Built for Men: Institutional Privilege in the Australian Construction Industry

Home , Male privilege

Built for Men: Institutional Privilege

in the Australian Construction

Industry

Natalie Rose Galea

A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Built Environment Faculty April 2018

PLEASE TYPE THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet

Surname or Family name: Galea

First name: Natalie Other name/s: Rose

Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar:

School: Faculty: Built Environment

Title: Built for Men: Institutional Privilege in the Australian Construction Industry

Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)

The construction industry is Australia's most male dominated sector where men's over-representation and dominance remains unyielding in this

area for decades. Scholars and the construction sector define the problem as an issue associated with women's under-representation and

powerlessness. This dissertation takes the inverse perspective, reorientating the focus from women's disadvantage to men's advantage.

Applying key concepts from feminist institutionalism and the literature on masculinities and on privilege, this dissertation aims to examine the role

of masculine privilege in maintaining men's over-representation and powerfulness in the construction industry. This research applies an

interpretivist approach. It uses an ethnographic study of a large multinational construction company to examine how acts of privilege operate

across the career landscape - including recruitment. progression and retention - in a construction company. It considers how the 'rules-in-use'

propagate hegemonic masculinity and male over-representation in construction professions at the expense of women construction professionals.

In this research a multi-method ethnography was conducted and analysed over three phases. It includes: document analysis of 30 company

policies. 42 interviews. 24 participant observations undertaken across six company events and three construction sites.

This dissertation finds that hegemonic masculinity is embedded in the pattern of rules that are followed and enforced within construction

companies and the by-product is masculine privilege. Key findings from the research are that masculine privilege in construction acts in three

ways: through a culture of denial; perceptions that rules are neutral, legitimate and applied objectively; and through backlash and resistance to

maintain the gender status quo. It concludes that looking across the three career stages of recruitment, progression and retention, women

construction professionals are disadvantaged by the 'rules-in-use', while acts of privilege hold the rules in place and maintain men's institutional

privilege, over-representation, and power in the construction sector.

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‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.'

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Date ……………………………………………...... ABSTRACT

The construction industry is Australia’s most male dominated sector where men’s over-representation and dominance has remained unyielding in this area for decades.

Scholars and the construction sector define the problem as an issue associated with women’s under-representation and powerlessness. This dissertation takes the inverse perspective, reorientating the focus from women’s disadvantage to men’s advantage.

Applying key concepts from feminist institutionalism and the literature on masculinities and on privilege, this dissertation aims to examine the role of masculine privilege in maintaining men’s over-representation and powerfulness in the construction industry. This research applies an interpretivist approach. It uses an ethnographic study of a large multinational construction company to examine how acts of privilege operate across the career landscape – including recruitment, progression and retention - in a construction company. It considers how the ‘rules- in-use’ propagate hegemonic masculinity and male over-representation in construction professions at the expense of women construction professionals. In this research a multi-method ethnography was conducted and analysed over three phases.

It includes: document analysis of 30 company policies, 42 interviews, 24 participant observations undertaken across six company events and three construction sites.

This dissertation finds that hegemonic masculinity is embedded in the pattern of rules that operate within construction companies, the by-product of which is masculine privilege. Key findings from the research are that masculine privilege in construction acts three ways to maintain the gender status quo: through a culture of denial; perceptions that rules are neutral, legitimate and applied objectively; and

ii through backlash and resistance. It concludes that looking across the three career stages of recruitment, progression and retention, women construction professionals are disadvantaged by the ‘rules-in-use’, which are firmly held in place to maintain men’s institutional privilege, over-representation, and power in the construction sector.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation would not have been possible without the immeasurable support of a number of people.

To my three supervisors, Professor Louise Chappell, Professor Martin Loosemore and Dr. Abigail Powell, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your knowledge, guidance and mentorship. Most of all, thank you for your unwavering support throughout all of my ups and downs and the personal guidance you provided me throughout my entire candidature. I am truly grateful. I had so much fun, thank you.

To my dear postgraduate research coordinator, Suzie Scandurra and postgraduate research director, Dr. Judith O’Callaghan, I thank you for your steadfast support, patience and good humour. I also would like to thank Professor Susan Thompson and Dr. Hazel Easthope whose warmth and guidance ensured that I stay on track throughout my candidature.

I would also like to express appreciation to Dr. Maryam Gusheh, my generous mentor and ‘word catcher’. Thank you for coaching me over the writing sand hills of this dissertation. To my fellow researchers Adam Rogan, Megan Blaxland and Phillip

Mar, thank you for your generosity of spirit and sharing your expertise with me.

To the friends who I have worked with on construction sites around the world and those who I did not work with but met half way between our site for lunch on a dusty Doha road, thank you for your unwavering support. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the participants and professionals who made this research possible.

To my dear friend Suzie Crogan, it was a conversation over a colour and cut that started me off on this journey. To you, I am forever grateful. To my wonderful friends who have supported me at home and abroad and given me a place to stay, your generosity, support and patience will not be forgotten.

To my beloved parents, Ron and Gail, this dissertation would not have been possible without you. Thank you for loving me, encouraging me and supporting me in this journey.

Dad, you made it.

In memory of Phil Naughton

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... ii

Acknowledgements ...... iv

Table of Contents ...... vii

List of Abbreviations ...... xiii

List of Figures ...... xiv

List of Tables ...... xv

List of Publications and Presentations ...... xvi

Prologue ...... ii

1 Introduction ...... 1

1.1 The gender problem in construction ...... 2

1.1.1 Why is gender equality in construction important? ...... 5

1.1.2 What has the response from government and business been? ...... 6

1.1.3 How has the problem of women’s under representation been understood? ...... 9

1.1.4 Inverting the problem ...... 11

1.2 Purpose of this study ...... 13

1.2.1 Research questions ...... 14

1.2.2 Theoretical framework ...... 15

1.2.3 Overview of methodology ...... 17

1.3 Contribution to knowledge ...... 18

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1.4 Dissertation outline ...... 18

2 Concepts: Rules, Gender & Privilege ...... 21

2.1 Introduction ...... 21

2.2 Understanding the ‘rules-in-use’ ...... 22

2.3 Gender and the rules ...... 27

2.4 Gender and privilege ...... 32

2.5 Masculine privilege ...... 36

2.5.1 Masculine privilege – dimensions and effects ...... 39

2.5.2 Denial ...... 40

2.5.3 Neutrality, objectivity and legitimacy ...... 42

2.5.4 Backlash and resistance ...... 44

2.6 Summary ...... 49

3 Methodology: ‘Seeing’ Privilege ...... 52

3.1 Introduction ...... 52

3.2 Methodological approach ...... 53

3.2.1 Rapid ethnography, gendered rules and the construction sector ...... 57

3.2.2 Positionality and reflexivity ...... 60

3.3 Methods and analysis ...... 64

3.3.1 Data collection ...... 64

3.3.2 Focused ethnography: Can-do Construction ...... 65

3.3.3 Method ...... 67

3.3.4 Analysis: Sense-making ...... 78

3.4 Research ethics ...... 81

4 Gendered Foundations: The Problem of Women’s Recruitment ...... 84

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4.1 Introduction ...... 84

4.2 Problematising women’s recruitment ...... 86

4.2.1 The pipeline problem ...... 86

4.2.2 Gender bias ...... 87

4.2.3 Construction’s informal recruitment practices ...... 88

4.2.4 Weak gender diversity policy responses ...... 89

4.3 The rules of entry at Can-do Construction ...... 90

4.3.1 The recruitment policy...... 91

4.3.2 Recruitment in practice ...... 94

4.3.3 External recruitment ...... 96

4.3.4 Internal recruitment ...... 98

4.3.5 The gendered effect ...... 102

4.4 Targeting women ...... 105

4.4.1 Putting a number on women ...... 119

4.5 Discussion...... 126

4.5.1 Recruitment ‘rules-in-use’ ...... 127

4.5.2 Recruitment: Gendered ‘rules-in-use’ ...... 129

4.5.3 Acts of privilege in recruitment ...... 130

5 The Leaky Pipe: The Problem of Women’s Retention ...... 134

5.1 Introduction ...... 134

5.2 Problematising the leaky pipe ...... 135

5.2.1 Rigid work practices ...... 136

5.2.2 Male dominated and masculine construction culture ...... 136

5.2.3 Weak policy responses ...... 138

5.3 Rules of the game ...... 140

5.3.1 The code of conduct ...... 146

5.3.2 The operating principles ...... 146

5.3.3 The construction contract ...... 148

5.3.4 Employment contract ...... 157

5.4 Patching the leak ...... 168

5.4.1 Flexibility pilot and well-being leave ...... 168

5.4.2 Parental leave ...... 177

5.4.3 Diversity and inclusion policy ...... 186

5.5 Discussion...... 197

5.5.1 Retention ‘rules-in-use’ ...... 200

5.5.2 Retention: Gendered ‘rules-in-use’ ...... 202

5.5.3 Acts of privilege in retention ...... 203

6 The False Ceiling: The Problem of Women’s Progression ...... 209

6.1 Introduction ...... 209

6.2 The talent pipeline ...... 210

6.2.1 Informality ...... 211

6.2.2 Male work norms ...... 212

6.2.3 Project delivery skills and visibility ...... 212

6.3 Climbing the ladder ...... 215

6.3.1 Performance reviews ...... 217

6.3.2 Earmarking talent ...... 220

6.4 Unearthing the progression ‘rules-in-use’ ...... 223

6.4.1 Instrumental masculinity: Homosociality and sponsorship ...... 225

6.4.2 Expressive masculinity: Being the package ...... 245

6.5 Cordoning off women’s progression ...... 257

6.6 Discussion...... 265

6.6.1 Progression ‘rules-in-use’ ...... 267 x

6.6.2 Progression: Gendered ‘rules-in-use’ ...... 268

6.6.3 Acts of privilege in progression ...... 269

7 Comparative Conclusion ...... 275

7.1 Introduction ...... 275

7.2 Reframing the problem of women in construction ...... 277

7.3 What specific acts of masculine privilege operate in the construction sector? ...... 278

7.3.1 How do acts of masculine privilege operate across women’s career life cycle? ...... 279

7.3.2 What additional factors keep masculine privilege in construction in place? ...... 287

7.4 What is to be done? Overcoming masculine privilege ...... 289

7.5 Advancing the study of gender and of construction ...... 292

7.6 Future research and limitations ...... 295

Epilogue ...... 298

Bibliography ...... 300

Appendices ...... 316

Appendix A. Company policy documents ...... 316

Appendix B. Events/sites observed ...... 319

B1. Events attended ...... 319

B2. Sites attended ...... 319

B3. Participant observation template for events ...... 320

B4. Participant observation template for site ...... 322

Appendix C. Interviews and observations ...... 326

C1. Participant details ...... 326

C2. Interview questions: Senior executive managers ...... 332

C3. Interveiew questions: Construction professionals ...... 336 xi

Appendix D. ARC research project details ...... 339

Appendix E. Ethics approval ...... 342

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ABS: Australian Bureau of Statistics

ARC: Australian Research Council

ASX: Australian Securities Exchange

CEO: Chief Executive Officer

CFMEU: Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union

FI: Feminist institutionalism

HR: Human Resources

KPI: Key performance indicators

NAWIC: National Association of Women in Construction

NI: New institutionalism

WGEA: Workplace Gender Equality Agency

xiii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Marking the territory ...... 187

Figure 2: Can-do Construction Career Pathways...... 244

xiv

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Acts of Privilege ...... 47

Table 2. Ethnographic Methods Conducted and Gender Ratios Achieved ...... 71

Table 3. Gender breakdown at Can-do Constructions ...... 120

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

Journal articles

Salignac, F, Galea, N & Powell, A (2017), 'Institutional entrepreneurs driving change: The case of gender equality in the Australian construction industry',

Australian Journal of Management, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 152-69.

Galea, N, Powell, A, Loosemore, M & Chappell, L (2015), 'Designing robust and revisable policies for gender equality: lessons from the Australian construction industry', Construction Management and Economics, vol. 33, no. 5-6, pp. 375-89.

Loosemore, M & Galea, N (2008), 'Genderlect and conflict in the Australian construction industry', Construction Management and Economics, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 125-

35.

Book chapters

Chappell, L & Galea, N (2017), 'Excavating informal institutional enforcement through ‘rapid’ ethnography: Lessons from the Australian construction industry', in

G Waylen (ed.), Gender and Informal Institutions, Rowman and Littlefield International,

London, United Kingdom.

Galea, N, Rogan, A, Blaxland, M, Powell, A, Chappell, L, Dainty, A & Loosemore,

M (2017), 'A new approach to studying gender in construction', in F Emuze & J

xvi

Smallwood (eds), Valuing People in Construction, Routledge, London, United Kingdom, pp. 113-29.

Reports

Galea, N. (2017). Rigid, Narrow and Informal: Shifting the gender imbalance in construction,

For: National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) Australia, 8 March

2017.

Galea, N, Rogan, A, Chappell, L, Powell, A & Loosemore, M (2016), Demolishing gender structures, UNSW, Sydney, December 2016.

Refereed conference papers

Loosemore, M, Powell, A, Blaxland, M, Galea, N, Dainty, A & Chappell, L (2015),

'Rapid Ethnography in Construction Gender Research ', paper presented to

ARCOM, Lincoln, UK, 7-9 September 2015.

Galea, N & Chappell, L (2015), 'The Power of Masculine Privilege: Comparing Male

Overrepresentation in the Australian Political and Construction Sectors', paper presented to ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop Warsaw, 29 Mar 2015 - 2 Apr 2015.

Galea, N., Powell, A., Chappell, L. and Loosemore, M. (2014) A new institutional perspective on gender equity in a large construction company. In: B. West (Eds.) The Annual

Conference of the Australian Sociology Association (TASA): Challenging identities, institutions and communities, Adelaide, Australia. 24-27 Nov 2014 ISBN: 978-0-646-

92735-0.

xvii

Galea, N., Loosemore, M., Powell, A., and Chappell, L., (2014) Gender equity in construction professions: a New Institutionalist perspective. In: A. Raiden and E. Aboagye

(Eds.) Proceedings of the ARCOM 30th Annual Conference, p.1111-1119,

Portsmouth, UK. 1-3 Sept 2014 ISBN: 978-0-9552390-8-3. Winner of the CIOB

Best International Paper Award.

Loosemore, M., and Galea, N. (2006) Men and conflict in the construction industry.

ARCOM 22nd Annual Conference 2006, Birmingham, England, 4 - 6 September 2006.

Other conference papers and presentations

Powell, A., and Galea, N. (2017). Short-term and informal: Flexible work practices in the construction sector. AIRAANZ Canberra, 8-10 February 2017.

Chappell, L., and Galea, N. (2016). Male overrepresentation compared: a view from the Australian political and construction sectors. Australian Political Studies Association

Conference 2016¸UNSW, Sydney, 26-28 September 2016

Galea, N., Powell, A., Dainty, A., Chappell, L. and Loosemore, M. (2016). Are institutional mechanisms responsible for inertia around gender equity in the construction industry? In: 30th Annual AIRAANZ Conference, Sydney 10-12

February 2016.

Galea, N. and Chappell, L. (2015). Challenges and opportunities in informal institution research. In: Gender and Informal Institutions Workshop, Manchester, 10 -11

September 2015

Galea, N. and Chappell, L. (2015). Masculine Privilege: the tie that binds. In:

American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 3 - 6 September 2015 xviii

Powell, A., Chappell, L., Galea, N., and Loosemore, M. (2014). Understanding gender regimes in the construction industry from a new institutionalist perspective.

SWE14 (The Annual Conference for Women Engineers) + ICWES16 (International Conference for Women Engineers and Scientists), Los Angeles, United States., 23- 25 October 2014.

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PROLOGUE

When I was a child, on most afternoons our kitchen was abuzz with tradespeople – plumbers and drainers – drinking coffee and eating Madeira cake. My mother and father ran a small successful plumbing business from our home in Sydney’s north western suburbs. Despite my familiarity with these people, I never considered a career in construction until after I had represented Australia in judo at the 1996

Olympic Games. On leaving school I dreamt of a career in international relations.

Then, whilst training for the Sydney Olympics, I grew concerned about my financial wellbeing post my Olympic career. I knew construction careers paid well so I enrolled in a Bachelor of Building Construction Management at the University of

New South Wales. At the age of 25, I found myself a student again.

I remember the perplexed look on the face of the project director on the first day of my construction career. I was a construction cadet and the project director had come to head office to collect me and a young male colleague. ‘They didn’t tell me I was getting a girl,’ he said as he greeted us. The ‘girl’ he was referring to was in fact a 25 year old woman.

I realise on reflection that my gender and difference was constantly being pointed out to me, from the very start of my career. These reminders came often, seemingly in an offhand manner, and with little thought. They stung like subtle paper cuts marking my difference and social exclusion. Not that I focused on them for long, I was eager to fit in and get on with my construction career. But over time, these reminders became just plain annoying. I pushed on but always had the feeling I was play acting.

It was strange sensation, like being watched. I longed for times when I could relax and feel less self-conscious. ii

Most of my career was spent working on building projects for large construction contractors. I worked hard and was ambitious but career progression was slow.

Unlike in judo where the rules, both formal and informal, are clear and I know exactly how to progress, in construction I was often left feeling confused. To gain promotions I changed companies, cities and countries. From Sydney I moved to

Brisbane, then to Doha and then to Dubai. All that time, the enigma of career progression followed me.

Working in the Middle East, away from home and with other nationalities was exhilarating. It was also there that I saw my privilege in action. Being white and

Australian carried currency that could be put to work for me. Indeed, for me this was a time when my race privilege shone above my gender. While workers of other nationalities had their passports kept locked in the office safe to prevent them from leaving the country, my passport was never taken from me and I was able to travel freely. I could walk into shopping centres without being questioned. I could sit on the grass by the Corniche without being moved on by police. On approach, I was shown respect, called ‘madam’ and listened to. I was afforded legitimacy for the first time in my construction career.

This respect and legitimacy was not granted universally, however. The white Anglo-

Saxon and European men in my team and my superiors routinely reminded me of my gender and difference. To them, I was a woman and was often excluded from roles, opportunities and social events because of this. I lived in dual worlds: the world of a white person and the world of a woman.

Towards the end of 2012, I took a sabbatical from construction, returned to Sydney and enrolled in the PhD program at the University of New South Wales. My dissertation seeks to understand how the ‘rules of the game’ work in construction

iii and how they privilege masculinity and men and how masculine privilege acts across the career cycle of recruitment, retention and progression to maintain the unyielding dominance of men in the construction sector. I seek answers to these questions for three reasons. They will help me make sense of my own career in construction. They will explain why I have so few female peers on construction sites and in senior operational1 roles in construction companies. They will also determine what needs to change in the industry to progress beyond its current status as ‘the most male dominated sector’ in Australia.

1 Operational roles deliver the core business function of managing and delivering construction projects. These roles include including site/project engineer, construction manager, project manager/director, foreman and site supervisor. As a result, they are generally undertaken by employees with a construction/engineering tertiary degree or trade.

1 INTRODUCTION

The construction industry is Australia’s third largest employer, employing 10 per cent of nation’s workers. It is also the most male dominated and has remained unyielding in this area for decades. Notwithstanding considerable attempts at change in the

Australian business sector more broadly, recent figures show women’s position in the construction industry, both numerically and hierarchically, has actually fallen in the last decade. Australian is not unique; women’s statistical under representation in the construction industry is shared across most western nations2. Despite the existence of formal human resource policies and the tabling of ethical, legal and business case being made, low levels of gender equality and equity in the Australian construction industry persist. This problem has been viewed and explained primarily as one of women’s disadvantage and powerlessness. Scholars have pointed to cultural and structural barriers that deter women from beginning, sustaining and advancing their career in construction.

This dissertation offers a fresh, inverse perspective; it approaches the problem as being one of male advantage and powerfulness (Bjarnegård, 2013, p. 52). Using key concepts from feminist institutionalism and the literature on masculinities, this dissertation argues that male over representation in construction is the product of masculine privilege that serves to preserve the gender order. Using an ethnographic study of a large multinational construction company, this dissertation argues that

2 Women represent 11.5 per cent in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2017), 9 per cent in the USA (Bureau of Labour Statistics, 2016); 13 per cent Germany; 11.6 per cent United Kingdom; 11.5 per cent Austria; 9.8 per cent France; 7 per cent Netherlands; 6.4 per cent Italy; 7.2 per cent Sweden (European Commission, 2017)

1 entrenched privilege produces denial, neutrality and backlash. These acts of privilege serve to enhance male advantage in construction whilst at the same time producing a barrier to the recruitment, retention and progression of women construction professionals. Analysing how male over representation is maintained through rules and practices is critical in understanding and ultimately overcoming the lack of gender equality in the Australian construction sector.

I seek to address an unyielding problem in a new way. In this introductory chapter, I outline the lack of gender equality in Australian construction, highlighting the case for change and the responses received from government, business and academic quarters to date. As the problem of women’s under representation is worsening, I outline a new approach to analysing this persistent problem and state my theoretical framework and methodology for achieving this. I conclude by outlining my contribution to the field before providing an overview of the dissertation structure.

1.1 THE GENDER PROBLEM IN CONSTRUCTION

The construction industry is prominent in the Australian economic and political landscape. In 2016, it was Australia’s the third largest employer behind health care and professional, scientific and technical services3 and is forecast to grow

(Department of Employment, 2017). As an industry, it incorporates the construction4 of buildings and other structures including road, bridges, power stations (ABS,

2006a). Most construction activities are administered from a head office while the construction work is routinely performed at different project sites. Over half the

3 Professional, scientific and technical service includes scientists, accountants, advertising/marketing specialists, lawyers/solicitors, vets, management/other consultants, photographers, architects, engineers and computer system designers (ABS, 2006a).

2 construction sector is composed of small to medium size firms with fewer than one hundred employees. A minority of large firms employing the bulk of construction professionals generate the highest earnings (ABS, 2013). It is gender equality among these construction professionals – the managers and professionals involved in the delivery of construction projects – that is the focus of this dissertation. Construction professionals are employed in a range of positions including site engineer, project engineer, project manager, site manager, foreman, design specialist, commercial manager, construction manager and project director. Construction professionals generally hold a tertiary qualification, though in some instances they may have risen through the ranks via a trade.

