Ahead of the CIF’s biggest International Women’s Day summit yet, Director General Hubert Fitzpatrick salutes those encouraging diversity and blazing a trail for the future of the industry
March is an important time in the construction industry’s calendar when we recognise and celebrate the invaluable contribution of women to our industry and reflect in how we can draw more talented female workers to join us.
International Women’s Day takes place on March 8 and is an opportunity to highlight the achievements of female professionals across various roles from engineers to health and safety experts, to project managers, trades, industry leaders and more, while planning the steps needed to foster a more inclusive construction workforce.
Construction continues to be a high demand industry, and we cannot afford to overlook the value and expertise women bring to our sites, offices, projects and management.
Likewise, we must ensure that young women are encouraged and supported at school level when making career choices, so they see construction as a viable and rewarding path from the very start.
Eliminating both conscious and unconscious bias against women is essential to our recruitment strategies and career progression routes to attract and retain women, alongside proactive efforts such as diversity training programmes for men and women and equitable workplace policies.
The results from the latest Labour Force Survey show that 9.4 per cent of the construction labour force is female.
This statistic has remained static for numerous years, but across the industry, it is clear that efforts to market the industry to women and girls are increasing at a more concentrated pace than ever before.
We were pleased this year to hold a workshop on female diversity with Balance for Better Business, where leaders from some of the country’s largest construction employers discussed shared approaches for encouraging greater gender balance.
Balance for Better Business is an independent review group set up to improve gender balance in Irish industry.
The focal point of CIF’s diversity initiatives is our International Women’s Day conference, which will take place on March 7 in the Johnstown Estate, Co Meath. This sold-out event has become our biggest conference of the year, with over 600 expected to attend.
Kindly sponsored by a wide range of our members, the event is led by Gillian Murtagh of Shay Murtagh, who chairs our Diversity working group. A live stream event will be in place for those without tickets with registration open on cif.ie.
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is Accelerate Action. This theme emphasises the urgency of overcoming systemic barriers to achieve gender equality swiftly and decisively.
A key initiative CIF will undertake this year with members is a Diversity, Equality and Inclusion survey with Inclusio. The aim of the survey is to provide a baseline and to identify areas where we can have an impact in attracting and retaining women in the sector.
It is anticipated that this will be the beginning of a continuous programme of benchmarking.
The construction sector has a positive diversity track record in other areas, such as socio-economic background, and neurodiversity.
We’re driven to build on this inclusivity, and we want diversity of thought in the industry. There are many ways to achieve this, with gender being an important one.
We hope you enjoy reading about the women blazing a trail for the future of the industry in this edition of Construction and we wish you a happy International Women’s Day.
