This month marks the sixth year anniversary of Constructing
Equality Ltd and we thought we would provide you with a bit of history and
perspective so that you can understand how we are working to make change in the
sector.
2007 – 2009 The Learning Years
Originally, after leaving my job
as a site manager, I set up the company with the aim of helping businesses find
an approach to aspects around equality that could understand the challenges
they faced. What was very clear from the off was that the industry could not
overcome many of the barriers it was presented with such as: - false self-employment,
poor trainee record, and nepotistic culture, without working together. We knew
this because companies that had tried told us they found this work was
undermined by competitors poaching staff they had trained and therefore were
unable to pay more, was diluted on projects without the same underpinning and was
not valued by clients - who often valued short-term initiatives for the
community over longer term progress for industry; consequently this did not win
tenders. You might think that this is
not important to equality, but it is, very important indeed. How can we expect
the majority of the industry to co-operate in encouraging and developing
individuals from minority backgrounds when they themselves feel undervalued,
badly treated and threatened? We felt that in order to bring equality to the
sector we needed to start with the workforce we already had.
2009 – 2011 – Formulating a Plan
The first two years were spent reading quite a bit - the
next few were spent reading a lot; undertaking a Masters degree and transferring
onto a PhD . Not only did we need to improve conditions in the sector for the
individuals within it, but for the companies too and we needed to be able to
back this up with research. Whilst ten years in industry gave us a good
background in the sector we needed to establish a greater depth to the
understanding of how policy, politics and the economy shaped the way the
industry operates and then look at how we could set in motion a realistic plan
to overcome those challenges together as a sector. We know from historic work,
to succeed it needed to have value, but be reasonably priced, be highly complex
in its understanding of the sector, people and equalities as well as easy for
companies to understand and use - but most importantly have the ability to
bring the industry together; trusting that if we worked together we would all
benefit. Early on we understood that we could not develop this trust from a
consultancy framework, nor could we do this alone. We therefore decided to
approach CITB the sector skills council.
2012 – Present - Making Progress
CITB were looking to develop an equality standard of their
own - so, with the timing right, we put forward the idea of something bigger -
that went beyond equalities and tackled the issues faced by the sector in a way
that was affordable and attainable to all organisations working within it. We
won the bid and have been developing the
CITB BE FaIR framework for the last
year and a half with the first 6 strands (Sub-contractors and Main Contractors)
being piloted this year and the second set of 8 also being tested. The BE FaIR
framework has had an amazing response and whilst it is at the core of our
business, it’s not all we do.
We also undertake research for CITB and other
clients, Training for companies like Graham, Taylor Wimpey and Derbyshire County
Council and consultation for the likes of Vinci, CITB and CIC.
Aside from the business of making money, we commit 10% of
our time to work which helps move this agenda forward in industry - not only
with our more recognised resources like the website, quiz and newsletter, which
contain a wealth of information and opportunities for companies to promote good
practice, but also by running projects to retain students in universities,
collecting data in industry (CIC), visiting schools to talk about careers in
industry and talking at events.
In the future, we want to involve more of you in this work -
creating a scheme where you can become supporters of Constructing Equality Ltd.,
which will essentially mean that you support the right of all people in
industry to be treated fairly. We in
turn will look to give you training and opportunities to showcase your passion.
At the end of the day, the company is guided by a love of industry and a vision
of the potential of the sector.
We already do amazing things on a daily basis -
just imagine how much more we could do in the right working
environment.
Happy Building
Chrissi
Over
the next few weeks we will be moving the blog over to the Constructing Equality website. The decision to re-locate has
been made for a number of reasons: chiefly, so that our readers can take
advantage of the links to current research, news stories, archived newsletters
and the wealth of other resources that we have on there; it will also make it
easier for people who browse our website to find this blog, and learn a bit
more about the complexities of equality in the construction sector. 