The construction industry shapes the built environment we live in and plays an important role in the Australian economy. It is the second largest economic sector in

Australia, accounting for 8.1 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015-

2016 (Office of the Chief Economist, 2016). Despite its prominence, construction remains Australia’s most male dominated industry, with the lowest representation of women of all industry sectors. Women are numerically and hierarchically underrepresented in construction and the situation is worsening. In the last decade, women’s representation has reduced from 17 per cent in 2006 (ABS, 2006b) to 11 per cent in 2016 (ABS, 2016). Within the industry itself, women are barely represented in construction trades (less than 2 per cent). Their number is rising marginally in professional and management roles that include service support roles such as human resources and marketing (14 per cent); but the actual percentage of women construction professionals working in core business roles and senior

4 Including additions, alterations, reconstruction, installation, and maintenance and repairs of buildings and other structures (ABS, 2006a)

3 management roles seems to be lower (ABS, 2012)5. The vast majority (86 per cent) of women working in construction can be found in junior, marginal and administrative roles, with more than half (54 per cent) employed on a part-time basis (ABS, 2012,

WGEA, 2016b). Adding to this numerical and hierarchical under representation, the gender pay gap between men and women in equivalent roles in construction is 26 per cent of total remuneration, with the highest differential identified at the most senior levels (WGEA BECE, 2016).

Statistically at each career stage - recruitment, retention and progression – construction is over represented by men. In terms of the recruitment to construction related degrees and vocational training, men consistently dominate student enrolments and completions (Australian Government, 2015). Male dominance is at its most extreme within vocational training in construction, with the cohort of students enrolled and completing trades almost completely male (99 per cent) (NSW

Government, 2013, Smith, 2013). At a tertiary level, the picture is mixed. In construction related engineering courses, men account for 85 per cent of the students enrolled, yet in architecture and building degrees they account for 61 per cent of enrolments (WGEA, 2017).

In the last decade, despite the percentage of women completing tertiary built environment degrees remaining steady, women’s overall participation in the construction sector has fallen (WGEA, 2017, WGEA, 2016c). Poor participation rates amongst women are compounded by poor retention rates. Indeed, early enthusiasm among women construction professionals reduces with an increased exposure to the sector, resulting in women leaving the industry 38 per cent faster than their male counterparts (Bastalich et al., 2007, Professionals Australia, 2007).

5 This is most recent Census data currently available. 4

Women’s recruitment and retention in construction remains problematic, so does their progression into positions of power. Men account for 97 per cent of CEOs and

88 per cent of senior managers in Australia’s large6 construction companies. This is proportionately greater than the male dominance found in Australian business generally (WGEA, 2016e).

1.1.1 WHY IS GENDER EQUALITY IN CONSTRUCTION IMPORTANT?

The ethical, business and legal case for gender equality in construction has been repeatedly presented and debated within academia and by political leaders and policy makers (Sang and Powell, 2012a, Bagilhole et al., 2008, AHRC, 2013). It is understood that gender equity in the workplace is attained when people are able to access and enjoy the same rewards, resources and opportunities, regardless of gender

(WGEA, 2016a). The ethical case for gender equality is grounded in arguments of social justice, equality and fairness (Pepper, 2005). It is based on the premise that discrimination is inexcusable and that all people should be treated fairly and equally and granted fairness of opportunity. The business case for gender equality asserts that workforce equality reduces staff turnover and attrition, widens the talent pool of candidates, enhances the talent attraction of companies, addresses skills shortages and develops an adaptive and innovative workforce (Bagilhole, 1997, Pepper et al.,

2002, 2005). Decreased industry gender segregation also reduces the gender pay gap

(WGEA, 2016d). As a result, gender equality in the workforce leads to higher national and organisational productivity and economic growth (WGEA, 2016a). In terms of the construction industry, the late eminent social scientist Barbara Bagilhole

6 Large companies are those with 1000+ employees.

5 et al. (2008) remind us that improved gender equality could counter the industry’s poor public image and broaden the talent pool of candidates considering a construction career.

The business case for gender equality has given rise to some debate. For instance

Paul Chan (2013) warns that the empirical evidence for such a business case is inconclusive and largely rhetorical. Researchers appear to have responded with research evidence that supports the business case for gender equality (see for examples Dezsö and Ross, 2012, Noland et al., 2016, Hoogendoorn et al., 2013). In

Australia, Toohey et al. (2009) and Daley et al. (2012) demonstrate that engaging women in male dominated industries could boost Australia’s Gross Domestic

Product upward of 20 per cent, resulting in improved pension-scheme sustainability, household savings and tax revenue. The risk in relying too heavily on this business case argument, as Cassell (1996) notes, is that it runs the risk of being perceived as a cost to business in times of economic downturn. As such, it appears a stronger proposition to argue the case on the basis of integrity and ethical business practice.

1.1.2 WHAT HAS THE RESPONSE FROM GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS BEEN?

Recognising the benefits of gender equality and equity, governments have introduced laws and regulations affirming the legal case for gender equality and diversity. In

Australia, the legal case for equality is underpinned by state and federal sex and age discrimination and harassment laws and parliamentary legislation (Sang and Powell,

2012a). In 2011, the Australian government introduced paid parental leave. This includes for 18 weeks at the national minimum wage and 12 months unpaid parental leave and a job guarantee. Approximately 50 per cent of employers supplement the

6 government scheme with their own parental leave scheme (Anxo et al., 2017).

Additionally, enshrined in the National Employment Standards is an individual’s

‘right to request’ flexible work (Pocock et al., 2013). More recently, the Australian

Federal Government refined its legislative requirements for companies with 100 employees or more, requiring them to report on both the nature and composition of gender in their workforce (WGEA, 2012b). These reporting requirements are backed by ‘softer’ non-compulsory measures from the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) that encourage publicly listed companies to disclose and report equality policies and gender targets (ASX, 2010). While these are non-compulsory, companies that fail to disclose and report on equality policies and gender targets must make public their reason for non-disclosure. Although necessary, equal opportunity laws have limitations as they only act against discrimination, offering minimal recognition to those companies that adhere to good gender equality practice (Cassell, 1996).

Bagilhole (1997) recognises that legislation is better at addressing overt discrimination, tending to leave more subtle and informal discrimination in place.

Although government agencies such as the Workplace Gender Equality Agency

(WGEA) recognise the importance of gender equality, the construction industry itself has been slow to identify it as an issue. As Sang and Powell (2012a) demonstrate, industry groups and unions in Australia representing the employers and employees have paid little attention to women’s under representation in construction.

In larger construction companies, gender issues are primarily managed by Human

Resources (HR) and grouped under the broader umbrella of ‘diversity’ (Dainty et al.,

2000a, Galea et al., 2015). Across senior managers, scholars note a varied understanding and readiness for diversity and gender equality (Pepper, 2005, Sharpe et al., 2012, Galea et al., 2015). In Pepper et al. (2002), research shows construction

7 companies managers often interpret gender equality as being equal treatment in conformity with traditional construction work practices and norms. Sharpe et al.

(2012) highlight on the contrary that engineering companies present a mixed picture: some managers are agreeable to the idea of diversity although not confident of policy success, while other managers and some female engineers themselves, display hostility, indifference and resistance to gender equality initiatives, labelling them as

‘lip service’.

Research undertaken by Galea et al. (2015) found that a combination of ethical, legal and business cases for gender equality, all intrinsically external drivers, has prompted the establishment of formal gender equality policies by Australian construction companies. The gender equality policies themselves were aimed at responding to legislative requirements and increasing the number of women in construction rather than at addressing entrenched gender practices that reinforce inequality per se (Galea et al., 2015). Suzanne Franzway et al. (2009) and Rhonda Sharpe et al. (2012) came to similar conclusions in their research into Australian engineering companies, adding that formal company policies were routinely positioned as gender neutral and, as a result, glossed over deeply held gender assumptions and entrenched inequalities. academic literature has generally studied company gender equality policies separately from HR policies (for example French and Strachan, 2013) or HR policies in isolation from gender equality policies (for example Raiden and Sempik, 2012). The literature has not assessed the effectiveness of gender equality policies within the context of HR policies and practices. In other words, there has not been a systematic analysis undertaken across the three stages of a construction career – recruitment, retention and progression – to determine which formal rules and policies are in place, which of those are applied and what gender outcome they produce.

1.1.3 HOW HAS THE PROBLEM OF WOMEN’S UNDER REPRESENTATION BEEN UNDERSTOOD?

Despite all the government and business responses to gender inequality, the problem of women’s under representation in construction remains. Research in this area, predominantly from the UK, has identified cultural and structural barriers faced by women construction professionals and engineers across their career lifecycle (Sang and Powell, 2012a). According to the literature, cultural barriers are expressed through masculine work values (Galea et al., 2015), sexist humour (Watts, 2007c), and the use of gendered language including the generic use of ‘he’, ‘men’ and ‘guys’ and swearing to demonstrate masculinity (Faulkner, 2009a). The barriers identified include: a gendered, sexualised and individualistic construction culture (Bagilhole et al., 2008, Faulkner, 2000, Watts, 2007c, 2007b), gender bias, discrimination and sexual harassment (Dainty et al., 2000a, Bagilhole et al., 2008); stereotyping between masculinity and technology (Faulkner, 2009a, 2009, Dainty and Lingard, 2006); masculine constructions of the ‘ideal worker’ (Watts, 2007a, Sewalk and Nietfeld,

2013, Löwstedt and Räisänen, 2014) and restricted opportunities based on the woman’s perceived societal role as mother and carer (Watts, 2007a, Sharpe et al.,

2012).

The literature has mainly focused on women’s experiences in the construction and engineering profession (Rumens, 2013). Wendy Faulkner (2009, p. 169) for instance, highlights the visibility/invisibility paradox that female engineers experience in construction and engineering. Operating in a predominantly all male environment, women stand out, while at the same time, they are not ‘seen’ as ‘real engineers’ due to the social stereotype that associates technical knowhow with men and masculinity.

The effect of these norms leaves women constantly needing to affirm their legitimacy

9 as construction professionals, an exhausting exercise that Faulkner finds is undermining women’s career enjoyment and progression. Paul Chan (2011) study of homosexual women and men in construction illustrates the challenge presented to women who are unable to conceal their biological sex to avert forms of discrimination.

Other scholars, such as Abigail Powell (2009, 2009, 2012a) and Wendy Faulkner

(2009a, 2009) have examined the strategies women have applied to avert the exclusionary masculine culture in construction. These include women ‘undoing’ their gender and even adopting an ‘anti-woman’ approach so as to appear as being ‘one of the boys’ (Powell et al., 2009, pp. 15-16, Sang and Powell, 2012b, p. 240). In a sense, this has women adopting a ‘sameness strategy’, whereby they distance themselves from other women and deny there are any gender issues, actively attempting to ‘fit in’ and compete with ‘men on men’s terms’ (Faulkner, 2009, p. 178). Conversely, women have also been seen to amplify their femininity, taking on feminised and nurturing roles as the ‘office mother’ (Faulkner, 2009, p. 178). These performances have been shown to have little impact on the existing gender imbalance, with women continuing to remain as ‘outsiders’ within the construction sector (Sang and Powell,

2012a, p. 165).

Only a small pool of research draws attention specifically to the experiences of men and masculinities within the construction sector7. Of this, most has been focused on tradesmen and labourers (Paap, 1999, 2006, Agapiou, 2002, Iacuone, 2005, Ness,

2012) and distinct professions such as architecture (Sang et al., 2014). The research of Sang et al. (2014) identifies subordinated masculinities in the UK architecture

7 It is acknowledged that much of the construction management literature describes the experiences of men, as the norm, but little has been written about masculinities and men in this context.

10 profession, while Paul Chan (2013, p. 4) suggests that work on masculinities and men in the construction industry tends to lack contextualisation and disregards examination of the gender practices and their role in in maintaining men’s dominance in construction. Instead it has tended to treat masculinities in the industry as homogenous.

Researchers also identify structural barriers as creating a problem for gender equality.

Particular problematic organisational work practices that are discussed include: long work hours and adherence to practices of total availability and presenteeism (Watts,

2007a, Lingard and Francis, 2004, Styhre, 2011b); resistance to career breaks, flexible work arrangements and reward for tenure (Dainty et al., 2000a, Dainty and Lingard,

2006); ‘blind spots’ in company narratives that reinforce the dominant ‘in-group’

(Löwstedt and Räisänen, 2014); informality around recruitment and promotion

(Dainty, 1998, Raiden and Sempik, 2012) and strong informal male networks. The

UK research of construction sociologist Andrew Dainty et al. (2000a), stands apart as the only comparative study of female and male career life cycles among construction professionals. It suggests that it is the interaction of structural and cultural barriers supported by informal practices that produces the differences in careers of women and men in construction. It found at each career stage of recruitment, retention and progression, that these informal practices and rules undermine a woman’s prospects of career success (Dainty et al., 2000a).

1.1.4 INVERTING THE PROBLEM

A lack of gender equality in the construction sector has generally been viewed in literature as a consequence of women’s disadvantage and powerlessness. To address the intractable nature of the problem of women’s under representation in construction

11 that persists despite business and government initiatives, I draw on the work of feminist scholars Joan Eveline (1994, 1998) and Rainbow Murray (2014) from the fields of sociology and political science. They argue that to focus on women’s disadvantage is the wrong way to achieve gender equality. Instead of empowering women, these initiatives have the unintended result of leaving ‘women with the problem and men with the advantage’ (Eveline, 1998, p. 92). In effect, rather than addressing the issue of male over representation and power, such woman-centred approaches view the problem and solution as being one relating to women as a group

(Sharpe et al., 2012). Not only does this approach perpetuate the notion that women

‘lack’ merit, motivation and the nous to succeed in construction (Eveline, 1998,

Acker, 1990), it acts to limit any scrutiny of the ways men as a group benefit from the existing culture, structural norms and indeed gender inequality itself (Flood and

Pease, 2005, Noble and Moore, 2006).

According to a pioneer in the area of male advantage, Joan Eveline (1998: 91), the narrative of female disadvantage leaves the gender status quo intact and its normative practices unopposed. It infers a resignation to the inevitability of male dominance.

Eveline (1994) argues that this approach serves to hinder the efficacy of existing strategies, blinkering policy reformers and company leaders. A growing number of scholars have started to apply this ‘reverse lens’ on the problem of women’s under representation to try and understand how power is held, and by whom.

It is for this reason that Flood and Pease (2005), Noble and Pease (2011), Bjarnegård

(2013) and Murray (2014), in the tradition of Eveline (1994, 1998), call for a change in how gender inequality is approached. Their call is not to eradicate the notion of women’s disadvantage but to remind gender researchers not to overlook the conceptual and rhetorical principle of male advantage (Eveline, 1994), if only because of the

12 persistent ways in which male dominance is able to perpetuate itself (Bjarnegård,

2013, p. 52). To challenge the ways in which gender politics operate to maintain male over representation in the workplace, it is necessary to unravel the taken-for-granted practices and structures historically modelled on male experiences, values and perceptions that are responsible for male advantage in the work place (Coston and

Kimmel, 2012).

1.2 PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY

With the problem of women’s under representation in construction still growing, I argue that the research focus on gender equality in construction remains too narrow.

Research has recognised the existence of the problem and identified the industry’s masculine culture and structure as a factor affecting the recruitment, retention and progression of women in the sector. It has concluded that the introduction of gender equality initiatives have not produced the desired effects. What research has not yet clearly identified, however, is how power is held and distributed. It has not examined the systematic way in which company practices and rules – formal and informal – reproduce dominant masculinities that reinforce men’s over representation across the three career stages of recruitment, retention and progression. Nor indeed has academic literature studied which of these rules and practices – formal and informal

– are gendered or produce gendered outcomes and how they operate. Then there is the question of why men’s over representation is tolerated and by whom, and how this level of tolerance is maintained.

A further problem with existing research is that it is grounded in empirical knowledge gained outside Australia with little attention to the unique aspects of the

Australian context. It also routinely draws from experiences in engineering rather

13 than the actual construction industry. By addressing these deficiencies, this dissertation will help construction companies and gender equality advocates develop systematic, innovative and targeted responses to the lack of gender equality in construction professions.

This dissertation also contributes to efforts to reverse the trend in politics and social science of concentrating on female disadvantage rather than the intractable resilience of male advantage (Eveline, 1994, 1998, Noble and Pease, 2011, Murray, 2014,

Bjarnegård, 2013).

As far as can be ascertained, this is the first time that the problem of men’s over representation, rather than women’s under representation will have been analysed in construction management literature. Expanding on the work of political science scholars (Bjarnegård, 2013, Murray, 2014, Murray and Bjarnegård, Forthcoming,

Culhane, 2015) and organisational sociologists (McIntosh, 1992, 2016, Flood and

Pease, 2005, Noble and Pease, 2011, Kimmel and Ferber, 2016), this dissertation examines how male dominance is held and sustained, and the effect it has on the recruitment, retention and progression of women construction professionals.

1.2.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The central point of this dissertation is to identify factors that maintain and reinforce male advantage. It draws in particular on the concept of masculine privilege. Privilege is understood as a form of advantage contributing to a system of dominance. As

Peggy McIntosh (1992) reminds us, understanding and undoing privilege is required in order to deliver any systematic change in gender relations.

My primary research question is:

What is the role of masculine privilege in maintaining men’s overrepresentation and advantage in the construction industry?

To resolve this primary question, this dissertation will ask a series of sub-questions:

 What specific acts of masculine privilege operate in the construction sector?

 How do acts of masculine privilege operate across the recruitment, retention and progression of women construction professionals and what is their cumulative impact?

 What additional factors keep masculine privilege in construction in place?

1.2.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

To demonstrate in this dissertation how privilege serves in construction companies to maintain men’s dominance and over representation, I draw on the key concepts of new institutionalism, feminist institutionalism and masculinities.

New institutionalism (NI) provides a framework to examine the embedded system of rules or ‘rules-in-use’ operating in construction companies across and between the three career stages of recruitment, retention and progression. Institutions are defined as being the formal and informal rules, practices and narratives acting to constrain and enable actors to produce ‘stable, valued and reoccurring patterns of behaviour’ that influence different political outcomes (Huntington, 1968 as cited in, Lowndes and Roberts, 2013). Institutions are often described as ‘the rules of the game’ that operate within workplaces and are known, followed and enforced (North, 1990, p. 3).

In this dissertation I will refer to this ‘distinct ensemble’ of rules as the ‘rules-in-use’

(Ostrom et al., 1994, p. 5).

Feminist institutionalism (FI), an emergent school of NI, provides a lens to analyse how the ‘rules-in-use’ are gendered and produce gendered effects and outcomes

(Mackay and Waylen, 2009, Krook and Mackay, 2010, Mackay et al., 2010, Krook and Mackay, 2011, Chappell and Waylen, 2013). This dissertation takes the position that gender is socially constructed and socially contextual, operating as a category that is tied to the cultural symbolism of masculinity and femininity and is ‘produced, performed and constructed’ through social practices and institutions to organise social activity and power relations (Beckwith, 2005, Rogan, 2015).

FI argues that institutions are encoded with gendered properties and values, which include the preserving and promoting of the culturally dominant form of masculinity known as hegemonic masculinity and its by-product, masculine privilege (Chappell and Waylen, 2013). Privilege is defined as an unearned advantage gained through the membership of a social group. When distilled, it produces three effects: denial, neutrality and backlash (Bailey, 1998). These acts of privilege are charted across the three career lifecycle stages of recruitment, retention and progression to determine whether and how privilege operates to maintain male advantage and over representation in the construction sector. Splitting up these stages is important because different acts of privilege can operate alone and in combination at each career stage. Acts of privilege can also have a cumulative effect across stages. For instance masculine privilege in the recruitment stage reinforces privilege in retention and culminates in the dominance of men ‘in command’ of construction projects and companies. Effectively, the operation of masculine privilege, means that the ‘pipeline’ for promotion and is more open to men than women, allowing the gender imbalance to remain in place.

1.2.3 OVERVIEW OF METHODOLOGY

This dissertation is a discrete part of a larger Australian Research Council (ARC)

Linkage project (project number LP130100402) titled, ‘Demolishing Gender

Structures’ conducted between 2014 and 2016 in a number of major construction companies and in collaboration with the Australian Human Rights Commission, the

Diversity Council of Australia and Loughborough University. It was established to analyse why formal gender equality policies fail to attract, retain and promote women construction professionals. In this project, I held the position of lead researcher and project coordinator. It provided me with the opportunity to collect an extensive body of data. Some key publications from this research are Galea et al. (2015, 2017) and

Chappell and Galea (2017).

As discussed in detail in Chapter Three, in order to penetrate ‘under-the-surface’ and reveal the sometimes accepted ‘rules-in-use’ operating in construction companies, this dissertation applied interpretivist ethnography on a large multinational construction company: anonymised as Can-do Constructions. The single ethnographic study was conducted over two stages. To understand the formally prescribed work place rules, stage one includes a document analysis of 30 formal company policies and initiatives that guide work place behaviour and 11 semi- structured interviews with senior executive managers. To determine which rules were in use, stage two and three applied participant observations at six company events and three construction sites. Two ‘twinned’ researchers – one male, one female, one being an construction outsider and the other an construction insider - spent between three and five days, depending on the size of the construction projects, shadowing 24 construction professionals and interviewing 31 participants. Ethnography demands that researchers remain aware of their positionality and reflexivity in the meaning-

17 making process. The Prologue of this dissertation introduces me, providing a statement of my positionality and reflexivity in my research. My reflexivity remains in evidence in all the observation vignettes featured in this dissertation.

1.3 CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE

Previous research has largely focused on women’s under representation and powerlessness in construction, leaving the question of ‘who holds power and how’ unexamined. This research brings together for the first time two theoretical frameworks: feminist institutionalism and privilege. It introduces them jointly to construction literature. By so doing, this research adds to the literature about gender equality in construction. It demonstrates how privilege pervades the construction industry’s rules and practices, thus sustaining and perpetuating gender power across the career landscape in this sector. Extending existing gender and masculinity theory, this research demonstrates how privilege, through denial, neutrality and backlash, acts to maintain men’s advantage and preserve construction’s status as Australia’s most male dominated industry. In the process, this research maps out the precise resistance points to gender equality and casts a new light on the barriers facing women at recruitment, retention and progression. It builds on the contextual knowledge of the masculinities operating in construction.

