How to encourage diversity in infrastructure

Bol­ster­ing eco­nom­ic pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, tack­ling the effects of cli­mate change, devel­op­ing con­nect­ed com­mu­ni­ties: tru­ly trans­for­ma­tion­al change through infra­struc­ture needs a laser focus on diver­si­ty and inclu­sion (D&I).

An infra­struc­ture project pipeline worth hun­dreds of bil­lions, cou­pled with a skills short­age fac­ing the sec­tor, means there is an urgent need to tap every tal­ent pool.

Tra­di­tion­al stereo­types of the infra­struc­ture indus­try must be dis­pelled for­ev­er as a new par­a­digm, embrac­ing the full poten­tial of every cur­rent and future employ­ee, emerges, say sec­tor lead­ers.

“There is a huge pool of tal­ent rul­ing them­selves out,” warns struc­tur­al engi­neer Roma Agraw­al, who has worked on projects includ­ing The Shard and was award­ed the MBE for ser­vices to the indus­try.

“Work­ing in infra­struc­ture is fun and impor­tant; you see the effect on people’s lives whether that is pow­er net­works, sewage sys­tems or roads,” she says. “It is also pret­ty well paid, so it is sad when young peo­ple won’t even con­sid­er a career because of out­dat­ed stereo­types.”

Last month, the gov­ern­ment launched its Nation­al Infra­struc­ture Strat­e­gy, focused on eco­nom­ic recov­ery, lev­el­ling up regions and achiev­ing net-zero green­house gas emis­sions by 2050.

The strat­e­gy also pin­point­ed the need to diver­si­fy Trea­sury-spon­sored agency the Nation­al Infra­struc­ture Com­mis­sion (NIC) and will recruit addi­tion­al com­mis­sion­ers reflect­ing diverse tal­ent.

Why diversity in infrastructure matters

Diver­si­ty at the high­est lev­els of pol­i­cy and deci­sion-mak­ing is crit­i­cal to avoid “implic­it­ly build­ing a world that excludes a large pro­por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion”, says Ann Zhang, an econ­o­mist at PA Con­sult­ing and chair of the NIC’s Young Pro­fes­sion­als Pan­el.

“As so much infra­struc­ture is pub­licly fund­ed, we are also ask­ing peo­ple to pay for a world that doesn’t meet their needs,” she says. “We have seen a shift in the infra­struc­ture indus­try where clients want to see diverse teams with diverse net­works, so it is essen­tial to align with the wider mar­ket sen­ti­ment. Ulti­mate­ly, it could hit the bot­tom line and that is pow­er­ful.”

Work­ing in infra­struc­ture is fun and impor­tant; you get to see the effect on people’s lives

The NIC launched its first D&I strat­e­gy in Sep­tem­ber, set­ting ambi­tious tar­gets for itself and the wider indus­try.

It is mea­sur­ing suc­cess against achiev­ing 50 per cent women, 14 per cent BAME (black, Asian and minor­i­ty eth­nic) and 13 per cent dis­abled peo­ple work­ing with­in the NIC by 2023, to bet­ter reflect soci­ety at large.

As well as hit­ting those tar­gets, the organ­i­sa­tion wants to fos­ter an inclu­sive work envi­ron­ment, by adopt­ing a zero-tol­er­ance approach to bul­ly­ing and harass­ment, and plan­ning men­tal health and well­be­ing sup­port.

Cissie Liu, senior reg­u­la­tion ana­lyst at ener­gy com­pa­ny SSE, says there needs to be a step-change so non-minori­ties are invest­ed in D&I. “The bur­den should not be on minor­i­ty groups to dri­ve the change,” she says. “It should come from the top down.”

The talent pipeline needs an overhaul

A major issue impact­ing the infra­struc­ture tal­ent pipeline is ensur­ing a more diverse range of peo­ple are enter­ing the indus­try.

At present, only 10.6 per cent of the UK’s pro­fes­sion­al engi­neers are women, accord­ing to lat­est data from the Office for Nation­al Sta­tis­tics, although this has increased from 7.6 per cent in 2015. Women make up few­er than a quar­ter of employ­ees in the water and ener­gy sec­tors, which also have just 7.1 per cent BAME employ­ees.

The Nation­al Cen­tre for Uni­ver­si­ties and Busi­ness found just 15.2 per cent of engi­neer­ing and tech­nol­o­gy under­grad­u­ates in 2019 were women, high­light­ing a sig­nif­i­cant gap in poten­tial new entrants to the infra­struc­ture indus­try.

Infra­struc­ture is pub­licly fund­ed; we are ask­ing peo­ple to pay for a world that doesn’t always meet their needs

Brit­tany Har­ris, co-founder and chief exec­u­tive of con­struc­tion tech­nol­o­gy firm Qualis Flow, says vis­i­ble role mod­els make a dif­fer­ence. “At school, I knew I want­ed to work in sci­ence, but when I start­ed look­ing into engi­neer­ing, every piece of mar­ket­ing mate­r­i­al showed a white male,” she says. “It was only after meet­ing more rep­re­sen­ta­tive role mod­els that I realised these spaces were open to me.”

