Published
Our aim with this event was to show our members that we are serious about moving the dial on equality and diversity. In conjunction with the Infrastructure Client Group (ICG), the Major Projects Association are supporting a sector wide, equality and diversity data collection platform to enable us to measure and report the same data in the same way, to provide key baseline (and year on year progression) information, to establish clear benchmarks for our group of industries and ultimately to understand what works so that we can share it far and wide across all major projects.
We heard first from Simon Blanchflower, CEO of East West Rail and representing ICG as well as Andy Murray, Executive Director of the Major Projects Association.
Both Simon and Andy shared a little of their personal stories and their reasons for being committed to creating a more equal society. As able-bodied, white men they recognised their privilege and the fact that the systems which have bolstered that privilege were created by other white men. In order to create a more equal future we not only need to elevate those who have less privilege but also to dismantle the systems which favour the status quo. Critical to that is the need for those who are favoured by the current system to understand that they are part of the problem before they can be part of the solution.
And we do need to see real change across infrastructure and major projects. Otherwise, we will not have access to the quantity or calibre of people that we need to deliver successful projects going forward. There is both a moral and a business imperative to act.
Andy’s first job (30 years ago) was as a software engineer. Out of 200 engineers at his first employer, only 3 were women. “Here we have an industry that I joined that had no legacy and yet here they were setting up a sector within a few years which was entirely male dominated.” Major Projects as a sector today is no different to the software engineering in late 1980s – hugely male dominated and not a welcoming environment for others who don’t fit the mould of able-bodied, white man.
The Association itself has done much in the past 7 years to raise awareness of the need for greater Gender Balance and more diversity. And we have practiced what we preach*:
- Event attendance average 31% women
- Speaker profile 36% women
- Non execs on Board 50% women
(*We do not capture data on other protected characteristics.)
This is significantly better than the set of industries we represent where women, particularly at senior level are far fewer than 30%. We need to extend this work to other characteristics which is why we have made Equality, Diversity and Inclusion one of our Landmark objectives in our Strategic plan for the next 4 years. And whilst we do have influence in the sector, the Association has just 6 employees, therefore to make real change we need to harness the efforts and energy of our members in order to achieve them. Which is why we are collaborating with the ICG on this key data project.
As a member of the Management Board of the Infrastructure Client Group, Simon explained that their objective is to work together as clients to lead the acceleration of improvement in delivery and development of UK infra for the benefit of the economy, society and the environment. Part of those efforts include ensuring that we have the right people with the right skills for the future. Creating a fair workplace is key to that endeavour.
“We are really clear that without evidence we won’t be able to success – we need to understand what the current situation so that we can track change and improvement from it.” Simon Blanchflower, CEO, East West Rail
“It’s about collecting case study information”, said Simon, “we need to make sure that we are capturing what works – only by doing this and sharing that good practice to enable others to accelerate their progress.”
Emer Murnaghan, Innovation Director, Graham and Charles Naud from the Supply Chain Sustainability School shared the details of the data platform which is the first step in this collaborative project to improve the diversity of the infrastructure and major projects workforce.
This blog cannot adequately describe the platform. Go to: https://diversity.sustainabilitytool.com/ to see it in action. Members are encouraged to upload their own data.