Construction is an incredible career field with many wonderful opportunities for professionals – men and women alike! With enough determination, anyone can have a long, successful career in construction. This industry presents many incredible jobs for women and over the last decade or so it has taken strides towards gender equality, but there’s always room for improvement. In this article, we’ll discuss some ways in which we (construction professionals) can support and cheer on our female coworkers! Let’s get started.
Break the Stigma
There’s a common perception that every woman who works in construction is extremely masculine and, to put it plainly, uneducated. We know this couldn’t be further from the truth! One way that we can help to break this stigma is to highlight and show off our female coworkers who don’t fall into this mold. We can also offer internships and other programs through which young women can gain early experience in higher-level construction jobs that require more education – there are definitely plenty out there!
Put Safety First, and Mean It
Of course, it’s important to emphasize the safety of your crew’s lives on a job site. Having the proper equipment, the proper training, and enough staff for the job are all vital! However, construction companies should be serious about their female staff feeling completely safe on the job site – that means they don’t feel worried about how their coworkers will treat them as a woman. Make sure your human resources personnel are approachable and can take action when any female construction worker encounters an unfavorable or offensive situation with a male worker based on their gender.
Be Inclusive
Examine your teams thoroughly and make sure that women are having opportunities to participate in projects as they show interest. Sometimes this means offering new training opportunities to equip them to do a new job. Other times this means ordering female-specific PPE and equipment to allow them to participate in a certain job site! Just be sure that there are no roadblocks based on gender that are holding your female employees back from succeeding in their careers!
Up Your Offerings
To make your construction company a more attractive employer for female professionals, you may need to assess and adjust your benefit offerings. Women value some benefits more than men do! For example, having a valuable maternity leave benefit will definitely show women that you care about them as staff. Granting a little extra personal leave or even offering “family leave” for situations in which they need to pick up the kids early or take one to a doctor appointment may also make the jobs you have open more attractive to female workers!
Overall, the construction industry has been dominated by men since its inception. Each year, we are seeing more and more women join the workforce. Hopefully, as an industry, we can continue to become even more supportive and accessible for female workers! If you are a woman looking to make your next career move in construction, consider joining the Redstone team! We’d be happy to have you. Check out our current open positions here.
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