Con­cert­ed efforts are being made by organ­i­sa­tions to engage chil­dren and young peo­ple in the cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion a career in infra­struc­ture demands.

Net­work Rail recent­ly ran a nation­wide STEM (sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and maths) com­pe­ti­tion with school­child­ren aged five to four­teen, cel­e­brat­ing the work of female inven­tors and engi­neers, and is involved in the annu­al children’s Lead­ers Award to cre­ate inno­v­a­tive designs that shape the future world.

Direc­tor of D&I at Net­work Rail Loraine Mar­tins, who has also been award­ed an MBE, says engag­ing young peo­ple is key to cap­tur­ing “dif­fer­ent ideas to help meet big chal­lenges, such as an age­ing pop­u­la­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the skills short­age we face in the indus­try.”

Creating a culture of inclusivity

The next chal­lenge is reten­tion of diverse tal­ent and fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of inclu­siv­i­ty, allow­ing employ­ees to be them­selves at work, boost­ing con­fi­dence and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and pro­gress­ing their careers.

Reverse men­tor­ing for exec­u­tive lead­ers, where they are men­tored by a junior employ­ee from a dif­fer­ent back­ground, is dis­pelling stereo­types around gen­der, race and sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion at Net­work Rail.

Six employ­ee net­works include Arch­way, focused on les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al and trans­gen­der issues, as well as the dis­abil­i­ty-focused Can­Do, and groups around women, diverse cul­tures, faith and those with car­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties.

“An unin­tend­ed con­se­quence of our net­works is that we are attract­ing new employ­ees because we are diverse and inclu­sive,” adds Mar­tins.

Phys­i­cal improve­ments to the work envi­ron­ment, such as toi­let facil­i­ties, are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence for Net­work Rail, while Thames Water has intro­duced female-friend­ly per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment dur­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic.

Over­haul­ing fam­i­ly leave poli­cies and “pro­mot­ing male role mod­els who work flex­i­bly or take shared parental leave to break down stig­ma and ensure a lev­el play­ing field” is part of a dri­ve to improve gen­der equal­i­ty at Thames Water, says cul­ture, inclu­sion and engage­ment lead Sarah Gosiews­ka.

Across the wider indus­try, cel­e­brat­ing diver­si­ty in the work­place has snow­balled. The Build­ing Equal­i­ty alliance of con­struc­tion con­sul­tants, engi­neers, devel­op­ers and con­trac­tors has swelled to more than 40 organ­i­sa­tions dri­ving LGBT+ (les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al, trans and relat­ed com­mu­ni­ties) inclu­sion in the past five years.

Taking steps in a more diverse direction

Despite slow progress since the gov­ern­ment launched its Dis­abil­i­ty Con­fi­dent scheme in 2016, around a dozen firms in the infra­struc­ture sec­tor, includ­ing HS2, FM Con­way and Kier High­ways, have now reached the high­est leader lev­el, with its require­ment to prove they are employ­ing more dis­abled peo­ple.

Thames Water was the first water com­pa­ny to reach Dis­abil­i­ty Con­fi­dent leader sta­tus as part of wider D&I plans, includ­ing attract­ing women in STEM, advanc­ing eth­nic minor­i­ty tal­ent in lead­er­ship and man­age­ment posi­tions, sup­port­ing armed forces com­mu­ni­ties and becom­ing a top employ­er for LGBT peo­ple.

“This is not just moral­ly the right thing to do, but also crit­i­cal to ensur­ing a high-per­form­ing, finan­cial­ly sus­tain­able sec­tor,” empha­sis­es Gosiews­ka.

For Dr Alice May­nard, man­ag­ing direc­tor of con­sul­tan­cy Future Inclu­sion and for­mer chair of Trans­port for London’s inde­pen­dent dis­abil­i­ty advi­so­ry group, who has a CBE, more trans­for­ma­tion­al change is need­ed in how lead­ers approach D&I to avoid it being a tick-box exer­cise.

“But when peo­ple actu­al­ly get it, this becomes a sig­nif­i­cant pri­or­i­ty and they are very cre­ative and flex­i­ble in look­ing at their sys­tems, process­es and cul­ture,” she says.

Per­haps the great­est chal­lenge fac­ing all organ­i­sa­tions is gath­er­ing robust data that allows for iden­ti­fy­ing diver­si­ty gaps and plan­ning a pro­gramme of change.

Net­work Rail’s Mar­tins believes “under­shar­ing” is an issue in gath­er­ing data on dis­abil­i­ty and sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion as peo­ple are wary of how the infor­ma­tion will be used.

“We know the eth­nic­i­ty of 87 per cent of our work­force, which has allowed us to talk about the eth­nic­i­ty pay gap, but we need fur­ther data on oth­er minor­i­ty groups so we can change and improve,” she acknowl­edges.

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