Homophobic attitudes are still rife in the industry’s construction companies, with 85% of lesbian or gay employees in the contracting sector saying they had heard inappropriate remarks in the past 12 months, compared to 59% of gay professionals in architecture, 61% in engineering and 63% in the property sector.
Meanwhile, only 11% of gay or bisexual staff working for contractors said that their sexual orientation did not create a barrier to their career progression.
Among their heterosexual colleagues, just 23.5% felt that being gay would not harm a colleague’s career, leaving more than three-quarters who believe that being gay does hold back career progression.
The findings come from the “Attitudes in Construction” survey carried out by Construction News, Architect’s Journal and NCE, based on responses from nearly 1,000 industry staff across the sector, both LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) and heterosexual.
Matteo Lissana: “Struggle”
Also in the contracting sector, only 27% of LGBT staff felt comfortable being open about their sexuality with colleagues, which compares to the 46% of gay engineers who were happy to be open about their sexual orientations, and 70% of gay architects.
At equality campaign group Stonewall, Matteo Lissana, client account manager, told NCE: “The construction and built environment sectors are historically very traditional, and changes in the industry take a long time to implement. The industry is still struggling with gender equality, which has remained for years the main focus of the sector.”
He added: “The [construction] sector must realise that [the current] approach is outdated and that diversity does not operate in separate compartments. The sector is coming to realise now that the shrinking talent pool is setting firms further and further away from an extremely vast and diverse number of employees.”
Other findings from the survey suggest that less than half of all gay engineers feel comfortable being open about their sexual orientations with their immediate colleagues, but that figure falls to just 8% when visiting construction sites.
Also, 64.3% of gay respondents said they had been discouraged by the lack of openly lesbian, gay or bisexual people in the industry.
Stonewall’s Lissana, who works with a small number of industry “diversity champions”, including Balfour Beatty, JLL and Arup, told Construction News that role models and visible support from managers need to be improved in the sector.
“Senior members of staff need to be visible role models and allies, and champion LGB equality within the organisation. The visibility of senior LGB employees would help change the face of the industry. By simply being visible in an organisation, LGB role models can illuminate the career path of more junior gay, bisexual and trans people who may not feel confident being who they are,” Lissana said.
