Gender issues still hinder women’s advancement in construction, according to new data from management consultant McKinsey & Co. and comments shared by male and female executives late last month at one of the industry's largest talent management forums.
The Groundbreaking Women in Construction conference also generated debate over issues of "tokenism" for women climbing the ranks, and explored how employers are recognizing bias concerns of LGBTQ+ professionals that could affect productivity and corporate bottom lines.
The conference, hosted in San Francisco on May 23-24 by ENR and law firm Peckar & Abramson, drew more than 750 industry men and women at all corporate levels.
While McKinsey's study of 279 companies shows gender balance in entry positions, at the manager level, white women trail white men, 27% to 46%, and hold 24% of positions at the vice president level compared to 59% for white men, said partner Shannon Peloquin.
Women of color make up 12% of manager-level positions and 6% of VP positions.
“Men are one-third more likely to get promoted than women. That first promotion becomes really really important,” she said. For every 100 men who are promoted, 79 women are promoted, dropping to 69 for women of color, the study showed.
“It’s pretty stark,” Peloquin said, even more so in construction. For E&C firms, a smaller study subset in the McKinsey study, women comprise 14% of vice presidents, compared to 29% across all businesses.
“Most men are passive about gender advancement,” said Ted Lower, a former design firm CEO who now is a human resource and leadership coach as head of consultant LVNV Group. "I have been with CEOs in this sector for more than 25 years. The main CEO issue is passivity and a tolerance to move the ball along as it has been."
Click on chart below to see study details:
Women and men left their jobs at similar rates across all sectors, according to the study. But in E&C, there is sex-based disparity, with 13% of female senior vice presidents leaving, compared to 8% of men.
McKinsey points to “workplace micro-aggressions” for women that “underpin day-to-day experience,” said Peloquin. About 31% of female respondents said they had to show more evidence of competence, compared to 16% of men.
女人常常被认为是更小的y are, she noted. About 36% reported questions on their judgement vs. just 27% of men. Women also report less day-to-day support from their managers, the study revealed.
男人：不要寻找自己，寻找最好的
一组男性承包商的高管承认其公司在奖励人才和绩效方面的差异，并注意到了企业的努力。
"Men, don't look for yourself out there, look for the best," said Jay Tangney, executive vice president of Suffolk Construction, who was tasked with developing "a data set of realities" for women at the company presented to its board.
他说：“那里有很多＃me-me-to否定消息。”“我们开始了一个理解这一点的过程。有很大的改进空间。”
坦尼说，该公司成立了由股东赞助的多样性和包容委员会，该委员会向许多员工团体推广，并补充说，多样性推动“必须像您业务中的任何其他任务一样得到适当的资金。”
Balfour Beatty建筑物总裁埃里克·斯滕曼（Eric Stenman）承认，在美国，该公司“处于起步阶段”的多样性和包容性，但在过去两年中，该公司更加了解了其性别平衡，并带有新的领导力和模板，并从中使用了模板。英国的父母必须符合刚刚制定的政府规则，要求大型公司每年报告性别薪酬差异。
Massachusetts legislators now are weighing a bill that would require firms with 100 or more employees to report race and gender ratios of senior employees.
斯滕曼说：“ D＆I已成为我们的战略当务之急。”“那里有很多才华横溢的人。我们必须剥去洋葱的层次。”
Dragados USA执行副总裁Chad Mathes强调，向女性推广是为了“自我保护。我们这样做是因为我们想要和需要。”
妇女领导教练和作者萨利·海尔奇森（Sally Helgesen）劝告女性参与者认识到可能阻碍向上运动的行为，例如期望同行和经理会自动注意自己的贡献。她说：“我们的责任是引起人们对我们所做的事情的关注。
Helgesen added that women "overvalue their expertise," which impedes investment in upward mobility.
"Business can't afford to promote you because you’re indispensable," she said. "Men in science and engineering share this overvaluing of expertise but they have the confidence to apply even without all the qualifications."