1.4 DISSERTATION OUTLINE

This dissertation starts with the Prologue which introduces my positionality and how

I came to undertake this research. Chapter Two, ‘Concepts: Rules, Gender and

Privilege’, introduces the theoretical frameworks of new institutionalism, feminist 18 institutionalism, hegemonic masculinity and privilege. This chapter begins by introducing institutions, known as rules, practices and narratives. It also discusses the role the ‘rules-in-use’ play in constraining and enabling behaviour. It introduces a feminist institutionalist lens. It considers how the ‘rules-in-use’ might be gendered and how they serve to maintain gender power relations. Then there is the complex concept of hegemonic masculinity and its by-product, masculine privilege. This chapter unpicks the concept of privilege and concludes by outlining three ways privilege operates to perpetuate itself.

Chapter Three, ‘Methodology: “Seeing” Privilege’, details the methodology applied in this dissertation. This includes the philosophical background, the use of ethnography in construction and feminist institutionalist research, reflexivity and positionality. The second part of this methodology chapter sets out the ethnographic study, the analytic process and the challenges faced. It concludes with a discussion of the ethical issues faced in the course of conducting this research.

Chapters Four, Five and Six chart out the empirical findings across the three career stages of recruitment, retention and progression.

Chapter Four, ‘Gendered Foundations: The Problem of Women’s Recruitment’, begins by returning to academic literature and details how scholars have explained the problem of women’s recruitment in construction. This chapter shifts to the ethnographic study of Can-do Constructions and studies the formal company recruitment rules and policies, including those aimed at addressing women’s under representation. It then draws a distinction between those directives and how the

‘rules-in-use’ of recruitment operate in practice. Finally, it examines the gendered consequences resulting from the divide. Interwoven throughout this chapter and all the discussion chapters are observation vignettes that form a pattern observed across 19 a number of sites. In this chapter, I also briefly discuss how Can-do Constructions interprets the problem of women’s recruitment. I conclude this chapter by critically analysing the findings in relation to existing literature and the privilege framework to determine how denial and backlash are acting to advantage men and restrict the access of women to construction careers.

Chapters Five and Six follow the same format of Chapter Four.

Chapter Five, ‘The Leaky Pipe: The Problem of Women’s Retention’, finds that, like recruitment, a culture of denial and acts of backlash and resistance act to preserve men’s over representation in construction and drive women from their construction careers.

Chapter Six, ‘False Ceilings: The Problem of Women’s Progression’, finds that all three acts of privilege – denial, neutrality and backlash – act to maintain men’s dominance ‘at the top’ and operate to keep women from positions of power.

Chapter Seven, ‘Comparative Conclusion’, returns to my research question and objectives. It presents an overview of how privilege has operated across the three career stages of recruitment, retention and progression and examines its cumulative effect on the representation of women and men in construction. I pay particular attention to how acts of privilege work in synergy, complementing each other, and what the implications are for improving women’s recruitment, retention and progression in construction. I also discuss additional factors contributing to the maintenance of privilege in construction. I conclude this chapter with recommendations for future research.

This dissertation ends with an Epilogue reflecting on my research journey.

2 CONCEPTS: RULES, GENDER & PRIVILEGE

2.1 INTRODUCTION

A core concern of this thesis is to identify factors that maintain and reinforce male dominance by drawing on the notion of masculine privilege. Privilege, or more accurately ‘privilege systems’ are defined as a form of advantage that contributes to a system of dominance. To bring about a systematic change in gender relations, it is therefore necessary to understand and undo privilege (McIntosh, 1992, McIntosh,

2016). To demonstrate how systems of privilege serve in construction companies to preserve men’s dominance and over representation, I draw on the key concepts of new institutionalism, feminist institutionalism and masculinities.

This chapter is organised into four parts:

 Section 2.2 draws on the new institutionalism theory (NI) that focuses on the

embedded system of rules. These are the ‘rules-in-use’ that work together to

guide and constrict workplace and social behaviour.

 Section 2.3 moves to a subset of NI. It draws on the work of feminist

institutionalism (FI) and showcases how organisational rules and norms

interact with gender to form and sustain gender power dynamics. It discusses

gender and draws on the concept of hegemonic masculinity together with its

by-product, masculine privilege.

 Section 2.4 of this chapter introduces the concept of privilege. It discusses

what privilege is and how it interacts with gender.

 In section 2.5 of this chapter, I sketch out the dimensions and effects of

privilege, drawing attention to the three specific acts of privilege – denial,

neutrality and backlash – that act to keep systems of privilege in place.

2.2 UNDERSTANDING THE ‘RULES-IN-USE’

The basic premise of new institutionalism is that ‘rules matter’. By ruling in certain practices and ruling out others, they shape and contain social and work place behaviour (March and Olsen, 1984, p. 747). The term ‘institution’, does not apply to an organisation such as a company or business group, rather it refers an underlying system of rules. These are the stable, recurring operating systems or the

‘prescriptions that define what actions (or outcomes) are required, prohibited or permitted, and the sanctions authorised if the rules are not followed’ (Ostrom et al.,

1994, p. 38). Institutions operate with a twofold effect: they prescribe and proscribe which behaviours are accepted and which are not (March and Olsen, 1984). For instance, institutions prescribe that those managing construction sites should work full-time and proscribe them from undertaking part-time work arrangements, viewing part-time as inappropriate in construction management roles.

Leading institutionalist scholars Vivien Lowndes et al. (2006, p. 546) remind us that

‘actors do not always follow rules, but they do know when they have broken them!’

In this way, institutions are best defined as operating to constrain or enable certain types of behaviour, providing actors with a demonstrated ‘logic of appropriateness’

(March and Olsen, 2004, p. 3). In the context of construction, institutions define and shape job roles. For example, they will define the differences between the project director, construction manager, and design manager. They will determine how participants are recruited and promoted, and what actions actors are permitted to take and the outcomes they are allowed to affect (Ostrom, 1986, p. 5, Lowndes et al.,

2006, p. 546). Institutions do not operate in isolation. It is their connection with the local context, their covert or overt enforcement techniques and their relative stability over time that define their legitimacy (Streeck and Thelen, 2005, Lowndes, 1996).

Despite acknowledging important epistemological differences in new institutionalist approaches – be they rational choice, historical, sociological, discursive or, more recently, feminist institutionalism – recent work in the field finds underlying points of convergence in a multi-theoretic perspective (Lowndes, 2002, p. 108, also see

Mackay et al., 2010, Lowndes and Roberts, 2013, p. 43). The work of Vivien

Lowndes and Mark Roberts (2013) is central in this. Detecting some consensus across these approaches, this ‘third wave’ of new institutionalism scholarship identifies institutions as forms of social organisation or sets of rules that can be both

‘formal’ (e.g. contracts, policies, codes of conduct, legislation) and ‘informal’ (e.g. norms, practices and narratives).

Formal institutions are consciously designed, clearly specified and circulated through official channels (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004). Put simply, they are written down and made public. They include explicit mechanisms for third party enforcement, primarily through reward or sanction. They are designed and constructed by actors over time through a process of negotiation, conflict and contestation. Enforcement may be effected by others in a different workplace or setting (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991,

Mahoney and Thelen, 2010). As an example, rules may be devised in head office but

23 applied on a work site in a different geographical location. Formal rules are often introduced into sectors with established institutions (formal and informal), values and behaviours (Lowndes and Wilson, 2001). Fiona Mackay (2014) argues that no institution, however new or reformed, is a blank slate. Institutions by nature conserve and propagate normative and cognitive ‘legacies of the past’ (Lowndes and Wilson,

2001, p. 643, Goodin, 1996).

Unlike formal rules, informal rules are practices, norms and narratives ‘socially shared and usually unwritten that are created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels’ (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004, p. 727). Informal rules provide individuals with an understanding of what to do in any given context.

Despite their tacit nature, informal institutions are often better understood and sometimes more socially acceptable to actors than are codified formal institutions

(Lowndes and Roberts, 2013). Informal institutions have the same threshold as formal institutions. Actor’s must be aware of informal institutions and understand the consequences of non-compliance: third party enforcement (Lowndes and

Roberts, 2013, p. 51). Informal institutions, however, are often by nature tacitly accepted, hidden and embedded in everyday practices, passing as ‘standard’ or ‘the norm’ (March and Olsen, 1989, Chappell, 2015).

Lowndes and Roberts (2013) explain how informal institutions can be observed in three forms: rules, practices and narratives. Those who adhere to and enforce the rules apply them by adopting them and making them routine. In the process, actors themselves demonstrate shared behaviours. They share reoccurring narratives that act as descriptions of the rules and discuss the incentives for adherence and penalties for non-compliance (Lowndes and Roberts, 2013).

Institutionalist literature does not treat informal institutions as the residual of formal institutions, nor does it see individual institutions – formal or informal – as operating in isolation. What this literature sees instead is reinforcement and complementarity in a complex pattern of multiple institutions interacting with others to shape behaviour and produce different social outcomes (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004). They are, as

Mackay (2014) notes, ‘nested’ in each other. For instance, rules can be established within a workplace, but intersect with other rules from the industry, from professional bodies and from society more generally.

The ‘rules-in-use’

Informal institutions can substitute, compete with, interlock, overlap, complement or trump formal rules. For example, a formal paid parental leave policy can be complemented by an informal rule that provides for a return to work for parents along with other flexible work practices (see, for more examples Aggarwal, 2006,

Ostrom, 2005, Mackay, 2014). Certain types of informal institutions benefit from weak formal institutional frameworks viewed as unreliable, disrespected or both

(Helmke and Levitsky, 2004, Bjarnegård, 2013). For instance, a weak formal institution is present when managers disregard formal company recruitment policies and recruit candidates from their personal networks. Formal and informal institutions cannot be pigeonholed as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, they need to be empirically examined. Together, formal and informal institutions form the ‘rules-in-use’8 within an organisation, industry, profession and even in society. They are the ‘distinctive ensemble’ (Lowndes et al., 2006, p. 545) of ‘dos and don’ts that one learns on the ground’ (Ostrom, 1999, p. 38).

To understand institutional outcomes, the role of actors cannot be ignored. Although rules identify acceptable behaviour and provide incentives and disincentives for compliance, it is the institutional actors who interpret, embody, enact and are empowered or not by rules (Lowndes, 1996, 2006). They can also influence the direction rules take in terms of design and implementation, and determine whether the rules will be contested, applied and enforced (Chappell, 2015).

New institutionalist scholarship has been critiqued on a number of levels. Peter John

(2013) suggests that the convergence in new institutionalist literature, which now encompasses ideas and discourses, threatens to make institutions a ‘catch all’ category that will lead to new institutionalism losing its explanatory edge. John, along with others (Zucker, 1983, Mutch, 2007, Zilber, 2006), also criticises institutionalism as lacking the practical applications of the new institutionalist approach and being much better at identifying institutional stasis than change. James Mahoney and Kathleen

Thelen (2010) and Vivien Lowndes and Mark Roberts (2013) have, however, tried to explain change. So have Louise Chappell’s (2002) analysis of ‘institutional soft spots and creative spaces’ and the examination by Fanny Salignac et al. (2017) of institutional entrepreneurs.

Finally, feminist scholars have also criticised existing approaches for their gender blindness (Mackay et al., 2010). Within the feminist institutionalist paradigm, it is argued that the rules of the game - both formal and informal institutions - are gendered. It is to this issue that the discussion now turns.

8 In this thesis I will refer to ‘institutions’ as rules, practices and narratives and I will pay particular attention to the ‘rules- in-use’ that are followed in practice, be they formal or informal.

2.3 GENDER AND THE RULES

Despite being conventionally used to explain the perceived differences between women and men, gender as an analytical tool operates both as a ‘category’ tied to cultural symbolism of masculinity and femininity and a ‘process’ that organises social activities and power (Beckwith, 2005, Scott, 1986). As a category, gender represents the fluid, socially constructed and culturally specific characteristics, values and behaviours conceived of as masculine and feminine (Beckwith, 2005, p. 131). Gender is embodied and enacted in everyday social interactions and processes. Bodies are intricately involved in the social reproduction of gender - the ‘doing’ of gender - as both objects and agents (Connell, 2002, West and Zimmerman, 1987, Butler, 2002).

Social constructions of gender have traditionally identified masculinity with the

‘positive’ qualities of ‘self-assertion, independence, control, competition, rationality’

(Hooper, 2001, p. 44), whereas femininity may be described in corresponding terms of ‘dependence, co-operation, receptivity, acceptance, emotional, intuitive, empathetic’ (Powell et al., 2011, p. 589). Yet both masculinity and femininity come in plural forms and take on different complexions based on the context and specific institutional setting. They also vary with time and through their intersection with other dimensions such as race, class, societal cultures and sexuality (Chappell and

Waylen, 2013).

Feminist institutionalists argue that institutions are encoded with gendered values that prescribe and proscribe acceptable masculine and feminine forms of behaviour, what Louise Chappell (2006, p. 229) terms ‘a gendered logic of appropriateness’. To help identify how rules and gender intersect within organisations, Francesca Gains and Vivien Lowndes (2014) identify three key relationships. First, they suggest that

27 within organisation there are rules about gender that allocate particular roles, actions, traits and benefits to men and women. These might include formal gendered rules such as maternity and paternity leave or targets and quotas for men or women. Less obvious, informal gendered rules may act subtly to align particular occupations, roles or traits with specific genders and, in so doing, separate out ‘men’s work’ from

‘women’s work’ (Sinclair, 2005, Gains and Lowndes, 2014). Narratives are used to strengthen these gender expectations, symbols and values, which over time become subliminal and normalised (Hawkesworth, 2005).

Even seemingly neutral institutions that are embedded in particular social contexts such as business, parliament and the church embody gender legacies, values, interests and identities that may have different implications for men and women (Chappell,

2011). The second category according to Lowndes and Gains (2014) identifies the gendered effects of rules when rules from the workplace intersect with rules from other social domains. On the face of it meetings held after working hours may seem neutral, impacting everyone equally. Yet for some with care-giving responsibilities, these practices may have unintended gendered consequences that result in exclusion.

It also must be recognised that work practices do not operate in isolation, but within a complex web of other formal and informal work practices. Acker (1990) argues such ‘neutral’ work practices are modelled on an unencumbered male employee with no care-giving considerations and adhere to hegemonic or dominant masculine codes. To gain rewards and avoid sanctions, employees need to observe the rules of long work hours, no career break, uninterrupted tenure and geographic mobility.

This prescription, emblematic of a masculine ideal against which performance in the workplace is judged, further acts to normalise men’s pre-eminence in the public sphere. Working together, these often entrenched work practices have different

28 implications for the essential modules of men’s and women’s and careers: aspiration, recruitment, retention, progression and remuneration (Acker, 2006, French and

Strachan, 2013).

Additionally, Gains and Lowndes (2014) remind us that actors embody and perform gender, operating as ‘rule-makers, breakers or shapers’ (Chappell and Waylen, 2013, p. 606). They embody different gender constructions of masculinity and femininity that shape the way they create, interpret, enforce, respect and communicate the rules as well as their perceptions of gender power relations and any prospect for change

(Gains and Lowndes, 2014, Chappell and Waylen, 2013). In male dominated environments, men’s hierarchical power has provided men with a greater opportunity to author, interpret, enact and influence the rules or institutions associated with work, recruitment and advancement. In other words, men have access to different informal practices than women. These include homosocialty, which serves to improve their access to networks of power and perpetuate patterns of male dominance. Homosociality, an informal practice whereby ‘men orient themselves towards other men within a patriarchal gender order’ (Holgersson, 2013, p. 456), has been shown to perpetuate itself and advantage men to the exclusion of women

(Collinson and Hearn, 2005) in the recruitment and advancement processes of business (Holgersson, 2013) and politics (Bjarnegård, 2013).

Consequently, gendered rules, in concert with other structures such as race, class and sexuality, are a pervasive feature of business and politics (Johnson, 2018). As Louise

Chappell (2015, p. 18) observes ‘gender operates as a set of norms and practices on and under the surface of institutions, in ways that profoundly shape their design, paths and outcomes’, including future policy direction and opportunities for reform.

Chappell (2015, p. 19) adds that transformation can take place in institutional ‘soft

29 spots’ that over time produce subtle and small shifts in the rules. The literature confirms that certain conditions facilitate reform including feminist minded advocates and policy makers (Chappell, 2002); strong external supporters who provide support to those working within organisations (Weldon, 2002); and picking the right time to engender changes (Waylen, 2007).

FI scholars have argued that the ‘rules-in-use’ are gendered and complex. Being the result of gender legacies, they act to establish, connect and maintain existing gender power relations (Krook and Mackay, 2011, Chappell and Waylen, 2013, Johnson,

2018). In male dominated arenas such as the construction industry, gender legacies of the past act to naturalise and legitimise systems of gendered rules shaped around masculine values. They serve to reinforce power asymmetry and gender patterns of advantage and disadvantage (Messner, 1990, Burns, 2005, Kenny, 2007).

Raewyn Connell’s (1987, 1995) concept of hegemonic masculinity describes this process of gender power relations. Drawing on Gramsci’s theory of hegemony,

Connell (1987) conceptualises that, in much the same way as a ruling class exerts ideological dominance and power over subordinated groups, a ruling configuration of gender practice - hegemonic masculinity, establishes a gender order where ‘many men are comfortable and most women are not’ (Lovenduski, 2005, p. 147, Rogan,

2015). Ultimately, hegemonic masculinity refers to the way in which a gender order is able to be created and replicated through social practices (including institutions) to reinforce a configuration of masculinity that reflects the ‘most [culturally] honoured way of being a man’ (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 4) and whereby men are dominant over women and subordinated groups of men (Hearn, 2004, p. 591, 2012).

It is through a hegemonic process of consent and coercion that hegemonic masculine values and rules are reinforced and maintained, often to appear normal and natural,

30 the by-product of which is male legitimacy and power (Hearn, 2004). Cultural legitimacy and power is therefore gained through the ‘doing’ and honouring of hegemonic masculine codes.

In line with the feminist institution gender framework of Gains and Lowndes (2014) hegemonic masculinity intersects with rules: first as a gendered rule, then producing a gendered effect and finally shaping how gender actors work with the rules. For instance, in organisations and society more broadly, gendered rules are shaped by hegemonic masculine codes that prescribe an aspirational benchmark or gendered logic of appropriateness against which all men strive and are measured. Those men who do not meet this threshold are singled out and sanctioned accordingly (Connell,

1987, Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005, Chappell, 2006). In western nations,

Michael Kimmel (1994, p. 125), drawing on the work of Brannon (1976), identifies a specific version of hegemonic masculinity that is expressed through a constellation of gender rules against which all male actors are measured. Clustered expressions of strength, rationality, authority, control, technical competence and heterosexuality - the antithesis of feminine norms - are routinely identified as the masculine codes or gendered rules that in western cultures are both socially and politically dominant (Acker,

1990, Howson, 2009, Coston and Kimmel, 2012). These include masculinity’s relentless opposition to the feminine: appraisal against the benchmarks of power, wealth and status, attachment to reliability and emotionless rationality and finally a display of manly daring and aggression. Kenney (1996) and Raiden and Räisänen

(2013) observes that the act of paid work is part of the construction of masculinity, indeed fundamental to the masculine identity (the breadwinner) and social status. In addition, Flood and Pease (2005) identify codes of hegemonic masculinity in the prescriptions of leadership, which they argue shape the accepted association of

31 maleness with leadership. It is important to note, however, that, much like institutions, hegemonic masculinity has a ‘sticky’ stable quality that can be contested and changed over time (Connell, 1995). Hegemonic masculinity in itself is reflective of its temporal and social contexts (Chappell and Waylen, 2013). Connell highlights examples of hegemonic masculinity in ‘the physical aggression of front line troops or police, the authoritative masculinity of commanders and the calculative rationality of bureaucrats’ (Connell, 1998, pp. 128-129). For this reason, what counts as hegemonic masculinity in the construction sector will be different to how it plays out in the military or in the political sphere. Even within the construction sector itself, different hegemonic masculine codes are emphasised in different cohorts and environments.

For example, in Kate Sang et al.’s (2013) study of UK architectural firms and Wendy

Faulkner’s (2009a) study of UK engineering firms, technical competency and reliability were placed first. By comparison, heterosexuality and strength were most evident in David Iacuone’s (2005) study of blue collar labourers working on

Australian construction sites. Therefore, Jeff Hearn (2004, p. 59) argues, to develop a more nuanced understanding of hegemonic masculinity, researchers should focus on gendered practices and understand how men as a group maintain power in different contexts.

2.4 GENDER AND PRIVILEGE

The literature on gender suggests it is important that sex and gender not be conflated, with sex a biological category and gender a socially constructed one.

Bjarnegård (2013, p. 18) reminds us, however, that they are nevertheless closely related: ‘biological sex and social gender exist as important axes around which personal experience is mediated and social power is distributed.’ Jeff Hearn (2004, p.

59) contends that men play an important role in maintaining the gender order as they are both ‘a social category formed by the gender system and dominant collective and individual agents of social practices.’ As individuals, men have continually to prove to other men, rather than women, that they are sufficiently ‘male’, while relentlessly keeping other men in check (Kimmel, 1994, Simpson, 2004).

Even though hegemonic masculinity is positioned at the top of the gender power hierarchy, for most men this ‘culturally exalted’ form of masculinity is an unattainable ideal (Connell, 2000, p. 84). The vast majority of men do not embody all or any of the hegemonic masculine ideals but, as Hearn (2004) attests, they are nonetheless complicit in maintaining and upholding the hegemonic model. This complicit and explicit adherence to hegemonic masculine norms acts to build a level of anxiety in men. In unpredictable environments, such as the fluctuating construction sector, adherence to predictable codes of masculinity builds certainty and trust. It grants men access to homosocial or male networks, producing a form of privilege termed homosocial capital (Kanter, 1977, Collinson and Hearn, 2005, Bjarnegård, 2009,

2013, Loosemore et al., 2003). A form of unearned advantage, homosocial capital results in inclusive social bonds and power relations between men known as homosociality (Johnson, 2001, Martin and Collinson, 1999, Bjarnegård, 2009). In male saturated environments, where men are over represented hierarchically and numerically, homosociality offers the greatest reward for men and acts to keep hegemonic masculine codes in place (Hammarén and Johansson, 2014). Elin

Bjarnegård (2013) argues that homosociality grants men access to strategic alliances with other men in positions of power, and builds an informal system of loyalty and trust that develops and acts to the exclusion of women and transparency.

