Innovative Thinking  |  Ethnic diversity in management

Diversifying leadership

Senior level diversity in the construction industry will remain low unless current leaders take action. Sotiris Kanaris reports.

The Diversity Matters Even More report published by management consultant McKinsey in November emphasises the strong business case for ethnic diversity in executive teams. It found that the top-quartile companies – in terms of ethnic representation on those teams – had a 39% greater likelihood of financial outperformance versus their bottom-quartile peers.

Industry leaders talked about ways organisations can increase ethnic minority representation on their executive teams

With such a strong business case, why is ethnic diversity on executive teams in the construction industry low? This was one of the topics discussed by industry leaders at the “Everyone’s business: race and ethnicity in the construction sector” event, organised by National Highways’ Supplier Diversity Forum and the ICE and held at the ICE’s headquarters in late October.

Arup global equity diversity and inclusion director (EDI) Loraine Martins facilitated the discussion, in which leaders also talked about actions that need to be taken to boost diversity at all levels of seniority.

“It is often said but worth repeating that everyone has the right to come to work and to be free from abuse, to have the opportunities to grow and add value and most importantly, be themselves regardless of gender, sexuality, race or disability. And the uncomfortable truth is that this is not universally true in this industry,” Great British Railways transition team lead director Anit Chandarana told delegates via a recorded video.

Ethnic minority respondents to the ICE’s Racism in Civil Engineering survey, published in 2021, said they have been denied career progression opportunities and had not been encouraged to seek promotion.

Arcadis senior programme director Reuel Abrams is the chair of the race, ethnicity and cultural heritage working group for National Highways’ Supplier Diversity Forum. Having looked at some organisations’ data and from his own observations, he finds that the lack of diversity is more evident in positions above senior technical level. These are jobs where people have significant management responsibilities.

Abrams told NCE that part of the reason for this is “completely unconscious”.

“People that hold those roles, who choose the individuals who step up into those roles, have a natural affinity for choosing people who are like them. Because they got there, they assume that people who are like them would be the most capable for those roles,” he explained.

ICE President Anusha Shah told delegates at the event that among the hindrances to greater diversity at leadership level are stereotypes about what makes someone “leadership material”. “Stop stereotyping, there is no definition of a leader,” she stressed.

Shah said having people from ethnic minority backgrounds in leadership positions could help the industry attract and retain talent from underrepresented ethnic groups, as they can act as role models.

ACTIONS

Abrams said change in the ethnic composition of executive teams will not happen organically. “To change things for women, organisations had to be intentional and I think that this is no different to that,” he said.

“If someone gets to a certain level in an organisation, it’s clear that they have capability, but they may not get the same opportunities that give them access to the higher levels of management. I think that organisations have to be intentional about programmes to ensure leadership opportunities are equitable,” he said.

Senior professionals also have a role to play by providing opportunities for more junior colleagues from ethnic minority groups to showcase their capabilities.

Sizewell C non-executive director and former Network Rail managing director of digital railway David Waboso has been in the industry for nearly 50 years.

He told delegates that early in his career people saw him as “a bit of a risk” because he did not have an Anglo-Saxon name and, because he is a man of colour, did not look like his white colleagues on site. He acknowledged that the support of more senior colleagues was important for his career development.

“I think one of the most important things in your career is to be fortunate enough to meet some people along the way who believe in you and back you. It’s all about backing,” said Waboso.

Leaders can also enhance diversity at the top seniority levels by being involved in sponsorship programmes, through which they are connected to high potential junior employees from underrepresented groups and help them with their career development.

“If people trust me, and I say ‘this person is really good’, then they gained some of my personal capital. That’s what allies are doing, using that personal capital to support the change,” Abrams added.

DIVERSIT Y AT EVERY LEVEL

“Seniors come from juniors” said Waboso, pointing out that to boost diversity, companies should look at their recruitment, retention and promotion policies.

Balfour Beatty major projects commercial director Olu Olabode said conscious and unconscious bias during the recruitment process should be tackled for more people from ethnic minority groups to enter the industry.

Abrams said unconscious bias training, diverse interview panels and removing people’s names and pictures from CVs could be solutions.

Waboso added that there should be ambitious targets for recruiting people from underrepresented backgrounds.

Having a diverse workforce has been an objective of the High Speed 2 project, various measures taken to achieve it.

Former HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Thurston told delegates: “We were quite explicit about what we expect our supply chain to do, how we want their workforce to be diverse. And we’ve fundamentally done that through conversations, getting people to talk about this.”

“Organisations have to be intentional about programmes to ensure leadership opportunities are equitable

Embedding EDI into HS2 Ltd’s culture has been key to driving change, with leadership bearing responsibility.

“[When I joined HS2] I had to work out where was my place and my voice as a white middle-aged man in this debate and how to make myself relevant to this conversation, because my lived experience would be very different from people from minority backgrounds,” said Thurston.

In his first months in the role, Thurston talked to people from those backgrounds about their experiences and to key figures of the employer network about HS2 Ltd’s work on EDI. He said that by having conversations of this kind, leaders can better understand the changes needed within an organisation.

Thurston said that leaders must genuinely care about diversity if they are to make a difference.

“If I exercise my voice and cast my shadow as the leader of the enterprise in a way that people know it matters to me, then I think you’ve got a good place to start.”

“Leaders, if you are really serious about it, make it part of board discussions. Don’t just rely on your EDI lead,” said Shah.

“I really hope that we’ll get to a day, it’s still a long journey, where it’s not going to be an exception, to have a woman of colour as a commercial director in a business,” Olabode added.