be primary caregivers, and COVID-19 only exacerbated this. In the McKinsey 2020 Women in the Workplace report showed that more mothers than fathers were considering scaling back or leaving the workforce altogether because of the virus. The changes to ways of working in 2020 also highlighted that working from home is not only possible, but many people prefer it. 

Flexible work is more difficult on site, but not impossible, especially given the crash course we had in 2020. If there are things you can do to provide flexibility—particularly for primary caregivers—make it a policy. If women have to “ask and see” if they can get an exception, it’s one more thing to do, one more barrier to overcome, and it’s one more thing setting them apart from the rest. 

Bottom line: flexible working policy for ALL is consistently recommended as a key action to support women in the workplace, and if we want to keep our talent of any gender, we have to get creative in how we apply it.

3. Reduce "onliness" - build connections and invest in networks

My lowest moments always came when I felt lonely and like I didn’t belong—my strongest when I felt connected and supported to friends and colleagues.

Women in engineering and construction experience incremental reminders that they are “outsiders”—from consistently being the “only” on a team or in a meeting, to the way people speak to them and each other (“Hi Gents,”), even how people socialise outside of work. The feeling of not belonging is the antithesis of inclusion; it is isolating, desperately lonely, and incredibly draining.

Reduce the “only” experience by creating more opportunities for women to connect with each other. One is not enough; two is the bare minimum. Where possible, cluster women in teams instead of spreading them thin. Invest in your employee networks or resource groups so women can find support and build community—that means budget, sponsorship, and showing up. 

However, the unfortunate reality in construction is that there simply might not be enough women to connect. In which case, leaders must actively build teams where everyone feels like they belong. Make it a goal to create authentic connections between team members through inclusion moments, team builders, regular and forthright communication, a strong feedback culture, rotating meeting content so everybody speaks, and resilient team training.

Connected teams are resilient, they trust and support each other, work together effectively, and deliver incredible results in challenging situations—and in that scenario everybody wins.

Bonus: you are what you measure. If you actually want to do anything in this article this year, build it into a goal (or someone else's goal). Measure it, discuss it, and take it into account in end of year performance reviews.

There’s work to go, but I am optimistic and excited for a future where all types of people feel like they are valued, respected, cared for, and that they belong in engineering and construction. The companies who nail this will reap the rewards of a talented and plentiful labor market.

And for women: changing an old mold is neither easy nor comfortable. You need to look after yourself, establish a good support network, and don’t take things too personally, otherwise it will leave you crushed and deflated (and you’re not changing anything in that state). One final piece of advice – go where you are celebrated, not where you are tolerated. You have the power to #ChooseToChange.