Not all men adhere to the hegemonic masculine code, and those who fail to comply are outcast (Connell, 1995). The cornerstone of contemporary hegemonic masculinity is heterosexuality. Those who deviate from the heteronormative model are considered as a subordinate masculinity (Connell, 1987). Built into this notion is the perceived unnaturalness of same-sex attraction and the link between homosexuality and effeminate traits - emotion, passivity and expressiveness and domesticity - all of which are the foil of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995). Men who align themselves with the expression of feminine norms and even those who adopt egalitarian attitudes to women may find themselves marginalised in relation to hegemonic masculinity. Similarly, men from non-dominant social groups who are marginalised for their race, class, ethnicity, sexuality and religion also tend to finish up sidelined. Occasionally, individuals from these groups may become exemplars of hegemonic masculinities, excelling in one or other hegemonic characteristic (for example, the black athlete or the working class political leader), but their ascension does not elevate their broader social group access to hegemonic status. They usually remain as exceptions to the norm (Howson, 2006). Equally, rather than being sidelined outright, marginal elements of masculinities such as the working class man’s physical endurance, can be ‘borrowed’ and incorporated into the hegemonic code

(Coston and Kimmel, 2012). But ultimately, hegemonic masculinity is always constructed in relation to these marginalised masculinities, which will forever lack legitimacy and consequently social power (Connell, 1987, p. 183).

Marginal masculinities aside, Connell (1987) recognises that femininity acts as a foil for hegemonic masculinity and is always subordinate to it. While there are different femininities, there is no hegemonic femininity. Femininities do, however, play a fundamental role in the gender power matrix. They operate in and around

34 masculinities to comply with, accommodate but also to resist codes of hegemonic masculinity. Even so, one of the criticisms of Connell’s conceptualisation of hegemonic masculinity is its failure to really untangle the relationship between femininities and demonstrate how this interplay between femininities may operate in shifting the gender order and contesting gender power relations (Howson, 2006,

2009).

Despite its popularity, the theory of hegemonic masculinity is not without criticism and continues to be debated and refined (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). Key critiques concern the vagueness of the definitions, interpretations and applications, overlooks practices of inclusiveness, as well as the absence of focus on femininities

(Donaldson, 1993, Lorber, 1998, Whitehead, 1999, 2002, Demetriou, 2001, Flood,

2002, Hearn, 2004, Schippers, 2007, Beasley, 2008, Anderson, 2010). In its defence, it is important to acknowledge that masculinities are grounded in history and therefore not static, so they vary across context and time. Nor are they neutral, they often exact a cost in terms of men’s safety and wellbeing (Carrigan et al., 1985, Kimmel, 1994,

Laplonge, 2014). Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) note that masculinity is diverse, and that, within a particular context, there can be more than one hegemonic masculinity. Because hegemonic masculinity is continually ‘constructed, negotiated and achieved both in the work place and elsewhere,’ it opens itself up to contradiction, contestation and ultimately change (Connell, 2003, p. 533).

According to Connell (1998), the advantages men gain from overall male dominance are the ‘patriarchal dividend’. In agreement with Michael Flood and Bob Pease

(2005), I see an overlap between ‘patriarchal dividend’ and masculine privilege. I therefore see a benefit in conceptualising masculine privilege as a way forward to

35 untangling and addressing the problem of the systemic overrepresentation of men in construction.

2.5 MASCULINE PRIVILEGE

Men, who fit the hegemonic code or are complicit in maintaining it have practices and systems modelled around their experiences and therefore enjoy inherited systems of privilege. Male advantage, according to existing literature, is composed of and perpetuated by two interrelated elements: earned advantage and privilege (McIntosh,

1992, Bailey, 1998). Earned advantage is an advantage obtained through an acquired skill, asset, or talent that benefits and advances the possessor (Bailey, 1998, p. 109).

These might include training hard to participate in a marathon, learning a musical instrument or working hard to afford a home. Earned advantage is often linked to the idea of a meritocracy, whereby people are ranked and receive rewards based on their talent or merit (Castilla and Benard, 2010). Yet often the idea of a meritocracy ignores the inherited and lopsided distribution of power that privilege affords

(McIntosh, 1992, Johnson, 2001).

Privilege contrasts with earned advantage in that it is not a reflection of the individual’s capacity or ability. It is a gifted and unearned power, the product of membership to a social group based on gender, sexuality, class, physical ability or race. Bailey (1998, p. 109) suggests therefore that privileges are:

systematically conferred advantages individuals enjoy by virtue of their

membership in dominant groups with access to resources and institutional

power that are beyond the common advantages of marginalised citizens

(emphasis added).

Privilege is also relational, favouring the dominant group which over history has held power and therefore constructed, defined and allocated values to different social categories (Johnson, 2001). These values are built into the fabric of institutions and society. They operate through rules and practices that shape behaviour (Messner,

2011, Brod, 1987). As Messner (2011, p. 5) observes, ‘privilege is not merely an individual attribute, like a pair of shoes one can remove and discard; it is also built into the fabric of institutions and organisations.’ More specifically, Carolyn Noble and Bob Pease (2011, p. 33) define privilege as:

this invisible package of unearned assets associated with male privilege

can be cashed in on a daily basis; from choosing jobs, work conditions,

having access to credit, and being free to act in uninhibited ways with

confidence because of their position as central actors on the cultural turf.

Privilege provides a pathway to power in a way that earned advantage does not. It acts to maintain existing hierarchical systems by granting benefits to those who are privileged which they might not otherwise have enjoyed (Bailey, 1998).

Privilege and earned advantage are often interconnected, as privilege places one in a better position to earn greater advantage: ‘privilege is by definition advantageous, but not all advantages count as privilege’ (Bailey, 1998, p. 108). As the extensive work of

Allan Johnson (2001, p. 24) on privilege concludes, the existence of privilege does not mean that people who belong to a privileged group are not capable of delivering a good job, but it does mean that they enjoy something in addition - power, position, respect and legitimacy - that other people from different social categories may be denied.

Privilege operates in a similar way to gender and is linked closely to it. Like gender, privilege is relational. It is produced in and through social contexts (Connell, 1987,

2002, 2005). Michael Kimmel (1994) and others (McIntosh, 1992, Johnson, 2001) argue that in western nations like Australia, society currently attaches privilege to white, heterosexual maleness. To link gender and privilege is not to ignore how intersectionality operates, as privilege might be enjoyed in relation to one social category but not in relation to another. For instance, because of their bodily appearance, a gay man may enjoy the privilege maleness bestows (Coston and

Kimmel, 2012). Yet because of the operation of hegemonic masculinity in particular contexts – such as on a construction worksite or in many sporting teams - that privilege is likely to be undermined if they disclose their homosexuality or appear effeminate (see, for example, Chan, 2013). Research is also increasingly interested in the experiences of those who identify as belonging to the non-binary genders that sit outside the gender definitions attached to women and men (see, for example

Paechter, 2006, Chan, 2011, 2013, Rumens, 2013).

Equally, not all women are excluded from privilege or suffer social powerlessness

(Bjarnegård, 2013). In the western world, few people have no privilege. Women can enjoy various levels of privilege, especially where this intersects with race and class advantage. Although, relative to men’s privilege as a group, it is much less significant

(Messner, 1990), and usually more elusive. In male dominated areas especially, women who display ‘feminine’ characteristics are often marginalised, while women who ‘undo’ gender stereotypes by displaying hegemonic masculine characteristics, can sometimes share in the privilege dividend, but only up to a point (Powell et al.,

2009).

Tessa Wright (2013, p. 833) argues that, within these male dominated environments, women who are seen to be doing the same job as men can also threaten accepted ideas of masculinity. In male dominated arenas such as Australian politics, for example, (Chappell, 2002, p. 75) highlights that men are expected to adopt the loud aggressive and combative behaviour for which the parliament is renowned, however, when women attempt to use the same modes of communication they are punished for it. This expectation leaves women in an unwinnable position, walking the fine line between seeming too feminine and not seeming ‘too tough’ (Lawrence 1994 in

Chappell, 2002, p. 75). As a result, women politicians are routinely left exposed and open to criticism for being a ‘bitch’: cold and uncaring (Johnson, 2001). Wendy

Faulkner’s (2009) work details the ‘gender bind’ women in engineering experience.

Women are marked by their sex and highly visible in a sea of male engineers, but women are invisible as engineers, with technical competency linked to masculinity.

Hence, male engineering leaders judge women to be neither ‘naturally’ suited, nor legitimate as engineers (Faulkner, 2009, 2009a). What’s more, Bjarnegård (2009) found that, to gain access to networks of power in male dominated environments, women unlike men must move beyond their homosocial networks. Putting it bluntly, to succeed, women usually need men, but men rarely need women.

2.5.1 MASCULINE PRIVILEGE – DIMENSIONS AND EFFECTS

An analysis of the extensive literature on privilege suggests that privilege produces a range of side-effects. The following discussion focuses on what I have distilled as the three most prominent of these: denial, neutrality and backlash. These characteristics are summarised in Table 1. Acts of Privilege

2.5.2 DENIAL

Like gender, privilege is ‘framed before we know it’ (Messner, 2011, Ridgeway, 1997,

2009, Franzway et al., 2009), meaning that one of the characteristics of privilege is that it is usually invisible to those who enjoy it. As McIntosh (1992) observes, men tend not to see their gender privilege, white people tend not to see their race privilege, upper and middle classes tend not to see their class privilege. This is the

‘paradox of privilege’(Johnson, 2001, p. 34), and one of the ‘privileges of being privileged’ (Acker, 2006). The invisibility of privilege stems from the fact that those who enjoy such status represent the ‘norm’. Members of privileged groups have an

‘unmarked status’ so that their race, class, sex and sexuality usually go unnoticed

(Rosenblum and Travis, 1996, p. 142, also see Johnson, 2001). Not only does an

‘unmarked’ status reflect legitimacy and inclusion, it provides the cultural authority to operate within a wide comfort zone (Johnson, 2001, p. 33). Michael Kaufman (1994) warns, however, that despite being part of a privileged social group, individual men often feel powerless rather than privileged. In fact, the powerlessness individual men feel is tied to the very way men as a group have learned to exercise power through gender power relations. To this point, Flood and Pease (2005, p. 5) add that, although some men willingly acknowledge that women are discriminated against and even disadvantaged, these same men are less ready to recognise their corresponding privilege. Indeed, as a result of their privilege, men as a privileged group can easily disregard or fail to observe how others, especially women, are denied the same opportunities they have been given (Noble and Pease, 2011, p. 33). It is not, therefore, in the interests of the privileged to discover how the privilege system operates.

Those who are privileged are able to move through life without being marked as the

‘other’ or, worse still, an ‘outsider’. For instance, one of the perks of being a man is never having to answer the ‘gender question’; nobody asks if there is something about men that makes them unsuitable for a career in construction. As a result, the awareness and acknowledgement that ‘others’ may experience a different reality is met with denial and disbelief. By contrast, to those in privileged positions, lower status groups are usually highly visible. They have a ‘marked status’ such as a

‘woman engineer’, ‘black president’, ‘gay man’ or ‘disabled athlete’ - often differentiated as the ‘other’ or ‘token’ (Kanter, 1977, Johnson, 2001). As a consequence, those from marked social groups who do not ‘fit in’ or measure up are clearly ‘lacking’ and treated as the ‘other’ on the assumption that the existing rules and structures are fair (Eveline, 1998, Acker, 1990).

According to sociologist Suzanne Franzway and others (2009), the invisibility of privilege produces a culture of denial that operates even when confronted by unfair practices (Franzway et al., 2009, Messner, 2011, p. 6). A denial of privilege acts to obstruct awareness, analysis and understanding. Those who are privileged are thus less likely to recognise that others are not able to access the same benefits they receive and take for granted (Flood and Pease, 2005). According to Johnson Johnson

(2001, p. 24), awareness of one’s privilege requires effort and commitment. A culture of denial perpetuates a lack of awareness through actions such as turning ‘a blind eye or a deaf ear’ (Messner, 2011, p. 6), ‘not getting it’, ‘minimising it’, ‘inaction’, ‘blaming the victim’, ‘labelling it something else’, ‘individualising it’ and ‘making a joke of it’.

In other words, being complicit in the denial of privilege (Johnson, 2001, p. 87), becomes the modus operandi. In summary, a culture of denial affects both how

41 problems are framed and interpreted, and also what action is taken to resolve the issue.

2.5.3 NEUTRALITY, OBJECTIVITY AND LEGITIMACY

A second effect of privilege is that those individuals who enjoy privilege often see visible inequalities such as the gender pay gap or male over-representation as perfectly legitimate and the product of a meritocracy, being convinced that their own advancement as richly deserved (Acker, 2006). Those who enjoy privilege do not see that the ‘rules-in-use’ are constructed around the privileged group, their experiences and the power structures that have maintained their place in society. Nor do they recognise how the ‘rules-in-use’ advantage the privileged group. Consequently, those who are privileged tend to see the rules and the structure they operate in as neutral, legitimate and objective. This shields these rules from being analysed, including for their gender dimension (Bailey, 1998, Chappell, 2006, Johnson, 2001, Franzway et al.,

1989, Murray, 2014, Culhane, 2015, Flood and Pease, 2005, Noble and Pease, 2011).

Importantly for this study, when those in privileged positions suggest they are applying these ‘neutral rules’ to assess standards of merit, they fail to recognise that the measurement is both complex and gender dependent (Chappell, 2002, Murray,

2014, Daverth et al., 2016). Ultimately, the adherence to these ‘neutral rules’ defining success and failure ignores the interlocking relationship between social categories such as race, gender, disability, class, sexuality and social structures as well as historical legacies (McIntosh, 1992, Coston and Kimmel, 2012, Messner, 1997). It also ignores the fact that some rules, whilst appearing neutral, may actually have

42 different implications for men than for women and act to perpetuate social patterns of inequality (Chappell, 2010, Gains and Lowndes, 2014).

Michael Flood and Bob Pease (2005, p. 6) acknowledge that the normalisation of men’s privilege is evident in the powerful gendered constructions of occupations that are coded as intrinsically male. These are occupations that are held and practiced by men, with any deviation from this marked as the ‘other’. These gendered constructions of occupations are deeply embedded into the practices and cultures of workplaces themselves (Flood and Pease, 2005). In construction, Kate Ness (2012) demonstrates that roles and careers are inherently marked male, despite popular ideals of fairness. In terms of measurement, for example, very often in male dominated sectors a perception of who is ‘right for the job’ is shaped through the normalisation of men’s place and competency (Franzway et al., 1989, Gherardi and

Poggio, 2001). The interrelationship between hegemonic profiles of masculinity and hegemonic profiles of leadership and management further normalise the association between maleness and power (Flood and Pease, 2005).

By virtue of controlling the cultural turf and power, privilege provides the authority needed to define reality (one that fits with the privileged experience of reality) and determines who will be taken seriously and respected without being challenged

(Johnson, 2001, Thomas and Ely, 1996, McIntosh, 2016). Those who enjoy privilege are also able to command the attention of the lower-status group without having to reciprocate (Johnson, 2001, p. 34). An illustration of this effect is the many women entering the workplace who have had to adhere and adjust to work practices often designed for males without care responsibilities. This is a case of privilege setting the terms of legitimacy within a social group (Thomas and Ely, 1996). Men and their experiences are therefore adopted as yardsticks and measures for workers and

43 leaders, while men’s overrepresentation is framed as the ‘natural’ outcome of a gender neutral, fair and effective meritocracy (Gherardi and Poggio, 2007, Culhane,

2015). As Gherardi and Poggio (2007) and Murray (2014) observe, men as a privileged group neither have to prove their competency nor justify their inclusion in the workplace. In practice, this is demonstrated in companies operating an often uncomfortable process of assimilation of women into male dominated sectors and failing to acknowledge that these practices are neither neutral nor objective (Ely and

Meyerson, 2000).

2.5.4 BACKLASH AND RESISTANCE

Privilege provides the elevated individuals and groups with a sense of entitlement to the unearned advantages they enjoy (Flood and Pease, 2005). In a competitive environment, like construction, unearned advantage provides a competitive edge that those with privilege are reluctant either to acknowledge, defend, or relinquish

(Johnson, 2001). The third effect of privilege occurs when the ‘rights’ of the privileged are challenged or denied. This is often met with backlash and resistance

(Rosenblum and Travis, 1996, Flood and Pease, 2005). Because privilege cannot be seen, it is only when it is challenged that it becomes visible. Discomfort arises at having to defend the status quo and defence takes the form of resistance and, in some cases, backlash.

According to Superson and Cudd (2002, p. xiv) backlash is characterised by ‘attitudes of hostility and fear, particularly on the part of the privileged groups who will be harmed by others’ progress, but it can also be the result of unconscious, unorganised, perhaps institutionalised resistance to change’. Put simply, backlash is the response to a perceived disruption to power held within the existing social order and gender

44 power relations. When privilege is challenged, it is routinely interpreted as an attack on individual men, an act of emasculation or an example of escalating ‘political correctness’ (Coston and Kimmel, 2012, Dover et al., 2016).

Enacted by individuals or groups, backlash and resistance operate both emotionally and normatively. They can take the form of a violent attack or a complicit action of defiance and resistance (Superson and Cudd, 2002) such as ‘locking out’ new initiatives through acts of ‘deliberate neglect’ and non-compliance (Lowndes and

Roberts, 2013, p. 184, Chappell, 2015). Alternatively, as Fiona Mackay’s work has shown, backlash can operate through a process of ‘forgetting the new’ (typically formal policies) and ‘remembering the old’ (typically informal rules) (Mackay, 2014,

Lowndes and Roberts, 2013, Chappell, 2015) According to Mansbridge and Shames

(2008, p. 627), emotional loss of entitlement is often felt more powerfully than any material loss. It can be fierce and relentless. Although a relatively unexplored topic particularly in human resources, backlash as a complicit action of defiance and resistance is exhibited across a continuum of practices and behaviours (Thomas and

Plaut, 2008). As discussed further below, these behaviours include silencing, censorship, condemnation, ridicule, ostracism, avoidance, harassment, rejection, stigma, distancing and devaluing (Johnson, 2001, Thomas and Plaut, 2008). Backlash has not been explicitly investigated in the construction industry but is explored further throughout my dissertation.

At an organisational level, backlash and resistance are exhibited through cultures of silence and avoidance in relation to equality and discrimination (Thomas and Plaut,

2008, pp. 6-9). Backlash and resistance also emerge in mixed messages about equality, in secondary victimisation (retaliation against whistle-blowers), in denial and passivity, in a lack of codified practices and through expressions of exacerbation that

45 the problem is ‘too hard’ to fix. For example, when recruitment practices are challenged and gender quotas suggested, the privileged are unable to find any problem with existing practices (Eveline, 1994, Murray, 2014). Instead, the spotlight falls on the proposed policy reform which is criticised as being ‘unmeritocratic’ by those in positions of privilege who then call into question the merit of the candidates who might perceivably benefit from such a change to the recruitment criteria.

(Eveline, 1994, Culhane, 2015). Solomon (1991) and Thomas and Plaut (2008) submit that backlash in relation to gender equality reforms reflects the fear that they will threaten the career opportunities and development of men or challenge unearned male advantage.

When it comes to gender equity initiatives, backlash is routinely avoided through a focus on women’s disadvantage (Eveline, 1994, 1998). This way, instead of addressing male advantage, gender equality policies are largely embraced on the understanding that they empower women and enhance business opportunities

(Eveline, 1998). Gender targets, for instance, are framed in terms of increasing the representation of women rather than limiting that of men. Men as the privileged group are seldom singled out for remedial treatment (Eveline, 1994). Gender equality policies are not alone in stepping lightly around masculine privilege. Johnson

(2001:13) and Dover et al. (2016) point to the use of non-confrontational and ‘vague’ language in policy documents, using terms such as ‘inclusion’, ‘tolerance’, and

‘valuing difference’ rather than language identifying the problem as sexism, discrimination and gender bias. Suzanne Franzway et al. (1989) also remind us that resistance as a mode of backlash can take the form of a de-prioritization of initiatives.

Gender equality policies, for example, usually operate at the outer perimeter of the company structure and business priorities. It follows then that acts of backlash

46 operate to keep privilege intact, safeguarding existing practices and structures from being questioned or changed (Thomas and Plaut, 2008, Eveline, 1994).

Table 1. Acts of Privilege Act of privilege Consequence

1. The invisibility of privilege People can belong to a privileged category but perpetuates a culture of denial not feel privileged, thus remaining ignorant of which maintains gendered the source and consequences of their privilege. processes and outcomes Those who are privileged enjoy an ‘unmarked status’. Their experiences shape the ‘norm’, defining the rules and practices that apply to the non-privileged.

Denial of privilege gives the privileged a competitive edge. It perpetuates a lack of awareness, tolerance and self-analysis.

Complicity in privilege can be turning a blind eye or a deaf ear, inaction, or operating on a path of least resistance.

A culture of denial affects how issues of inequality are framed and interpreted, and also what action is taken to resolve the issue

2 Those who are privilege tend The experiences of the privileged set the to see the rules and structure yardstick against which others are measured, yet they operate in as objective, the rules are deemed gender neutral and neutral and legitimate objective.

Privilege provides the cultural authority to define and determine who is legitimate, meaning who will be taken seriously and respected without being challenged.

Those who belong to the privileged group do not have to prove their competency or justify their inclusion in the workplace.

3 When the ‘rights’ of the Backlash is enacted emotionally and normatively privileged are denied or by individuals and institutions. challenged, backlash is often Backlash can take the form of a violent attack or the result. a complicit action of defiance and resistance. It results in institutionalised resistance to change.

Backlash operates through a suite of practices and behaviour such as silence, silencing, condemnation, ostracism, ridicule, harassment, rejection and sidelining.

Backlash is coercive. It prevents the analysis or questioning of systems that maintain privilege.

2.6 SUMMARY

Feminist institutionalists Lowndes and Roberts (2013) assert that rules must be studied, practices observed and narratives interpreted. They also say that actors must be studied to ascertain whether they recognise and understand the modes of constraint to which they adhere. In this thesis, the focus is on gender, and more specifically on the hegemonic masculine codes embedded in a particular Australian

Construction company. The object is to identify patterns of formal and informal institutions known as ‘rules-in-use’. Using this approach, this thesis aims to construct a holistic picture of how formal and informal institutions together and separately construct, reinforce and embed hegemonic masculine codes. These codes perpetuate a culture of masculine privilege through denial, neutrality and backlash. They also confer power to men at the expense of women in the Australian construction sector.

