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Construction Inclusion Week: Building The Foundation For A Diverse, Equitable and Durable Industry Of The Future

October 19, 2021
Staff
The construction industry is, by nature, competitive. But there are some overarching issues that are big enough for us to set aside differences to overcome – most notably the need to build a diverse and skilled workforce to drive industry inclusion, foster innovation, stave off a mounting labor shortage and assure our collective long-term success.

Across the United States, industries, institutions, and businesses are reckoning with long-standing inequities in diversity and inclusion. With this in mind, Gilbane joined forces with five fellow industry leaders to collaborate on the inaugural Construction Inclusion Week, which is running from October 18 – October 22. Our goal is to work collaboratively to provide resources, encourage information sharing, and work together to achieve a greater workforce built on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

The industry already has a firm foundation on which to build. Construction has long offered family-sustaining, career-building opportunities for a wide range of workers – particularly immigrants. Pass by an active jobsite, and you’ll hear a wide variety of languages, including Spanish, French, and Mandarin. Ninety-two percent of construction industry firms are small businesses, owned and operated by hardworking Americans. The construction industry’s collective spending represents 6% of the U.S. GDP, and the places we build have positive impacts on professional and business services, healthcare transportation, retail, and much more. With over 7 million employed through construction across the country, you cannot miss our economic footprint.

Few industries consistently create the number of jobs for everyday Americans that the construction industry offers. But we also know significant disparities continue to exist, and we must do more to address them.

One of our first efforts with Construction Inclusion Week is to offer resources to firms that may be in different places in their diversity, equity, and inclusion journeys. Planning guides on the Construction Inclusion Week website offer table talks, toolbox talks, videos, and at home resources. During the week, daily themes will cover crucial topics such as addressing leadership commitment and accountability, unconscious bias, supplier diversity, encouraging an open-minded jobsite culture, and developing ways to conduct more community outreach. The week’s resources will also explore how to forge stronger relationships with the communities in which we build, bolster a more diverse workforce, and amend our workplace language to support a culture that is respectful and inclusive on construction sites and in offices alike.

Throughout the week at Gilbane, we will continue our annual practice of highlighting diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging through a dedicated week of activities, information sharing, and dialogue. Our employee resource groups are leading conversations around unconscious bias, the importance of allyship, and sharing personal stories on belonging. We are hosting trainings and sharing information to deepen our community involvement in programs like the ACE Mentor Program. Together with Turner Construction, we are hosting a webinar event on supplier diversity in order to help expand opportunities.

It is our hope that this collaborative spirit is just the beginning and will lead to additional opportunities in which we can work together to forge a better and more inclusive future for the construction industry. With a heightened national focus on racial, ethnic and gender equity, as well as social justice, it is incumbent on us to seize this moment to help move the needle together.


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