She encouraged attendees to "challenge your own comfort zone" and "build strategic alliances from day one" to support women's decisions and promote their contributions and opinions.
Tokens and Qualifiers
但女性也讨论是否象征主义和使用the woman "qualifier" was beginning to obscure the true value of their professional achievements, with employers "checking a box" or overly marketing their "firsts" or "onlys."
“我真的很挣扎，标签，预选赛和分析正在定义我是谁，”行业退伍军人Jacqueline Dompe说。
“我不想被称为房间里的女人。这是我所做的贡献，希望我所拥有的影响力，而不是我的性别。”
PCL副总裁Cathy Orquiola说，尽管她的专业信誉应该“由ROI和我所驾驶的价值定义”，她补充说：“成为女人实际上是一个差异化的人，而成为餐桌上唯一的女人是一个非常强大的女人影响力。我能够赋予他人权力，并提出名字，也许永远不会被带到那个房间或那张桌子上。因此，我对此有一个完整的圈子。”
Lucy Villanueva, project executive at DPR, urged attendees that "however you get in there, the fact that you're there, make something of it."
＃me-too开始了
行业妇女和外部专家指出，自2018年以来，妇女，工作同龄人和雇主如何应对工作场所骚扰以及相关的＃Me-too运动问题，当时她们成为许多商业领域的头条新闻，包括建筑和建筑。
New York-based attorney Diana Plue said 10 states now have harassment training and compliance rules, but she acknowledged that most do not require employers to define preventive strategies or offer clear guidance in creating such programs.
莱迪（Leddy），梅塔姆（Maytum）的负责人玛莎·梅塔姆（Marsha Maytum）说，尽管“法律”很重要，“法律对于处理工作地点和其他地方的仍在越来越多的事件，但“拥有每个企业进行培训是改变的重要第一步”。她补充说：“明确的政策来自领导，但工作人员的每个人都是公司的声音。”
Monica Ballard, president of Parallax Education in Los Angeles, pointed to need for more focused attention on educating the industry to recognize "unconscious bias," noting that "a lot of people still don't get it."
Attendees representing the industry's LGBTQ+ community also pointed out developing recognition of their workplace challenges and outreach to employees who choose to self-identify.
"If you can come to work, get your stuff done and can really be acknowledged for the whole person that you are, you're doing better work and you're going to get promoted, " said Melody Abiola, an associate at design firm Arup.
Elena Anaya, Turner Construction's community outreach manager in northern California, said the firm is working with local business groups to include more LGBTQ+ construction subcontractors to identify and gain certification to be part of its supply chain.
"One of the hardest things about taking the first step is the ignorance factor," said Andrea Rutledge, president of the Construction Management Association of America.
展望未来
新一代的行业专业人士和领导者也在人们如何最好地完成工作方面灌输批判性文化的变化。
By 2020, they will comprise more than 70% of the workforce, said panelists who emphasized changing habits and priorities.
“I have taken a pay cut because I felt that in the long run it would offer me more opportunities to learn and be challenged,” said Lindsey Broderick, a designer at ZFA Structural Engineers in San Francisco.
安妮·罗伯逊（Anne Robertson）在仍在追求自己的职业道路的同时，安妮·罗伯逊（Anne Robertson）是加利福尼亚大学（University of California）伯克利（University of California）伯克利（Berkeley）的地理系统工程学硕士学位候选人。来找你。”
奥尔法·哈姆迪（Olfa Hamdi）是一位30多岁的顾问，资本项目管理和高级工作包装专家，他离开了公司工作，成为一名企业家，现在劝告大型项目所有者，鼓励与会者“愿意拥抱变革并抓住机会”。
她说：“这种施工对改变是一个神话。”
点击这里for updated information on the 2020 GWIC conference, including guidelines to come in September for submitting topics, issues and speakers.