Separating the stages of privilege is important because various acts of privilege can operate alone or together at every stage. Privilege also has a cumulative effect across stages: male privilege in the recruitment process reinforces privilege at the retention stage and culminates in the dominance of men ‘at the top’ of construction companies. In short, the operation of masculine privilege means that the ‘pipeline’ for promotion and seniority is more accessible to men than to women, thus entrenching the gender status quo.

These reflections on privilege build on and contribute to the growing literature on feminist institutionalism. They accept the premise that formal and informal gender institutions act to produce and maintain privilege, and that these can operate to

49 undermine formal gender equality rules, thus reinforcing gendered processes and gender outcomes (Chappell and Waylen, 2013).

It is through acts of privilege, specifically through the mechanism of entrenched gendered rules and practices, that hegemonic masculinity is perpetuated and masculine privilege is sustained. In the main, masculine privilege – arising from attachment to hegemonic masculinities – serves to reinforce women’s disadvantage and men’s advantage in sectors already dominated by males. Even if only engaged at the level of ‘performance’, men are better able to blend in and profit from the hegemonic masculinity codes. These are often invisible to those enjoying their privileges while denying their existence. Men are also advantaged by the supposed

‘neutrality’ of rules, practices and measures of merit modelled on masculine experiences and preference of the masculine over the feminine. Finally, because of their association with hegemonic masculinity, men are more likely to exhibit

‘backlash’ when attempts are made to highlight their advantage and alter the gender status quo. Indeed, feminist institutionalists draw attention to the way privilege systems operate through seemingly neutral institutions that actually embody particular gendered values and interests. They produce gendered outcomes that institutionalise masculine privilege and gender bias (Hawkesworth, 2005).

Utilising the three acts of privilege, my thesis seeks to explore and deconstruct how institutions and actors ‘do masculine privilege’ (Flood and Pease, 2005) in the context of the construction workplace. By linking the concepts of feminist institutionalism, hegemonic masculinity and privilege, my thesis offers a new way of understanding the processes that act against gender equality in construction. Specifically, I seek to understand how masculine privilege operates to maintain women’s continued numerical and hierarchical absence from construction. Also, through the prism of

50 feminist institutionalism I want to understand the role gendered rules and practices and hegemonic masculinity play in the perpetuation of masculine privilege in the construction industry.

To explore these propositions, this research will:

Investigate the nature of:

a) the gendered nature of the ‘rules-in-use’

b) hegemonic masculinity and

c) the masculine privilege that operates in construction companies.

Examine the different ways masculine privilege acts to maintain male advantage across the three career stages of recruitment, retention and progression.

Address the implications for improving women’s recruitment, retention and progression in construction.

In the following chapter, I describe the methodological approach used to address these objectives.

3 METHODOLOGY: ‘SEEING’ PRIVILEGE

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The central aim of this research project is to examine the extent to which women’s continued absence from professional construction careers is the result of masculine privilege. It investigates how masculine privilege acts to maintain men’s overrepresentation and advantage in the construction sector. It examines the acts of masculine privilege that operate across the three career stages of recruitment, retention and progression in a construction company. The intention is to reach a greater understanding of how ‘rules-in-use’ propagate hegemonic masculinity and male overrepresentation in construction professions at the expense of women professionals. Identifying the formal rules at work is relatively straightforward because they are usually published and accessible to staff. What is more difficult is unearthing the informal rules, practices and narratives because they are often embedded in accepted routine practices and narratives. There is also a need to track the interaction between formal rules and informal practices. To get ‘under-the- surface’ of construction companies, therefore, calls for an ethnographic research approach. This approach provides a means to observe how informal rules interact with formal rules to produce ‘rules-in-use’ that are followed and enforced, and also to study their gendered dynamics. This chapter outlines the features of this methodological approach and its value in addressing the aims and objectives of my thesis.

This chapter seeks to set out the methodological framework of this study. It consists of three parts.

 Section 3.2 outlines ethnography as a methodology. It describes its use in

previous studies of the construction industry and to study rules with

gendered dynamics more broadly. This section provides a rationale for my

choice of methodology and research design in line with my positionality and

philosophical position.

 Section 3.3 of this chapter outlines the steps I have undertaken using a multi-

method ethnographic approach and how the data was analysed. I describe the

different methods applied such as a documentary analysis of the formal rules

as well as interviews and participant observation. I also outline the process of

analysis and the challenges I faced in adopting this approach.

 Section 3.4 concludes this chapter with a discussion of the ethical

considerations involved in this process.

3.2 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

Scholars have often asserted that research focused on the rules has tended to prioritise the study of formal rules. This is because they are the most obvious and because informal rules tend to ‘shy away from publicity’ (Lauth, 2000, p. 26). Due to their widely accepted nature, informal rules are regarded as harder to detect and study

(Azari and Smith, 2012, Chappell and Waylen, 2013). The interplay between the formal and informal rules, the distinctive set of rules known as the ‘rules-in-use’ (‘the dos and don’ts that one learns on the ground’) are also hard to detect because they are often considered to be normalised (Ostrom, 1999, p. 38, Lowndes et al., 2006). In

53 other words, there are limits to what can be derived from actor’s verbal accounts of behaviour when it comes to the rules they and others follow. Interviews can also create an artificial consistency between attitudes and actions (Khan and Jerolmack,

2013, 2014). To explore how gendered ‘rules-in-use’ constrain and enable who joins and participates, who occupies positions of power in construction companies and which acts of privilege work to maintain male overrepresentation, this research applies an ethnographic methodology (Radnitz, 2011, Galea et al., 2017).

Ethnography, according to Ybema et al. (2009, p. 7), has the potential to make explicit the underlying, tacit and seemingly banal overlooked political and social dimensions of organisations. Ethnography makes the ‘familiar strange’ (Ferguson,

1993, p. 122) and allows the researcher to ‘get under the skin’ of the way actors determine which rules to use and which rules to cast aside. Ethnography draws on a set of tools which include, among others, document analysis, interviews and participant observations. They allow the researcher to step into the daily lives of participants, thus unveiling the complexities of the routine organisation of work.

According to Creswell and Poth (2017, p. 150) ethnographers identify what a stranger would need to know if wanting to participate meaningfully in a social group.

It is the embedded ethnographic method of enquiry that helps the researcher to ‘see’ first-hand what people do and say in a particular context. This might be how work is organised, how the organising of work affects the lives of employees and, in this case, the gendered implications of such structures (Hammersley, 2006). Through a process of observing, occasionally participating, conversing, interviewing and closely examining documentary sources, ethnography allows the researcher to step into the contextual life of participants and interpret how things are viewed and understood from their perspective (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995, Ybema et al., 2009). It is by

54 immersion in the field over an extended period that the researcher is able to capture the multiplicity of voices and interpretations and ethnographic knowledge emerges.

Presented as a rich description, ethnography allows the researcher to document the tensions and discrepancies in organisational life. These include the inconsistencies between formal rules and the ‘rules-in-use’, what people say they do and what they do in practice, the informal ‘wheeling and dealing’ between employees and management and the divergence in expectations and practice in different work contexts. In this case, importantly, the divergence in question is between head office and the project site (Ybema et al., 2009, O'Reilly, 2012).

Because of its interpretative nature, ethnography demands that the researcher be consciously self-aware in the ‘meaning-making’ process. This process requires researchers to recognise the effect they are having on the data collection and analysis

(known as ‘reflexivity’) including what biases, privilege and power they are bringing to the research (their ‘positionality’) and how this might shape the knowledge claims they make (Ybema et al., 2009, Pink and Morgan, 2013). In this regard, Sierk Ybema et al. (2009) remind us that ethnography brings together the respondents understanding (known as the ‘emic’ perspective) and the researchers perspective

(known as the ‘etic’ perspective) along with contextual factors and theoretic considerations. In other words, ethnography is both a process and a product (Agar,

1980).

A question mark has long hung over the validity of data collected in ethnography because of the researcher’s influence in the field (Hammersley, 2006, 2013). It has been criticised for its use of a constellation of methods and for the effect researcher positionality and reflexivity have in the collection and analysis process (Ybema et al.,

2009). Ethnography has also been criticised for its lack of generalisability and, where

55 it is a short-term exercise, it risks being insensitive to longer term trends

(Hammersley, 2006). While acknowledging the consequences of the temporal and spatial boundaries of ethnographic study, ethnography has the advantage of delving deep and providing rich insight into actors behaviour, the institutions they respect and enforce and the context they inhabit (Pink et al., 2010, Khan and Jerolmack,

2013, Jerolmack and Khan, 2014). It also allows the researcher to witness naturally occurring events rather than simply relying on participants’ accounts. Ethnography provides an opportunity to see how company rules are written, understood and then observed in practice, providing a way to establish which acts of privilege – denial, neutrality and backlash - may be helping to retain male overrepresentation.

To the ethnographic approach employed in this research, I have added the rigour of a feminist methodology. While there are crossover points between ethnography and the feminist research ethic such as the recognising reflexivity and positionality, a feminist informed approach drives researchers to view their ethnographic research through a gendered and power lens (Harris, 1968 , Krook and Squires, 2006, Ackerly and True, 2008, 2010, 2013). Feminist researchers are particularly conscious of the power relations that exist between researcher and participants and the footprint the researcher leaves in the field. As Brooke Ackerly and Jacqui True (2010, p. 2) explain:

A critical feminist perspective uses critical inquiry and reflection on

social injustice by way of gender analysis, to transform, and not simply

explain, the social order.

In practice, this means committing to exploring absence, silence, difference and oppression and to finding new ways of knowing that will hopefully lead to new ways of doing. In this sense, a feminist methodology operates from a normative foundation. 56

3.2.1 RAPID ETHNOGRAPHY, GENDERED RULES AND THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR

There is a long history of using ethnography to reveal the gendered dimensions of social life (Skeggs, 2001, Visweswaran, 1997) but, as Chappell and Waylen (2013) observe, new institutionalist researchers have rarely used ethnography as a tool to study how gender intersects with institutions. Similarly, while the use of ethnography in construction management is finding new popularity (Pink et al., 2010, 2012,

Löwstedt, 2015), it has yet to be fully exploited to uncover gendered rules and practices in the sector (see, for more detailed discussions Galea et al., 2017).

Ethnography has been used to study other professions in construction (in relation to the architecture profession, see for example, Matthewson, 2015). Other construction sector ethnographic studies have raised gender issues and drawn attention to the masculinity operating in and around construction practices, but their focus has not been explicitly on gender (see for example Applebaum, 1981, Mars, 2005, Paap, 2006,

Thiel, 2007). One criticism levelled at construction management scholars in their use of ethnography has been their reluctance to incorporate self-reflexivity in their writing and expose their positionality (Löwstedt, 2014, 2015, Sage, 2012).

By their very nature, construction sites offer some unique problems for ethnographers (Pink et al., 2012, Galea et al., 2017). These include:

 The geographically dispersed and short-term nature of construction projects,

with subcontracting teams moving in and out over the life of a construction

project, does not easily lend itself to traditional long form ethnographic

studies (Marshall and Bresnen, 2012).

 Their tendency to focus on one construction site may make it difficult to

determine if the rules, practices and narratives observed are companywide or

site specific and observed by all construction workers or just subgroups.

(Galea et al., 2017)

 Construction is a highly time constrained and resource intensive process

where there is little time for people to engage with researchers in any detail

(Galea et al., 2017).

As a result, Pink and Morgan (2013), Löwstedt (2015) and Galea et al. (2017) have advocated for the application of ‘rapid ethnography’. Evolved from healthcare studies, rapid ethnography and was first used in the study of human interaction with computers by David Millen (2000). Rapid ethnography is a focused ethnographic probe described as a ‘time-limited exploratory study within a fairly discrete community or organisation’ (Muecke, 1994, p. 199). It has been found beneficial in the study of fragmented and specialised work environments such as hospitals, prisons and nursing homes, also in specialised subgroups and professions such as politicians (Rhodes, 2005, Knoblauch, 2005). It permits the researcher to undertake short, intensive and focused investigations in multiple locations using multiple and iterative methods to gain a deep understanding of the work setting they are studying

(Millen, 2000, Isaacs, 2013). As a methodology, it accommodates and captures the shifting and temporal qualities of the construction sector better than many other approaches and allows for a focused observation of the career path of construction professionals.

In rapid ethnography, open-ended interviews and explorative observations are replaced with condensed equivalents that are more focused on specific issues of

58 interest identified from existing literature and theory, the latter providing a framework to aid researchers in their exploration (Millen, 2000). In this branch of ethnography, a team of researchers is usually used to collect the data and then apply iterative data collection and analysis (Millen, 2000). Rapid focused ethnography provides an excellent methodological lens to explore how masculine privilege, a by- product of hegemonic masculinity, acts to maintain men’s overrepresentation throughout the lifecycle stages of construction careers and how hegemonic masculinity is developed and sustained within the construction context (Howson,

2006).

Focused ethnographic studies are regularly used in both organisational and policy analysis studies (Lowndes and Wilson, 2003, Richards and Morse, 2012) to provide a valid and nuanced, though not necessarily generalisable, view of reality (Hammersley,

2013). By focusing on the Building Division of a large construction company, I was able to gain a deeper view of ‘what is going on’ within a construction company so as to address my research objectives (Knoblauch, 2005). Unlike wide-lens ethnography, focused ethnography allows me to address specific aspects of an organisation, such as institutions, gender and privilege. With this approach, I was able to document the formal rules (company policies and legislation) and informal rules, practices and narratives. I could then observe how they are nested, contested or complemented to produce the ‘rules-in-use’. By this process, I was also be able to see how the rules are gendered and act to reinforce hegemonic masculine codes. This allowed me to map out acts of privilege across the career landscape and work out how they act to maintain male advantage.

It is this form of rapid focused ethnography that I have applied in my research.

Although rapid focused ethnography has been criticised for being ‘quick and dirty’

(Hughes et al., 1995, p. 6) or ‘superficial’ (Knoblauch, 2005, p. 16), this short-form of ethnography accommodates the practical and cultural constraints of the construction sector. It has allowed me to observe the ‘rules-in-use’ and their gendered dimensions in action across a number of construction work sites. I was able to witness the behaviour of privilege – denial, neutrality and backlash – and study how it operates in and around the ‘rules-in-use’, particularly the formal rules in place, to address gender inequality.

As with ethnography more broadly, the focused ethnographic study has its limitations. As noted previously, ethnographic studies are not generalisable nor are they likely to capture long term changes in the construction sector (Hammersley,

2006). That said, this study was conducted over three years and, where possible, temporal changes were noted. Additionally, the insights necessary to meet the research objectives cannot be gained from wide angled ethnography because it is necessary to locate and interpret the ‘rules-in-use’ and gender practices within the context of the company where they have developed. As Pink et al. (2010, p. 653) recognise, deep enquiry into construction company practices using a variety of methods (including policy analysis, interviews and participant observations) has its advantages. It penetrates beneath the surface of institutions operating in construction companies and exposes certain local practices at ‘ground level’ which could remain unnoticed by industry and academia.

3.2.2 POSITIONALITY AND REFLEXIVITY

In this research, I employ a constructivist ontology, on the understanding that social realities are socially constructed. As an ethnographer, I see myself as part of the social constructivist process where organisations and other social realities are

60 constructed through an ongoing interplay between individual agencies and social structures that emanate from one another (Ybema et al., 2009, p. 8). I thus hold an interpretivist epistemology, believing that to understand the world, one must interpret it. I take the position, articulated by Thomas Schwandt (1994, p. 118) that I

‘share the goal of understanding the complex world of lived experiences from the point of view of those who live it’ by ‘grasping intersubjective meanings and symbolising activities that are constitutive of social life.’ My interpretivist stance is to understand social action on the construction site by watching, listening, asking and examining while remaining aware of my own effect on the people and places I study.

I come to this research as a white, middle-class, heterosexual, privileged woman who has been afforded a tertiary education and opportunities to travel overseas and develop a career. I come to this research having invested and spent almost two decades of my professional life in construction (see Prologue). I come to this research as a former employee of Can-do Construction. I come to this research as a feminist working for social transformation, gender and social justice. Each one of these attributes fundamentally positions my scholarship.

What I have found fascinating about my time as a researcher, is my growing awareness of gender in construction. Although I had worked as a female construction professional for nearly two decades, repeatedly throughout this research process I saw for the very first time other gendered dimensions to the rules, practices and narratives in place. It is not to say that I lacked complete awareness of the gendered nature of construction but, reflecting on this change, I attribute my ‘not seeing’ to several factors: the effort I was making to fit in and progress with my career of choice, the frantic nature of construction work that leaves little time for

61 deep thinking, an emphasis on the individual rather than the social structures and being without a language to describe the gender relations I was experiencing.

Samer Shehata (2006) and Timothy Pachirat (2009) discuss how a researcher’s identity is negotiated in the context of the field where researchers view themselves as instruments through which research is produced. As the means for producing my research, I recognise that my identity itself was fluid and that it shifted through the research process. At the beginning of this research project, I stopped working as a construction professional and started my career as an academic. I began the research as what might be described as an ‘insider’. More accurately though, I would define myself as ‘a halfie’ (see for examples Dasgupta, 2013) given that, as a woman in construction, I am not sure I ever truly held the position of ‘insider’. As this research journey evolved, I noticed that my identity shifted and distance set in. At first, I held a dual identity: construction professional and academic. Now as the project concludes, I have all but relinquished my identity as a construction professional. I definitely feel the shift in my identity has been nudged further along by my own critical examination of bias and by others who challenged my motives for researching this issue. I also became more comfortable observing my familiar universe from a distance (see for discussion on being the 'insider' Kamsteeg and Ybema, 2009).

This is not to say that I remained insensitive to what I saw, heard or experienced at times during the research. In line with Kamsteeg and Ybema (2009), I experienced states of shock, anger, sadness, repulsion, exhaustion, frustration, exhilaration, delight and hopefulness in the field and doing analysis that inspired and challenged me as a researcher. An example of the kind of confusing discomfort I felt as researcher who used to be ‘one of them’ but no longer is, can be found in this excerpt from my field notes. It details my interaction with an ex-colleague, a man of

62 my age that I had known well enough to chat with casually and at company events.

He had agreed to be interviewed when we met by chance on site the day before:

Just after lunch and in a polite, hushed tone, conscious not to disturb

others in the open planned office I approached Doug for the interview.

“Excuse me, Doug,” I said. He did not look up from the page that he

was working on, which looked like a spreadsheet. Instead, he ignored

me. His finger ran along the bottom row of the spreadsheet. His hand

made a fist which he brought towards his ear, like he was going to punch

someone, and he yelled at the top of his voice, “What the fuck!” After a

pause and still not turning to look at me, he said, “Yes. I will be available

this afternoon but I have other things to do right this moment.” I could

feel my eyes grow wider as I attempted to keep control of the rest of my

face. Embarrassed, shocked and uncomfortable from the confrontation,

I began to retreat back to my desk, “Okay. Later then,” I said. As I

walked away avoiding eye contact with anyone else in the office, Doug’s

voice lowered, “After 4.30pm I will be ready.” I don’t actually think he

looked at me the entire encounter. I walked back to my seat feeling so

uncomfortable and very much the outsider.

As demonstrated above, sometimes as an ethnographer one is spontaneously jolted into self-reflexivity. I have peppered throughout this dissertation other moments of self-reflexivity. These are included in the Prologue and woven through my vignettes in the discussion chapters and in the Epilogue. I found that the process of ethnography made me feel both accountable to my participants and peers and engaged in improving the conditions of women and men working in construction – a position familiar to other researchers (Olive and Thorpe, 2011, p. 426).

3.3 METHODS AND ANALYSIS

As previously noted, this dissertation was a discrete part of a much larger Australian

Research Council (ARC) research project conducted over a three-year period, titled:

‘Building gender equity and diversity in the Australian construction industry’. The larger research project focused on two large construction companies and sought to investigate why existing formal policies and strategies to attract, retain and support the progression of women professionals in large construction companies have failed to deliver gender equity and diversity (see for details Galea et al., 2015, 2017,

Chappell and Galea, 2017). The project’s objectives are set out in Appendix D.

Within this larger ARC research project, I held the position of lead researcher and project coordinator. My dissertation has research questions, aims and objectives distinct from the ARC research project. The analysis was conducted independently and is focused on the Building Division of a single construction company, Can-do

Constructions9.

3.3.1 DATA COLLECTION

In the ARC research project, two ‘twinned’ researchers – one insider/one outsider, one woman/one male - shadowed construction professionals and conducted interviews with participants. Although this dissertation draws on the data collected in the ARC research project, some of which was compiled by other researchers, I undertook the bulk of the research data collection myself. This includes all the document analysis and interviews with senior executives and the majority of participant interviews. I conducted all site/event observations in partnership with another researcher. I also provided all the data analysis for this dissertation. I have

64 specifically noted in the discussion sections any use of data collected by my research peers along with my reasons for their inclusion.

In this section, I introduce Can-do Constructions. I outline the methods used to gather the data over three phases, and my role in the operation. I conclude with a description of how the data was analysed.

3.3.2 FOCUSED ETHNOGRAPHY: CAN-DO CONSTRUCTION

The focus of this ethnographic study is the Building Division of Can-do

Constructions. Can-do is a large ‘tier one’ contractor and developer that is publicly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). It operates in the commercial, residential, engineering and infrastructure markets and has approximately 12,000 employees internationally with about 7,000 of those employees working in the

Australian business. Within the Building Division, Can-do has close to 2,500 employees, working across Australia (excluding Tasmania).10

The structure of Can-do is typical and representative of large construction companies around the world. It is led and managed by a Board of Directors, a chief executive officer (CEO) and an executive management team. This management team is composed of regional and discipline-specific executives, legal counsellors and a corporate affairs team. In 2016, Can-do’s Annual Report (Appendix A, No. 27) notes that males account for 80 per cent of Can-do’s board and senior executives and 69 per cent of its employees.

9 Company name changed for anonymity. 10 As noted on the company website and detailed in the company document registered in Appendix C, No. 32.

