Business Aspects Magazine spoke about Diversity in the construction sector with Barbara Goffioul, Support Manager, Western Europe for PM Group.
As well as being responsible for a sizeable and culturally-varied workforce, Barbara is also is a judge on the 2016 Women in Construction & Engineering (WICE) Awards and a Member of People Task Force at European Construction Institute.
Barbara explains, “The European Builders Confederation held its annual congress in June. At the Congress, the demographic challenge in the construction sector, which included diversity and the inclusion of more women and young people in construction, was debated.”
“The representation of women in the sector is slightly higher in the UK than the EU average but more efforts are needed to reach the level of diversity of Germany or the Nordic countries.
From 2016, all publicly listed companies in those countries, will have to enforce 30% of women onto their management boards.”
Barbara concludes, “I think more needs to be done from grass roots education level. Since the economic downturn, there has been a drop-off in the intake of apprenticeships in the construction industry. Yet it is vital for the industry to attract passionate people to what is an exciting sector.”
The Inclusive Employer Quality Mark is one thing that has been received very positively by many property and construction firms. Only the future will tell whether it will result in improving UK architecture, construction techniques and practices.