The Australian division of Can-do Constructions is divided into two businesses: construction and development. The construction business is separated into three divisions - building, engineering and services. The Building Division, the main focus of this dissertation, is led by the CEO of building and his senior executive management team. Male representation in the Can-do Building Division is higher than in the overall company; reaching 89 per cent of senior executives, 87 per cent of people managers and 74 per cent of employees generally11.

There are three reasons why a large construction company with a Building Division like Can-do is ideal for studying masculine privilege in the construction sector. First, although Can-do is not representative of the small to medium size contractors that populate the construction sector in Australia, companies like Can-do undertake the bulk of non-residential work that accounts for 81.7 per cent of construction work done by value in Australia (ABS, 2017). Due to the nature and scale of the work it is required to manage, the Building Division of Can-do Construction attracts a vast number of qualified construction professionals12 of both genders, the focus of this research.

Second, in Australia as elsewhere, large construction companies are typically at the forefront of policy innovation and supported by sizeable HR teams. They are also more likely to have published HR policies and initiatives intended to give structure to workplace behaviour, including recruitment and advancement. The existence of formal HR policies that focus on the career lifecycle of construction professionals is

11 Data source: Provided by Can-do Construction’s Human Resources department. These statistics are inclusive of group services, such as HR, marketing and communications, health and safety; however these ancillary services contribute a very small percentage to the overall building division. 12 Construction professionals include site engineers, project engineers, site managers, project managers, commercial managers, programmers, estimating managers and project directors (see Appendix C – Interview schedule for the complete list of construction professional roles undertaken by participants).

66 likely to be less common in smaller and medium sized construction companies.

Studying a large construction company also provides an opportunity to check how such policies operate in the Building Division and on construction sites and then examine how acts of privilege operate across career stages, even with formal HR policies and initiatives in place.

Third, large companies are likely to advocate, promote and invest resources in gender equality and diversity policies and initiatives (Galea et al., 2015). Due to its size, Can- do is obliged to develop and report on gender equity policies and programs under the

Australian Government’s Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (WGEA, 2012b) and respond to the non-compulsory guideline on gender reporting under the ASX

Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations (ASX, 2010). These requirements form part of the context the organisation operates in and are part of Can-do’s formal company rules. Smaller and medium sized construction companies are less likely to have gender equality policies and initiatives or be subjected to legislative requirements such as gender reporting. This makes a larger company like Can-do an ideal choice to observe how acts of masculine privilege operate in and around these initiatives. A study of Can-do Constructions, therefore provides the appropriate context to examine the role gender, rules and privilege play in maintaining male overrepresentation in the construction profession.

3.3.3 METHOD

In this focused ethnographic study, I applied an iterative data collection process that spanned three years and was operationalised over three stages, with all methods summarised in Table 2 and detailed in Appendixes A to C. Before describing the

67 method used, I will first explain the process of data collection, with particular attention to my role in this process.

Accessing the field

A few challenges emerged while undertaking this research, the most notable being associated with accessing the field. The first challenge was in presenting the research to participants and the second was in accessing the participants and data. A key concern for the research team entering Phase One was how the research project was going to be portrayed to participants. It became clear from the first stages of the research that at Can-do, gender tended to be understood as meaning ‘women’ (Galea et al., 2015). Since the research aim was to understand the ‘rules-in-use’ and how they are gendered, I intended to observe ‘everyday’ interactions, processes and workplace practices, not just issues understood by Can-do to be explicitly related to gender, like the provision of ‘family friendly’ work practices such as parental leave, the provision of childcare facilities and women’s leadership training. There is also the risk that men might be disinclined to participate in research about gender, thinking it is primarily about women and of no concern to them. This type of reticence was compounded by concerns in the Can-do HR department that male employees may feel the research was attempting to ‘catch them out’ or identify them as impeding women’s recruitment, retention and progression. In response to Can-do’s concerns, the research was positioned as an exercise in understanding the everyday responsibilities, challenges and pressures facing construction professionals, the object being to enhance career experiences, pathways and gender equality at Can-do.

The other challenge faced throughout the three stages of the research project was gaining timely access to construction sites. This had to be through Can-do’s HR

68 department based at head office. In the early stages of this project, HR often acted as gatekeepers restricting access to potential respondents and policies. The turnover of

HR employees charged with overseeing our research project and the agency and influence the HR department had on project leaders in providing entry to site for the purpose of this research made access even more difficult. Our gatekeepers, normally the champions of gender-related initiatives, were particularly concerned that the project site teams responsible for the day-to-day implementation of policies and initiatives would be reluctant to have us observe and shadow them. Our Phase One interviews with business leaders suggested however that, while this might be the case for some, there were others on site who would support our fieldwork. It took a combination of building a rapport of trust with the HR department and drawing on personal connections in the Can-do business to facilitate our entry onto sites. I found that once our team had been put in contact with the site project director, we were enthusiastically and professionally received.

Stage One: Understanding the formal rules

The first stage of the ethnographic study focused on the formal, documented company policies, including its published company values, human resource and gender equality rules (e.g. policies, initiatives, strategies and programs) and code of conduct. The aim at this stage was to assess the influence these formal rules had on the facilitating and supporting of masculine privilege and their effect on gender equality (see Appendix A for document register). The methods selected to establish the nature and intent of the formal documented rules were document analysis and semi-structured interviews with business leaders about company policy response.

Table 2 details the ethnographic methods used. These include the document analysis of 30 Can-do Construction policies issued to me directly by Can-do’s HR staff or sourced via the internet and 11 semi-structured interviews conducted personally with

Can-Do senior business executives selected in consultation with the research team (5 women and 6 men, see Appendix C.1 for details of participants). The HR department provided an introduction to the senior business executives, including the

Chief Operating Officer, HR managers, and regional general managers. Interviews were undertaken in person or by telephone and typically lasted between 60 and 90 minutes. They were recorded with the participant’s permission and anonymised to protect interviewee identity. The interview questions (summarised in Appendix C.2) sought to develop an understanding of how Can-do’s formal rules including company values and gender diversity policies were understood, designed and redesigned, disseminated, measured and enforced at Can-do. Aside from building context around the hierarchy of rules operating at Can-do, these interviews were intended to collect the official narratives that circulate at Can-do, particularly those surrounding work practices, progression processes and leadership.

The formal documented rules are authored by different groups within Can-do, such as the Board of Directors, the HR department and the Can-do employee association.

Although these formal rules are written and communicated formally within the company, not all formal rules are created equal. At Can-do Constructions, there is a distinct policy hierarchy. For the sake of simplicity, I have identified three categories of formal rules. The first group comprises those that set out the company’s overarching values and the principles that apply to all employees. Included in this group, for instance, is Can-do Constructions code of conduct that enumerates the company’s values and specifies penalties for non-complying employees. The second

70 group are formal rules that define working conditions such as the employment contract which fixes the employee’s remuneration and work hours. The third group of rules captures ancillary personnel management policies. In this category, I have placed bullying policy, gender targets, gender pay audits and leadership training for women, among others.

Table 2. Ethnographic Methods Conducted and Gender Ratios Achieved (see Appendix A-C for detailed explanations of each method)

Ethnographic Methods Total Male Female

Company Documents: Total 30 - -

Interviews: Senior Executive Management 11 6 5

Interviews: Construction Professionals (recorded during site 18 10 8 observations) Interviews: Construction Professionals (independent of site 13 5 8 observations) Interviews: Total 42 21 21

Observations: Company Events 6 - -

Observations: Construction Sites 3

Participant Observations: Regional, medium size site 6 6 0

Participant Observations: Metropolitan, medium size site 8 7 1

Participant Observations: Metropolitan, large size site 10 8 2

Participant Observations: Total 24 21 3

Stage Two: Building a rapport of trust

The second stage of the ethnographic study was designed to build a rapport of trust between the researchers and HR representatives. This stage evolved when it became 71 apparent that the HR representatives were nervous about our presence on construction sites. To overcome their concerns, we arranged twinned participant observations at six company and HR events related to the recruitment, retention and progression of construction professionals. These events, selected in consultation with the research team, are listed in Appendix B.1 included diversity training, new employee inductions, leadership and skills training, management ‘road shows’ and diversity-specific events. Throughout this process I collected data for both the ARC project and my dissertation research.

I conducted the participant observations at events and on site with another researcher, my ‘twin’. As I came to this research with extensive construction experience and a pre-existing relationship with the construction sector, I took the role of construction ‘insider’ in our pair. My twin, a sociology or political science academic with extensive experience in gender, took the role of construction

‘outsider’. Being paired with an ‘outsider’ helped me avoid taking what I saw for granted and I assisted the outsider by decoding construction the jargon and practices.

Where possible, our research team comprised one woman paired with one man. We actively tried to maintain this mix throughout the research on the understanding that, as gendered actors ourselves, our involvement might impact on the field and our interpretation of the data.

This approach of ‘twinning’ researchers comes in response to Sarah Pink et al.

(2012)’s observations that to date, much of the ethnography work in construction has been undertaken by male researchers. Pairing a female and male researcher seems indeed to have made an important difference. For instance, my male research peer was freely exposed to homosocial interactions such as conversations about sex and pornography and given a friendly nickname on different sites, while these topics were

72 never raised with me or my female research peers. As a female researcher, I found that male participants were more inclined to share with me their emotional and personal issues such as mental health and personal relationships. As a construction

‘insider’, this level of vulnerability and frankness surprised me. Indeed, I was rarely exposed to such a level of emotionality and openness when I worked as a construction professional. In and of itself, men’s reaction to the researcher’s gender can serve as an example of how gender is performed in construction environments.

Field notes at these events were recorded by individual researchers using a participant observation template that acted as a prompter and kept reactivity to a minimum during the fieldwork (see Appendix B.3 for a thorough explanation of the participant observation template used for events) (Van der Waal, 2009). The template sought to record event locations, room layout with seating arrangements, list of presenters, timing of events, attendees, speakers, audience members, tone of conversations, participant involvement and engagement, practices (who does what), group dynamics

(how people participate etc.) and narratives (message being conveyed). These field work observations sought to map out systematically the materiality of organisations

(Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2009, pp. 68-69). For instance, noting who presented, the seating arrangements, which participants had voice, which ones did not and who was absent allowed me to begin mapping informal rules especially in relation to power dynamics and informal networking. Concurrently, the tone of conversation, meeting time, group dynamics and narratives often provided clues to gendered behaviours and those rules that were observed by the subgroup of construction professionals (Ybema et al., 2009, Lowndes and Roberts, 2013). In addition to making field notes on the observation template, I recorded my observations in a research journal. This document formed part of my personal field notes.

As a research pair, we verbally debriefed at the end of each event or site visit using the observational templates and our own field notes. These debriefs were recorded and transcribed and became part of my data set. Debriefing gave me the opportunity to discuss the gendered patterns of behaviour that support or defy codes of masculinity and privilege. These debriefing sessions also presented an opportunity for me to sense-check with the second researcher points of commonality and points of variation; playing an important role in my self-reflexivity. Points of commonality and variations including reoccurring practices, narratives, themes and views expressed by participants were acknowledged and recorded and discussed in relation to the researchers ‘insider/outsider’ and ‘male/female’ status. As the ‘insider’, it offered me an avenue to examine my biases, allowing me to shift my gaze and see familiar landscape through new eyes, thus strengthening my stance as a ‘marginal native’ (Freilich, 1970). For example, at the first event debriefing my research ‘twin’ spotted an interesting dress code particularity amongst the women in this male dominated environment. She noted that the women predominantly dressed in a highly feminised manner and ‘there was not a pant suit amongst them.’ I had not

‘seen’ this because, as an ‘insider’, I too was adhering to this highly feminine dress code.

Where appropriate at these events, we conducted informal conversations with attendees. Depending on the type of event, we asked how often these events were held, if they were typical activities, whether it was important to attend and what the consequences were for not attending or participating. These types of questions were used to gauge the everyday practices and narratives that shaped life at Can-do then identify the ‘rules-in-use’ and determine how they were enforced within the company. If the conversation became more personal, we invited participants to take

74 part in an interview. Interestingly we were only able to secure three interviews (two women and one man) through this process. Most participants either declined or exchanged details but failed to respond when followed-up (see Appendix C.2 and

Appendix C.3 for the list of participants interviewed and description of the interview guide). As Fine and Shulman (2009, p. 179) remind us, ‘ethnographers are more often beggars than choosers’ having to rely on ‘convenience sampling’ as this is all that is available on site.

The three semi-structured interviews conducted at this stage were designed to collect narratives and informal rules involving career history, recruitment, pathways, promotion processes and strategies, mentoring, networks and work practices such as work hours and work-life balance (see Appendix C.3). Concentrating on these themes provided insights into the resilience and respect of formal company rules, the distortions between rules and practices, particularly the backlash and resistance to new rules associated with gender equality. Interviews were important in revealing the influence gendered networks and homosociality had in relation to recruitment and progression. They were helpful in understanding the informal rules that shape career pathways and progression into management roles. The interviews were semi- structured and undertaken in person or by telephone. They typically lasted between

60 and 90 minutes and were recorded with participants’ permission. Semi-structured or open ended interviews were chosen, being the best way to gain maximum knowledge from an insider’s perspective (Chapman, 2001).

Stage Three: witnessing the ‘rules-in-use’

The second phase of the rapid ethnographic study involved making observations at three construction project sites around Australia (detailed in Appendix B.2). I and the

75 other researchers spent three to five days, depending on the size of the project, shadowing and interviewing professional employees across a range of construction management positions. In consultation with the research team, the Can-do HR team selected each project site to match the size, type and location (interstate, metropolitan, regional) we had requested. This enabled us to detect patterns in the rules across a variety of projects. I would contact the project directors on site with an overview of the research project and ask them to advertise for volunteers who would be willing to be shadowed. We made contact with all volunteer participants ahead of the site visit by email or phone, sent them a project information sheet and ethics form for review and arranged a date, time and location to meet for shadowing.

Observations on site followed an observation guide different to that for the events. It included field note questions for the participants being shadowed (details in

Appendix B.4). As Ybema et al. (2009) reminds us, shadowing and observation allows the researcher to see what people do and what they say about what they do, the wheeling and dealing that takes place and the cacophony of voices. Particular attention was paid to the roles and relationships of actors, their daily work practices, engagement with head office and subcontractors, demarcation lines between the project site and the site office and group dynamics. We noted for instance who attended the meetings, who had voice in meetings, who assumed which tasks (e.g. note taking, presentations, tidying up), the tone of the conversation and the decision making processes. As in Stage Two, I collected data for both the ARC project and my dissertation research. Participant observations allowed me to identify recurring narratives, compliance or not with formal rules and sanctions so as to determine the

‘rules-in-use’ as well as the wielders and practices of power on site.

Shadowing participants provided an excellent opportunity for ‘walking interviews’ with participants (Clark and Emmel, 2010) and included questions such as ‘Was that a typical site meeting?’ ‘Is it important to arrive on site at this time?’ ‘What happens if you’re late or sick or have urgent caring responsibilities?’ ‘Who is most valued on this site, Why?’ Shadowing also led to informal conversations with the participant’s work colleagues. If these conversations or the ‘walking interviews’ became more personal, participants were invited to take part in a more formal interview (see Appendix C.3).

Compared to traditional interviews, shadowing interviews, even brief ones, appeared to relax the guard of participants and make them more willing to reveal aspects of their working lives.

In Stage Three, a total of 24 participants (3 women and 21 men) where shadowed and 18 participants were interviewed (8 women and 10 men) from the three construction sites visited (see Appendix C1 for participant details). I conducted a further 10 interviews (6 of women and 4 of men) of Can-do employees not working on the project sites who were found through word of mouth (see Appendix C1 for participant details). I undertook these additional interviews to address any potential selection bias from the project sites we were granted entry to and to enhance the triangulation of data, source and methods used (Patton, 1999). The additional interviews were sourced through the participants’ networks and my own personal networks. Buchanan et al. (1988) reminds us that in ethnography it is acceptable to rely on friends, family or acquaintances to secure access to participants and field sites.

The additional interviews followed the same format and content as the other interviews we conducted.

To address concerns around confidentiality, I have taken care to anonymise all responses including interviews and observation notes. Where this was not possible, I

77 was careful to reflect on the processes we were observing rather than on the individuals. I have given all participants a pseudonym to protect their identities.

As noted in previously, as a research pair, we verbally debriefed at the end of each site visit using the observational templates and our own field notes. These debriefs were recorded and transcribed and became part of my data set. The debriefing sessions presented an opportunity for me to sense-check with the second researcher points of commonality and points of variation. These included reoccurring practices, narratives, themes and views expressed by participants.

3.3.4 ANALYSIS: SENSE-MAKING

The analysis was conducted in three parts. With exception of the event/site debriefing, it was conducted independently of analysis carried out for the ARC project. Ybema et al. (2009, p. 9) remind us that ethnographic knowledge is generated in the research process itself, rather than as a separate process of analysis. It requires researchers to inquire into their own meaning making processes, reflexivity and the way their positionality shapes their claims of knowledge. In the context of this research, researcher’s field notes, a researcher’s journal and research pair debriefings formed the first part of the analysis stage. Recording field notes and debriefing sessions brought to life conflicts and inconsistencies between what we had ‘seen’ and what we had been told. It allowed me to co-construct empirical insights and analyse them through the feminist institutionalist and gender framework detailed in Chapter

Indeed, across the each stage of analysis I viewed the subject through a feminist lens noting how rules entwined with gender to produce gender hierarchies (Connell and

Messerschmidt, 2005, Gains and Lowndes, 2014). I was attentive to the gender 78 power relations amongst actors and attuned to how this played out in practice: who had voice, what tone was used to reinforce power and what rules were used to reinforce positions of advantage and preserve positions of privilege (Hawkesworth,

2006). Because I applied feminist informed research, I was conscious of those who were silent, absent or oppressed and how the rules operated to keep them in positions of disadvantage across their career life cycle (Ackerly and True, 2010).

Analysis of the ethnographic data was undertaken in an inductive thematic manner, it formed the second part of the analysis. It consisted of coding the data collected by ethnographic methods including interviews, field notes with photographs, policy documents and debriefing sessions. Where necessary, this data was transcribed, imported and coded along with the company documents and photographs into

NVivo (a qualitative software enabling the organisation of content-rich data text)

(Richards, 2000).

Coding involved the interpretive process of searching across the data set to find common and emergent themes and repeated patterns of meanings so as to create conceptual categories (Braun and Clarke, 2006). ‘Coding can be thought of as a range of approaches that aid the organisation, retrieval, and interpretation of data (...), it can be thought of as a way of relating our data to our ideas about those data’ (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996, p. 26). It is part of the analysis process, but not the analysis itself. The data was coded to ‘in vivo codes’ – codes derived from the data (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996, Locke, 2001).

In the first instance, I looked for themes and units of meaning related to theoretical concepts that could be abstracted from the data. From these themes, I considered hierarchical relationships to further refine my coding and create second and third order categories from which eventual conceptual categories could be developed and 79 grouped in association with the career lifecycle (Daniel, 2012, Strauss and Corbin,

1998). The codes used in my dissertation were distinct from the codes used in the

ARC project. For example, my first order coding concepts included among others:

‘privilege’, ‘career pathways’, ‘gender’ and ‘institutions’. Then, within the conceptual category of ‘privilege’ for instance, my second order categories were ‘backlash and resistance’, ‘wilful ignorance’, ‘denial’, ‘neutrality’ and ‘passivity’ etc. The third order category of ‘backlash and resistance’ in turn included for example ‘backlash

(individual)’, ‘backlash (institutional)’, ‘condemnation’, ‘ostracism’, ‘ridicule’ and

‘devaluing’. The categories were then grouped in relation to the career stages of recruitment, retention and progression.

The third part of analysis was the production of ‘rich descriptions’. This process incorporates the ‘progressive focusing’ of data - a process of reading and rereading of formal policies, field notes, photographs and coded data - funnelled through a course of selection, reinterpretation, comparison and refinement. Rich descriptions known as vignettes, were selected as they reflect the patterns, rules and behaviour observed in the field (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, p. 151, Humphreys and Watson, 2009).

Davide Nicolini (2009) explains that writing rich descriptions requires researchers to zoom in and zoom out of the issue/relationship/rule they are attempting to bring to life so as to anchor the data into the theory. I found the process of sense-making and theoretical insight emerged from an intensive engagement with the data and from drafting the vignettes and the dissertation. As with Kees Van der Waal (2009, p. 35), there was no ‘black box’ to follow, rather it was an extensive, iterative process of reading, writing and questioning.

3.4 RESEARCH ETHICS

The methodology applied and detailed in this dissertation, including the recruitment of participants, was conducted in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical

Conduct in Human Research and was approved by the UNSW Human Research

Ethics for the ARC research project my dissertation was affiliated with13 (detailed in

Galea et al., 2017). A Conformation of Ethics Approval is included in Appendix E.

There were challenges faced by the larger research project in obtaining university ethics approval. Namely, the ARC project team’s deliberate choice not to mention gender in the participant information sheet (to see where and when it emerged from the research) was refused. A requirement was imposed to include the term gender in the research information sheet provided to participants. To comply with the university’s Ethics Committee determination, the project’s information sheet was adjusted and a reference to gender was included. Interestingly, during the research, participants seemed unconcerned by the term ‘gender’. Most respondents associated the notion of gender equality with increasing the number of women. The inclusion of the term did not appear to hinder researchers when observing the usual practices and

‘rules-in-use’ on construction projects.

As noted earlier, confidentiality and the privacy of all participants were actively observed and conducted in accordance with the National Health and Medical

Research Council (2007). Every participant interviewed and observed was provided with an information sheet detailing the project14 and, in the process of introducing the project, participants were provided with an overview of the terms of their

13 UNSW Ethics Approval No: 9_14_050 14 The UNSW Ethics officer contact details and the contact details of my supervisors are provided on the information sheet.

81 consent. Richards and Morse (2012) state that to protect participants from certain risks including the invasion of privacy, participants have the right to be informed of the study’s purpose, their involvement and the time required for their participation in the research. They must be given the right to withdraw from the study and the right to ask any question of the researcher. Participation in this study was voluntary, informed and consensual (Berg, 2007). For those who had been ‘put forward’ as potential participants by their project directors, special additional care was taken to ensure participation was informed and voluntary. All participants were given the option of withdrawing at any point.

To protect anonymity, pseudonyms were used for participants. When identification could not be avoided (with female participants being such a minority in construction, sometimes even alone on a given project), I reflected on the processes observed rather than attributing a quote to an individual (Berg, 2007, Richards and Morse,

2012). I have protected the transcripts of participants’ interviews and observations by applying a numerical code rather than a name to the documents. At all times the transcripts and recordings were kept in secure, password-protected files.

Because of the unstructured nature of participant observation and the semi- structured nature of interviews, there was the possibility that participants might divulge sensitive, personal information about their career experience, mental health or about personal relationships that had caused them personal distress (Corbin and

Morse, 2003). To address this, I made it clear at the outset of the interview or day of shadowing that participants did not need to answer any questions that caused them discomfort (Berg, 2007). At the outset and conclusion of the interview or day of shadowing, I directed participants to their company’s employee counselling help line

82 and to other community helplines in the event that any item raised during the course of the interview or observation caused them any form of distress.

In sum, researchers have found it difficult to investigate informal rules and uncover the relationship between formal rules and their informal counterparts to gain an understanding of how they combine to produce ‘rules-in-use’. This is especially true when seeking to understand the gendered nature of rules which are hidden by taken- for-granted practices. Interviews or document analysis alone may not completely reveal all gendered ‘rules-in-use’. Ethnography has been an effective way to delve and

‘see’ these rules and their gendered dynamics in action. It is also useful in mapping out how these rules operate across the three stages of the career lifecycle; recruitment, retention, progression. The chapters ahead outline the operation of these rules across this lifecycle and examine specifically how masculine privilege in the Australian construction sector has frustrated the accomplishment of gender equality goals.

4 GENDERED FOUNDATIONS: THE PROBLEM OF WOMEN’S RECRUITMENT

4.1 INTRODUCTION

That far fewer women than men seek to enter construction industry professions is a problem recognised by those in the construction sector and scholars alike. The construction sector’s attention has mostly been centred on women’s education, career choices and what is termed as a ‘pipeline problem’. This view has left the analysis of the problem to women themselves, while the rules affecting recruitment into construction companies and further onto construction projects remain largely ignored. Equally, little attention has been paid within the sector to the effectiveness of construction company policy responses to the issue of women’s recruitment and how they work in practice.

This chapter demonstrates that the issue of women’s recruitment into construction is not just a ‘pipeline problem’. It suggests instead that this ‘problem’ of women’s recruitment has been addressed too narrowly, with the gendered foundations of recruitment being overlooked. A key finding of this chapter is that acts of masculine privilege – denial and backlash – maintain the recruitment ‘rules-in-use’ that preserve male overrepresentation in construction. New strategies introduced to improve women’s recruitment are often focused on women being treated apart from the existing recruitment rules, thus reinforcing problematic practices. It also finds that initiatives to give these ‘women focused’ policies ‘teeth’ through firmer enforcement measures have been met with resistance from male managers and company leaders. I

84 suggest, in addressing their lack of gender equality; that construction firms look beyond the pipeline and the ‘woman problem’ and question the underlying gendered foundations of the recruitment processes operating in their organisation.

This chapter is divided into four sections:

 In Section 4.2, I outline how scholars have addressed the problem of

women’s recruitment into construction careers and list the unresolved issues

demanding future enquiry.

 Section 4.3 of this chapter looks at the ethnographic study of Can-do

Constructions. I begin by outlining the ‘rules-in-use’ that shape recruitment

and appointments in a construction company. Then I decipher which rules -

formal and informal - are used in recruitment and the criteria by which

appointments are made.

 In Section 4.4, I sketch out the company’s approach to attracting and hiring

women. I briefly discuss how the company views the problem of women’s

entry into construction careers and the policy it applies to increase the

number of women recruited.

 Finally in Section 4.5, I measure my findings against the existing literature on

this subject. I examine how the ‘rules-in-use’ are gendered and how men as a

group enjoy institutional privilege at the expense of women as a group in

construction.

 I conclude by remarking that a culture of denial is serving to shield the

gendered dynamics of recruitment ‘rules-in-use’ from scrutiny and change,

while policies to rebalance women’s recruitment are often met with forms of

resistance and backlash.

4.2 PROBLEMATISING WOMEN’S RECRUITMENT

The problem of attracting and recruiting women into construction careers is not new. Kate Sang and Abigail Powell (2012a) recognise that despite the introduction of broader equal opportunity legislation in Australian, the construction industry has avoided industry wide action to address the problem of women’s recruitment.

Unsurprisingly, there have been no gains made in the area of women’s recruitment.

Indeed, women’s overall participation rate as professionals has declined in the last decade from 17 to 12 per cent and the gender composition for construction related degrees has not shifted in the last 15 years (WGEA, 2016c, WGEA, 2017). Scholars have identified four reasons for women’s lack of recruitment into construction, these are: (1) a pipeline problem, (2) construction’s informal recruitment practices, (3) gender bias and (4) weak gender diversity policy responses. The following discussion considers each of these issues and contributes to better understanding the barriers to recruitment by emphasising the gender dynamics of the recruitment process and by introducing a masculine privilege dimension into the discussion.

4.2.1 THE PIPELINE PROBLEM

Existing research puts its emphasis on the ‘pipeline problem’ – namely the low number of women entering traditional construction related university courses - as the main factor limiting women’s recruitment into construction careers (Moore, 2006). In

Australia at tertiary level, the picture is mixed. In construction related engineering courses and construction degrees, men account for 90 per cent of the students

86 enrolled. Yet in architecture and landscape degrees, their dominance drops to near parity (WGEA, 2017). In Australia, where the disparity is greatest in engineering,

Franzway et al. (2009) observed that, while engineering companies acknowledge there is a ‘pipeline problem’, employees and managers do not seek to discover why women forgo careers in construction. Scholars attribute women’s lack of interest in construction to the industry’s blokey and unwelcoming ‘image problem’ (Dainty et al., 2000a, Sewalk and Nietfeld, 2013, Fielden et al., 2000).

Looking deeper into why women and men choose a career in construction, Abigail

Powell’s (2009) research on UK Engineering students found that women and men base their career choices on similar factors: family and teacher influences, an interest in maths and science, perceived remuneration and career rewards and a desire to be different and take on challenging work. However, it is the weighting given to these factors that differed between genders. Powell found that women may well be more likely influenced by a specific person e.g. a teacher or family member but that the entrenched gender stereotypes in construction dominate candidate choice to such an extent that men and women alike perceive only ‘certain types’ of women as cut out for construction (For further discussion see Powell 2009, 2006, 2012). Although no similar research has been undertaken in Australia, given its similarity in the construction context to its UK counterpart, it is likely that similar views prevail.

4.2.2 GENDER BIAS

Construction sociologist Andrew Dainty (1998) found the recruitment process for women in the UK reflected gender biases in the industry. His research showed in terms of initial entry to employment and subsequent mobility between organisations and construction projects, that both was much more difficult for women than for

87 men because of stereotyped views about their capabilities. Women, particularly those of child bearing years, were found to be subjected to stereotypical expectations of their career and personal priorities (Dainty et al., 2000a, Moore, 2006). Despite this,

Powell et al. (2012) following earlier research from McIlwee and Robinson (1992), found that men saw women as having a gender advantage in gaining employment in construction roles. Given these views, it is not surprising scholars in the UK and

Australia observed that measures to correct the gender imbalance in construction by introducing formal gender equality policies were met at best with indifference and at worst with resistance or hostility (Sharpe et al., 2012, Pepper et al., 2002).

4.2.3 CONSTRUCTION’S INFORMAL RECRUITMENT PRACTICES

Because of the project-based nature of construction, employees are recruited first into the sector and then successively onto new construction projects, often with different construction teams. In the place of formalised company procedures, scholars have found a culture of informal ‘word-of-mouth’ recruitment characterises both company and project recruitment (Fielden et al., 2000). Dainty, Neale and

Bagilhole (2000b) observed that, in large UK construction companies, recruitment processes often bypassed Human Resources departments and instead were deferred to operational line managers. They relied on personal networks and line manager executive discretion to determine the competence, commitment and fitness of candidates. Similarly in the US, Moore (2006) found that informal recruitment practices limited candidate pools, favoured candidates with company connections and perpetuated gender segregation and employee ‘cloning’. These findings were confirmed by researchers Raiden and Sempik (2012) who added that construction companies in their UK study shied away from any formal training of managers in 88 conducting recruitment, preferring instead to rely on word-of-mouth referrals and manager intuition to meet the immediacy of project demands. Existing literature in construction, however, has tended to avoid the subject of how gender is addressed in a set of rules and practices that shape recruitment outcomes.

4.2.4 WEAK GENDER DIVERSITY POLICY RESPONSES

Turning to formal recruitment policies, research by Franzway et al. (2009) and

Sharpe et al. (2012) into Australian engineering companies found that, although gender equity had become an accepted imperative, formal policies still glossed over deeply held gendered assumptions and inequality. This claim is confirmed by Erica

French and Glenda Strachan (2013, p. 8) in their analysis of Australian construction companies’ recruitment policies. They found that recruitment policies often only pay lip service to the equal treatment of candidates, with no proactive equity measures to back it up. This approach, they argue, ignores the role played in the recruitment process by underlying discriminatory practices such as masculine organisational culture, male networks, gendered stereotypes and gender bias. Instead, it places the problem of recruitment back onto the shoulders of women and minorities as a group, especially in their career and education choices. As a result of these types of recruitment policies that refute the existence of discrimination, no inroads are made into reforming entrenched inequalities and power relationships. In terms of policies focused on increasing the number of women in construction, Sang and Powell’s

(2012a) comparative study of UK and Australian construction sectors reminds us that these policies need to be properly implemented, not just proclaimed. As Galea et al. (2015) found in a study of two Australian top tier construction companies, a lack of consistency in the coherence, co-ordination and enforcement of gender equality 89 policies has resulted in disparate and confusing messages being disseminated to staff about recruitment.

Existing research shows that the pipeline problem, gender biases and formal and informal rules have all contributed to some degree to the low levels of women’s recruitment to construction. All the solutions that exist are limited, however, because they only focus on recruitment and women themselves: what they lack, the choices they make and how they behave. They have diverted attention away from the gendered institutional dynamics underlying construction company recruitment policies and practices, the ‘rules in use’. Section 4.3 and 4.4 of this chapter draw attention to the way existing recruitment ‘rules-in-use’ promote codes of masculinities and men as a group, thereby maintaining male overrepresentation, even when gender equality policies are introduced to improve the recruitment of women.

4.3 THE RULES OF ENTRY AT CAN-DO CONSTRUCTION

In the construction industry, there is a range of rules of entry covering external and internal recruitment practices. External recruitment means attracting and appointing new members or outsiders to a company. This can happen through formal processes such as graduate recruitment programs or informally through networks. Internal recruitment is also commonplace. Because of the project-based nature of construction, employees who work on construction projects are regularly recruited and appointed to new projects throughout their career. Sometimes the appointment to a new project comes with a promotion, but most often it does not. This section focuses on both external and internal recruitment processes and the policies and practices that shape the recruitment process. The company Recruitment Policy is the overarching

90 formal policy that sets out the correct process for external and internal recruitment.

This policy document was issued to me by Can-do at the beginning of the research project (Appendix A, No. 16). The second policy associated with recruitment and entry into Can-do covers gender targets. Specific to women’s recruitment, gender targets appear in the company’s annual report and were the subject of discussions with employees at company events and interviews.

I begin by discussing the company’s formal Recruitment Policy, followed by my observations of recruitment in practice deciphering what Ostrom (1986, p. 6) and

Lowndes and Roberts (2013, p. 49) describe as ‘the rules in use’. Attention is focused on the company’s response to women’s underrepresentation in recruitment, including the setting of gender targets.

4.3.1 THE RECRUITMENT POLICY

Can-do’s Recruitment Policy outlines the rules for internal and external recruitment and is accessible to all employees via the company’s intranet. It stipulates that adherence to the policy is ‘mandatory’ and that all new roles in the business must be advertised internally on the ‘Job Board’ unless the role is ‘confidential, market sensitive or a senior management role’ (Appendix A, No. 16: 1, 3). The policy also limits the eligibility for new roles to those employees who have met the minimum performance criteria, served in their current position for over 12 months and have discussed their application with their current line manager. The policy is silent, however, on enforcement mechanisms, including the repercussions if employees or managers ignore the conditions set out in the document.

References to diversity and inclusion feature prominently in the policy and form part of the policy’s stated purpose: to attract and select ‘the best suited applicants for all 91 positions while reinforcing Can-do’s commitment to equal opportunity’ (Appendix

A, No. 6: 1). Yet, aside from compliance and the acknowledgement of anti- discrimination legislation, the policy document is silent as to how the process is measured and enforced. Neither does it explain how this approach will result in a diverse and inclusive workforce, or indeed how it will eliminate discrimination from the recruitment process.

In terms of the recruitment process, the policy stipulates that the hiring manager is responsible for the recruitment and appointment of the ‘best, suitably qualified’ candidates for the role (Appendix A, No. 16: 1-2). The hiring manager is the person who initiates the request to hire and, in most cases, is the operations manager or regional manager. At Can-do, it is the operational manager in each regional area who has the power to recruit and appoint new and existing employees into company roles, as well as onto construction sites. HR supports the administration of the recruitment process, calling on external recruitment consultants where necessary.

The policy specifies that candidates’ ‘skills, knowledge, qualification and experience’ and compliance with Can-do values of collaboration, respect, integrity, excellence, trust and innovation are to be assessed using a ‘competency based interview’

(Appendix A, No. 16: 7). The Recruitment Policy, however, is silent as to how interviews are to be conducted. For example, must the interview be conducted by a panel or by an individual? Not specifying the process or the format can leave the procedure to the discretion of the operations manager. It is worth noting that at Can

Do all the operations managers are men. The Recruitment Policy also fails to state the requirement to include any compulsory interview questions and, just as importantly, how and by whom the candidate assessments are to be conducted.

In terms of transparency, the Recruitment Policy specifies that all jobs in the company are to be advertised internally on the Job Board before being advertised externally. According to HR Manager Helen, ignoring this practice runs counter to the company Recruitment Policy:

Every job is supposed to be advertised. There should be no shoulder-

tapping going on. That would be non-compliant behaviour. (Helen,

Human Resources Manager)

The policy requires that all advertised roles have a position description and that the position description specifies the key outputs, tasks and skills required. HR appears to be the primary author of position descriptions in the company. I was unable to obtain copies of construction position descriptions for this research and suggest that further researchers investigate how position descriptions influence candidate recruitment. The policy stipulates that internal candidates will be given preference over external candidates for new positions.

For external recruitment, the policy encourages existing employees to refer potential

‘like’ candidates – those judged to have the ‘technical skills, behavioural qualities, company values and cultural fit necessary to be successful’ in the company – to the company. In return, the referee is paid a modest financial reward of $A3,000 should the candidate be successful (according to Employee Referral Program, Appendix A,

No. 30). The following section outlines my observation of recruitment in practice at the company. It begins with two vignettes that capture the informal and homosocial nature of internal recruitment at Can-do.

4.3.2 RECRUITMENT IN PRACTICE

4.a) Beer and coffee

A panel of six employees, all but one a male, sat in front of

the newly recruited graduates. Each panellist represented a

different area of the business: property, sustainability, risk,

building. The panellist from building was a middle-aged

man in a blue shirt. He was a company ‘lifer’: someone who

had worked their whole career for Can-do. Broad faced and

Anglo-Saxon, he didn’t stray from the stereotype of a

construction manager. Masculine. Blue shirt. Sleeves rolled

up. A man’s man, I thought. The panellists were here to

answer questions about career and opportunity. To guide

the graduates, the questions had been provided by the

company.

The construction manager told the group he’d had six jobs

at Can-do but none of them were advertised. “It’s not what

you know, it’s who you know within the business and that

is how you get, how you get jobs. You have to go out of

your way to take people out for a beer or a coffee. Shout

someone a coffee four times a year. They’ll keep you in

mind for a job. Don’t rely on the Job Board [intranet job

site].”

4.b) Family

Willie, the site manager talked about his foremen and how

they were like family to him. He brought the foreman with

him to Can-do Constructions from his last company.

In practice, the Recruitment Policy appears to operate more as a set of loosely applied guidelines than strictly enforced rules. Paris, an executive general manager suggested that in practice, recruitment was conducted in a ‘very very ad hoc’ manner with ‘everyone go[ing] about it their own way’. More specifically at Can-do, various shades of informality and formality shape the distinct types of recruitment practice.

Recruitment of external candidates, particularly graduates, appears on the surface to follow formal processes set out in the Recruitment Policy, usually with candidate referrals introduced through informal networks. By comparison, internal recruitment onto construction projects seems to be largely informal and does not reflect the formal Recruitment Policy. Internal recruitment appears to operate free from job advertisements and interviews and is left in the hands of senior managers (as reflected in vignettes 4.a and 4.b). Both types of recruitment practices however, tend to select candidates from traditional tertiary construction degrees, especially in civil and structural engineering. They also appear to rely on informal male networks and are influenced by the gendered criteria of ‘fit’, often decided by those inside the company and their extended networks. That is what produces the gendered effect that undermines women’s recruitment into the company and onto construction projects. ‘Fit’ in itself is a form of unrecognised privilege because it is invisible to those who have it and fatal to those who do not.

4.3.3 EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT

Women and men appeared to follow disparate recruitment channels into Can-do

Constructions. Interviews suggested that women were more likely to be recruited through formal recruitment channels and overwhelmingly reported that they had responded to job ads or had been recruited through employment agents. This is not to say that no women resorted to their informal networks to gain access to the company, but in most cases, women seemed to enter Can-do as outsiders with no prior connection to other employees in the business:

I went overseas and did a gap year and came back, and Can-do was

advertising. And I got a job. (Bridget, Safety Manager)

For the job in Melbourne I did the application on-line and I had one

interview with the talent recruiter or the HR guy, and a follow-up

conversation with him (Gail, Commercial Manager)

The men I interviewed, on the other hand, were more likely to have ‘got a foot in the door’ through their informal networks. This included family members, school friends, sporting and industry contacts. The following quotes were illustrative of the general responses from men:

I was introduced to [the company] via a rugby mate who was working

for them. (Martin, Site Engineer)

Dad was friends with a guy and he said, “I’ll sort out an interview.”

…obviously, so there was no conflict of interest, someone else got in

contact with me, arranged the interview. (Christopher, Project Engineer)

Once men gained access through their informal male networks, they appear to have followed the formal recruitment processes as set out in the Recruitment Policy.

However, it did not seem unusual for informal referees to ensure their candidate’s

CV got into the right hands. This in some cases was tantamount to an endorsement of the candidate:

It just so happened that the bloke I used to work for at the fit-out

company was then working for Can-do and they needed another

engineer. He got me the job up at, up at Brisbane. I applied. My CV ends

up on someone else’s desk and he’s like, “Hey, the referee’s sitting two

metres from me. I can just ask.” (Grant, Project Engineer)

All participants acknowledged that as external candidates they were formally interviewed for their role with Can-do, yet there was little consistency in the number of interviews participants were subjected to. Some participants reported one interview, while others reported as many as three interviews. Equally, the identity of those who conducted the interviews varied from one participant to another. Due to restrictions placed on my fieldwork, the specifics (rigour and consistency) of the interview process remain unexamined. This is an obvious area for future enquiry.

Graduate recruitment

Graduate recruitment appears to be the most stringent and transparent recruitment process of all with candidates interviewed twice, including once in front of a selection panel. The recruitment of graduates, which generally follows a more formal and rigorous process, is not free from informal employee referrals, however.

Notwithstanding deliberate measures by the company to formalise the graduate recruitment process in an effort to minimise gender bias and increase the number of

97 women graduates it hires, it appears male graduates are more likely than others to benefit from informal referrals. Two undergraduate participants, who had already been employed by the company as cadets were told by their peers that they had failed the graduate selection process. They were rescued, however, by their project team colleagues who were on their graduate recruitment selection panel.

My engagement in the field did shed light on some of the core recruitment practices, namely for executive roles. I was unable to find out, however, why executive roles were able to escape being advertised internally, mostly happening via ‘a tap on the shoulder’.

4.3.4 INTERNAL RECRUITMENT

For external candidates new to the company, the process of appointment onto a construction site appears to be relatively straightforward, and guided by both formal and informal processes. The same cannot be said for the internal recruitment of company employees to new or vacant roles. In practice, based on interviews and observations on site, it appears that the appointment of company personnel to a construction project is the responsibility of some managers who do not seem to adhere to the company’s Recruitment Policy. There is instead, a general lack of transparency and a recourse to informal gendered networks. New and vacant construction roles do not appear to be advertised internally (vignette 4.a). At Can-do, the all-male operations managers oversee the recruitment, appointment and progression (see Chapter 6 for details on employee progression) of hundreds of employees. In NSW, Can-do’s operations manager oversees the careers of 550 professional employees. In an interview, he acknowledged that it is impossible to

98 manage personally and effectively the recruitment and progression of so many people:

For me now to know every single person, 550 people is, is nonsense,

right. (Raymond, Operations Manager)

With this number of employees’ careers to manage, the operations manager relies in practice on project leaders – the project director, construction manager, and site manager – to ‘pick their team’ for their construction project and ‘take their people with them’ from project to project (even company to company) (see vignette 4.b).

This approach to project recruitment fosters strategic alliances that often form in and around these key positions on site.

A gendered fit

Conversations and interviews with male participants suggest that internal recruitment onto construction sites relies heavily on informal male networks, strategic alliances and male sponsorship. For example, on the first site I visited, a Programmer Nathan told me that Angus the project director ‘handpicked the best guys to come with him from his last job to this job.’ On the same project, a Forman Bill told me that the project director, whom Bill had worked with previously in Melbourne, had called him and asked him to join his team. So too had the Site Manager Willie, who had worked with the project director 30 years ago. On hearing that Angus had been appointed project director on this job, Willie phoned Angus to see if there was a role there for him and a ‘few of his boys’. Willie brought his foreman, Trent with him onto the project (see vignette 4.b). Dennis, a project engineer I shadowed on the second site, explained that the practice of ‘picking your team’ ensured project leaders snared reliable people they could trust: 99

The process of selection came down to ‘who do you want on your job’.

(Dennis, Project Engineer)

Candidate predictability seems logical given the highly cyclical and volatile nature of the construction industry where projects carry a high financial risk and working to time and task are essential. As Ben explains:

In Australia, if you know people, they’ll just grab you left, right and

centre, if you’re good. But, if you’ve got no connections, very hard to get

work. Very hard to get work. The reason for that…there’s a lot of

money at stake…none of the employers want to risk that [money] by

employing new guys. (Ben, Senior Project Engineer)

Candidate predictability or ‘fit’ is determined informally and usually through verbal referral from (predominantly male) peers. In practice, operations managers and team leaders call on trusted advisors to guide them on candidate ‘fit’. The notion of ‘fit’ itself appears to be heavily tethered to masculine codes of reliability, authority and technical competency. It is not only the candidate who must ‘fit’ but the trusted guide as well. The person providing the reference must also measure up to the codes of masculinity. Site Manager Jarred, revealed this match when discussing giving a reference:

The guy I was talking to on the phone rang about whether they should

hire him or not. Part of their problem was there wasn’t that much stature

about ’em…Like I’m the builder. People knew me. They knew I was

good at what I was doing... I think that was a major thing. You’d already

proved yourself… Getting a good name for myself. (Jarred, Site

Manager)

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Aside from codes of reliability, candidate ‘fit’ seems to be also enhanced by long company and/or industry tenure. Time served is a mark of predictability and serves to enhance a candidate’s exposure to informal networks. At Can-do, company tenure is celebrated and revered, with those who have only ever worked at Can-do called

‘Lifers’. Tenure is so important that when people introduce themselves at company events to me as a researcher, they follow a specific ritual. They state their name, how many years they have worked for Can-do and then their role or position in the business.

In practice, most of the male managers interviewed and observed (see vignette 4.a and 4.b) had benefitted from informal recruitment practices grounded in homosocial loyalty, reflecting the fact that compliant gendered behaviour is rewarded and results in career progression. Operations Manager Doug, who had been employed at Can-do for eleven years, boasted that he had avoided formal job applications over his entire career:

I mentioned to someone that I was gonna move back to Brisbane and

they said, “You’re a really good guy. We’ll find you, I know people. I’ll

get you a gig.” I have never applied for a job other than the one I got the

week after I left school. (Doug, Operations Manager)

Indeed, Executive General Manager Paris, claims that male managers actively perpetuate informal recruitment practices, and look down on those who do not:

In the four years I’ve been here in senior roles, we’ve only once hired

someone no one knew…. the executives are the worst offenders of that

…They are the worst offenders of all. (Paris, Executive General

Manager)

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4.3.5 THE GENDERED EFFECT

For men, being a ‘good fit’ is much easier to accomplish than for women because ‘fit’ is shaped around masculine codes of reliability, authority, strength and technical competency (Wajcman, 1991, 1999, Iacuone, 2005, Faulkner, 2005, Sang et al., 2014).

Equally, the opportunity to form strategic alliances and male sponsorships works to the advantage of men, who form the majority of employees and managers. They also tend to have unbroken career paths. It seems that retention and long tenure within a company serve to enhance men’s opportunities for recruitment. For women, the practice of internal recruitment appears problematic. Women in mid-to-senior roles who were interviewed observed the importance of forming strategic alliances in construction, yet few women have any access to sponsorship. That is not to say that women do not attempt to forge strategic alliances. In her interview, Evelyn, a commercial manager with Can-do, said that she actively maintained her construction networks:

I keep connected and well-connected with people because I know that

they’re gonna go places and will be able to look after me. (Evelyn,

Commercial Manager)

Later in the interview, however, Evelyn revealed that, because she is new to Can-do in her current role, her construction team continually treat her as an ‘outsider’, openly sceptical of her capability:

When it came to the commercial manager’s role, they had already

recruited me… and put me in that position. Well the long-time Can-do

people wanted to get their own people in and then they didn’t know me,

they didn’t interview me, they didn’t see my resume, they didn’t know

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what my capabilities are, so they were being very astute in saying, “Oh

we don’t want this girl. We don’t want her. We don’t know whether she’s

any good,” all this sort of stuff. (Evelyn, Commercial Manager)

Other women, like Executive General Manager Paris, recognised that in construction, women are excluded from networks. For internal recruitment particularly, women are effectively caught in a dilemma: women need men in their construction networks but men do not need women.

I feel the mates game ends up limiting me… I feel like in the four years

I’ve been here in senior roles, we’ve only once hired someone no one

knew. (Paris, Executive General Manager)

Powerless (or unaware, as seems the case for the younger generation) women can only rely on the operations manager to recruit and appoint them into their next construction role. In turn, the sheer number of employees managed by the operations managers at Can-do presents a problem for women, especially when the operations manager is not personally acquainted with them. This was the case for

Commercial Manager Gail:

He [the operations manager] doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know my

name. He’s got no idea who I am, which is kind of scary considering he’s

the operations manager and places people across [the state]... (Gail,

Commercial Manager)

These recruitment practices are the reason for the difficulty women have in entering construction careers and more generally, the reason behind the problem of gender equality at Can-do.

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The next section outlines how women’s access to construction is problematised and addressed at Can-do. Before this, however, I have a selection of vignettes taken from the final company event I joined: The Gender Diversity Strategy Day. At this event, forty handpicked senior ‘leaders’ from different parts of the Building Division were brought together to discuss and agree upon a Building Division gender diversity and inclusion strategy. I presented some of my preliminary findings at this event, and some of those were evoked in the discussions. The group was unable to reach a final gender strategy agreement on the day and, to my knowledge, has not done so since.

The first two vignettes presented below do not directly address recruitment but provide some context around the understanding and consideration gender equality is given at Can-do. For example, the widespread use and acceptance of humorous mockery in discussions around gender diversity seem to demonstrate the unease and difficulty with which the subject is met in construction. This humour may also be read as a form of passive resistance (Watts, 2007c).

The remaining five vignettes focus on the problem of women’s entry into construction careers at Can-do. As I will explain in more detail in Section 4.4, these vignettes reveal how the problem of women’s entry and inclusion at Can-do is viewed as being about women themselves, rather about gender or the company’s gendered recruitment practices.

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4.4 TARGETING WOMEN

4.c) The problem with women

The afternoon before the Building Division’s Gender

Diversity Strategy Day I was called on to present my

preliminary research findings and observe the day. As we

sat in a small semi-circle, I realised I was not the only one

making notes of the discussion. It was being recorded in

animation on the giant whiteboard that wrapped around

the group to produce a small amphitheatre at the rear end

of the floor. In addition to the discussion being drawn, two

television cameras perched behind the group were

recording it. The discussion by forty ‘leaders’ from a variety

of positions at Can-do Construction was focused on the

meaning of ‘gender diversity’. The conversation bounced

around the room; one person to another, each offering their

thoughts. The polite and friendly banter of most of the

participants sat in contrast to the content of the discussion

which highlighted exclusion and difference. A man in his

forties, who throughout the day seemed unguarded and

insensitive, told the group that he had discussed gender

diversity with a male friend, an owner of a small project

management business. His friend completely dismissed

gender diversity as a waste of time. The problem, according

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to his friend, is women. “Women are harder to manage

then men”. The man said he understood his friend’s

perspective. “Stop, Alan!” yelled a woman of a similar age

in disbelief. The group laughed.

A man sitting in the front row turned to Alan and asked,

“Don’t you think that by bringing women into the

organisation, they are testing the environment rather than

accepting the norm?” Another man picking up on Alan’s

earlier comment added, “I don’t think these people have

had exposure to a range of people. For Christ sake, I

manage architects. They are hard to manage.” Once again,

laughter.

Throughout the day, gendered traits and ideas about what

set men and women apart were repeatedly used.

Occasionally someone protested: “Everyone is different.”

“Stop with the stereotyping.” But the stereotyping

prevailed all day.

4.d) The business case

The discussion at the Gender Diversity Strategy Day turned

to why gender diversity was important to the company. “It

is good for business,” said the head of the Building

Division. “50 per cent of the smartest people in the country

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are women. It’s pretty bloody obvious,” he told the group.

To others in the room, it did not seem that obvious. A man

in his late forties questioned whether it was really good for

business, or whether this was just hearsay? “No, these are

the facts”, responded a woman about his age. “Women

contribute soft skills”, she added.

Another man also in his forties said, “I was only thinking

recently that 15 years ago we were sitting in a site shed

drinking beer and eating pizza and all talking about how

it’s the best industry in the world; the last industry where

it’s all men.” Raucous laughter met his comment. I adjust

my face to shield my disbelief that anyone, much less a

‘leader’ would state this so openly. The woman who had

asserted the benefits of gender diversity responded with a

wry smile, “Yes, I can imagine. “Fuck them! We can have

nudie posters up.’” There must be real grief for you,” she

said with a hint of anger. The man continued but changed

course. He explained that over time as he became exposed

to working with women, he found that it was “just better”

having women in the workplace.

Another man in his early fifties, seated in the middle row,

expressed the opinion that women were opting out of their

careers in construction. He worried that the company

wasn’t creating a welcoming environment for them.

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4.e) Spectrum of readiness

Before I was told by the convenor that I was expected to

participate in the strategy day activities, I stood and

observed the small groups as they discussed the concept of

gender diversity. The first thing that struck me was how

engaged, open and articulate most people were. There was,

however, a sense that the problem of gender diversity was

insurmountable. Senior male leaders – project directors and

ops managers – were not convinced that that a change to

the status quo was even necessary at all. Standing resolute,

they defended the practices, structure and status quo with

vigour. The spectrum of acceptance was captured

succinctly by the head of human resources who said,

“There are people who are visionaries and innovators and

then there are still those who believe that the world is flat,

and they are never, ever going to change. This room is a

microcosm of that.” The flat earth people appeared to be

the site leaders, project directors and operations managers

– the very people who enjoyed and held power in relation to

recruitment as well as other practices; the very people with

the greatest power to make change.

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4.f) Recruiting women

During the strategy day, groups were asked to come up

with action plans to address specific gender diversity

problems. One group was asked to develop a strategy to

increase women’s representation in the company in 2018 by

35 per cent. The group were given an unlimited budget. At

the start of the discussion, one man commented, “This is

crazy. You don’t recruit sailors to build ships.” Meaning

there were not enough women coming out of traditional

construction degrees and any other graduates would not

have the necessary skills. A woman challenged him, “Yeah,

but there are other STEMM (Science, Technology,

Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) courses. It’s not

just construction. We’re focusing too narrow on tertiary

construction courses.” Thus engaged, the group nutted out

their strategy.

The music of the Rolling Stones – Start me up - called us

back to the main group. It had been our cue to assemble all

day. Each group presented. For the fourth group, the

elected speaker was a man in his 40s. He began his

presentation with a joke. “The group’s strategy made a

wildly rash assumption. It assumed women were as skilled

as men.” Laughter. “Recruiting women was important,

because women smell better than men”, he added.

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I sat stunned.

I doubted that the room would have been so generous with

their laughter had the man inserted the word ‘black’ for

women or ‘white’ for men.

The man then explained that his group had struggled to

understand why it was that women would want a career in

construction. Unaware of any contradiction, he added, that

his group members – women and men - had chosen a

construction career for the same reason: they wanted to

build things.

He acknowledged that the group had discussed whether

the company needed a different recruitment structure,

maybe even an internal sponsorship program specifically

for women, yet he and the group were uncomfortable with

this offering. He added that the group had discussed the

strong resistance towards the new flexibility policy

introduced in the company and wondered, ironically,

whether the company’s push towards flexibility had been

too rigid and was it forcing people to do something they

did not want. A male project director added that maybe

some men want to do the hard yards – and work long

inflexible hours - because they can. Why should they be

penalised, he challenged? Moving back to the issue of

women’s recruitment, the man said that the group

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understood the three biggest barriers to women’s

recruitment: the pipeline of women entering the industry,

the gender pay gap and child care. To overcome these

barriers the group suggested giving STEMM focused

scholarships to school girls, recruiting graduates from

diverse backgrounds outside the traditional tertiary fields of

recruitment and rethinking the skillset needed for

construction roles. He added that throwing money at this

issue was not a way forward and therefore, they had not set

a budget.

A woman raised her hand to ask why the company no

longer recruited architecture students for construction

roles. No one had an answer to her question.

4.g) Fixing the pipeline

After another round of strategy talks, the group of leaders

returned to the amphitheatre for the last time. The first

group - four men and two women – were focused on a

strategy to improve women’s recruitment. A man led the

presentation - a common practice that day. Taking to the

whiteboard, the group outlined a detailed recruitment

strategy that targeted a 40 per cent increase in women in

the next 8-10 years. Female graduates studying

construction and engineering was the first target group. 111

These candidates, it was explained, could be recruited to

fill construction roles on site and they could follow the

traditional construction career path: from site engineer to

project engineer through to construction manager and onto

project directors.

The second group to be targeted were women from outside

traditional areas. This group included women working in

finance, teaching, nursing and consulting/professional

services. This group of female candidates, from outside the

traditional areas of construction, would be channelled into

roles such as design and commercial. In this latter group,

the man emphasised, it was important to recruit competent

candidates. No explanation or measure of competency was

offered, nor why it was that this second group could not

enter the traditional career path. The assumption was clear:

construction roles must be filled from the ‘traditional

pipeline’, and the ‘competent’ could fill traditionally

gendered roles in design and commercial, which are

generally more open to women. The group was silent about

the recruitment process itself: how the candidates would be

recruited, by whom and against which criteria.

A woman in her 20s presented the next section focusing on

how Can-do might fix the issue of women’s recruitment.

Firstly, girls and young women need to see construction as

a good career option and view the company as a great place 112

to work. She did not elaborate on why they thought

construction was a good career option for women or what

made Can-do a great place to work. It was suggested that

Can-do should employ two recruitment co-ordinators; one

to target girls in high school now and one to target girls in

primary school.

A woman in the audience interrupted. She explained that as

a woman who had worked in construction for over two

decades, she did not feel comfortable telling female high

school students that construction is a great career choice.

The group did not pause to investigate this tension; they

sped on and announced a list of reforms including greater

consistency in the graduate program, recruiting back

women who had left their construction career, recruiting

women working from smaller contractors and

subcontractors, incentivising the recruitment of women and

poaching women from other professions including nursing

and teaching.

4.h) Enforcement

Deciding on who would be made responsible for rectifying

the problem of women’s recruitment continued throughout

the day. The human resources manager and the operations

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manager wriggled free from this commitment; neither

wanted to be tethered to this responsibility.

4.i) Merit

Following the three presentations, two discussions were

raised. The first focused on keeping men incentivised to

participate in gender diversity and flexibility initiatives

either by offering a bonus to them or reward. The second

discussion focused on merit and whether by ‘positively

discriminating’ in favour of women, the ‘right person’ for

the job would be employed. The group did not define the

concept or question the use of the term ‘positive

discrimination’. Neither did it question the process or the

criteria.

This discussion turned into a debate about the recruitment

process and whether the company needed women on every

recruitment selection panel and a female candidate for

every advertised role. But, according to one young male

construction manager, advertised roles were not the norm

in his experience; he had been with the company 15 years

and had never had to formally apply for any role. He

wondered aloud whether it would be beneficial for the

company to establish a formal process of internal

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recruitment and appointment within the company where

jobs were truly advertised and people were interviewed for

internal roles. It seemed the informal rules were so deeply

ingrained as the norm that there was little recognition or

awareness of the formal Recruitment Policy in place. An

older man, a state manager interjected. He thought the

company had to be careful about putting any initiatives into

play before the case for change was clearly defined. Another

discussion about the case for greater gender equality

whirled around the room. In the end, the head of the

Building Division cut short the strategy day without a firm

policy platform. More thinking and convincing was needed

he said. It struck me at the end of the day that not once

were existing gendered practices such the use of male

networks for recruitment discussed, let alone questioned.

They are invisible and just taken-for-granted.

For the most part, participants in this research interpreted the low number of women entering construction careers and Can-do as a ‘pipeline’ problem, the result of women’s individual education and career choices rather than an issue directly related to construction practices (see vignette 4.g). Two participants, Paris and Angus reflect this position that women are opting out of construction careers.

There’s probably a fundamental belief that women don’t want to work in

the jobs that we work in. (Paris, Executive General Manager)

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On construction sites, it’s difficult to pursue gender balance because

coming out of university - your engineering degrees and construction

degrees, you might only have at best 20 per cent women graduating. Of

those 20 per cent, divide it by two for international students who are

returning home. Now you’ve got 10 per cent at best coming through,

women. You take engineering: some of them will be snapped-up by the

banks ’cause the banks like engineering students. For the women, CBD,

a bit more glamorous than construction. Those that are truly, truly

interested in working in design or, or contracting probably you’re now

down to five per cent of the intake of graduates. It’s not a big pool to

choose from. I think it’s difficult for them companies to, to pursue their

gender diversity aims. It’s tough. (Angus, Project Director)

In addition to the women’s choices argument, there was a perception that some women are a more suitable ‘fit’ for a career in construction than others. Participant observations (see vignette 4.g) and interviews with female and male participants reinforced the narrative that only ‘knock-about kind of girls’ (Willie, Site Manager) and women who are ‘driven, tough…and resilient’ (Angus, Project Director) choose construction careers. Men or boys as a group largely escaped scrutiny and their aptitude for the construction industry was a foregone conclusion. Despite these gendered narratives, the interviews and observations revealed (see vignette 4.f) that women and men chose a construction career for much the same reasons: they had a family member already working in construction, they enjoyed STEMM courses at school, they ‘fell into’ a construction career quite by accident or were interested in a technical career that was multifaceted and produced a legacy of built form. I also found that women and men shared their reasons for joining Can-do Constructions: to build iconic projects in Australia and overseas. Notably for women however, the

116 visible presence of women working and holding positions of power at Can-do was another drawcard.

I did choose Can-do because I could see that women were being

employed there and I could see that they were involved, they were

actually making it in the organisation. (Sinead, Project Manager)

Ironically, this view seems to be continually overlooked by participants and by the company itself.

Revealing gendered foundations

The usual focus placed by HR policy authors on women and their choices has meant that companies have often overlooked and left unanalysed their own recruitment policies and practices. For example, it transpired in discussions at the Gender

Diversity Strategy Day that the company recruits construction graduates from just three specific tertiary degrees: construction, civil engineering and structural engineering. This leaves other building disciplines with a higher gender parity untapped. As vignette 4.f shows, the result now of a change in norms at some point in the company’s history is that graduates from architecture, interior design and landscape architecture are no longer recruited for construction graduate roles. This narrows the company’s pipeline even further. Likewise, pathways of entry to Can-do are effectively blocked to tradespeople, women in functional construction roles (such as human resources, legal, marketing and communications) and other professionals and graduates. Indeed, Can-do appears to offer no career pathways into construction outside the traditional tertiary degrees. Construction training is accomplished on the job, with formal construction training in short supply. As Paris observed:

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They only learn by on the job training. (Paris, Senior Executive Manager)

Interestingly, when the suggestion was made by participants at the Gender Diversity

Strategy Day to broaden the recruitment channel into construction roles, participants instead singled out graduates from non-traditional construction degrees, determining them to be unsuitable for the construction roles on site. These are the roles with the greatest career progression (see Chapter 6) and seen to be the most masculine of all.

Despite a persistent focus on the ‘pipeline’, no measures were introduced to handle the pipeline problem at its source by changing the perceptions of parents and children. Helen, a human resources manager hinted that the company was unsure how to extend its influence on women beyond the university campus,

We need to do more but we don’t quite know how to actually work with

schools so that young girls and their parents and career advisors actually

know what the industry is all about and what the opportunities actually

are, and why it’s a great place to work as opposed to the old image of it

being a dirty, macho kind of industry because there’s so much career

opportunity within the industry as well. (Helen, Human Resources

Manager)

Equally, the issue of women’s longevity and success in a construction career - discussed further in Chapter 5 and 6 – was left out of the recruitment conversation.

Interestingly, it emerged in discussions with a number of young women on various sites during the research that they were entering Can-do after undertaking double degrees. They saw this as insurance against their construction career not measuring up to expectations or perhaps themselves not measuring up to expectations!

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4.4.1 PUTTING A NUMBER ON WOMEN

In response to the low proportion of women being recruited into the company, Can- do’s annual report and our interviews revealed that Can-do has established a formal system to set and report on gender targets. In 2011 in its annual report, Can-do’s

Board of Directors began by setting and reporting on gender targets for its board and senior executive management team. As a publicly listed company, this act complies with the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Corporate Governance Principles and

Recommendations. From 2011 to 2016 the annual reports show the percentage of female board members at Can-do Constructions varied between 20 and 25 per cent, with two women on the board at all times but the number of men fluctuating to dropping the board power of women (Table 3). Over the same period, the percentage of women in senior executive manager roles at Can-do across the entire business (inclusive of the Building Division) increased slightly from 17 per cent to 19 per cent. The women’s participation rate overall in the business remained at around

31 per cent during this period.

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Table 3. Gender breakdown at Can-do Constructions (2011 Sustainability Report, Annual Reports 2012-2016 – see Appendix A, No. 22-28)

Annual Females Males on Female Male Female Male Report on Board Board of Senior Senior Employees Employees of Directors Executives Executives Directors ** **

2011 25 % 75 % (6/8) 17 % *** 83 %*** 32 %* 68 %* (2/8)

2012 20 % 80 % (8/10) 23 % 77 % 32 % 68 % (2/10)

2013 20 % 80 % (8/10) 19 % 81 % 32 % 68 % (2/10)

2014 22 % 78 % (7/9) 21 % 79 % 31 % 69 % (2/9)

2015 25 % 75 % (6/8) 21 % 79 % 29 % 71 % (2/8)

2016 20 % 80 % (8/10) 19 % 81 % 31 % 69 % (2/10)

* Excludes women in the infrastructure, retirement living and aged care business ** Top four tiers of management *** Excludes infrastructure business

In 2015, an Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) initiative called on all publicly listed companies to have a minimum of 30 per cent women on their boards.

Can-do followed suit, and announced in its 2016 annual report that it had set a gender target of 30 per cent women on the Can-do Board of Directors. Since then,

Can-do appears to have shied away from publicly publishing gender targets.

Interviews revealed that in 2015, all company divisions were required to set and monitor gender targets, extending to women’s participation and representation at the senior executive management level.

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For the Building Division, a gender target was set to raise women’s participation from 17 per cent in 2015 to 30 per cent by 2020 (in 2017, it stood at 20 per cent15).

How this division might meet these targets appears unspecified. The Building

Division set a target it had already reached for senior executive management. Rachel, an executive general manager of the division suggested that there was resistance to raising the gender targets for senior executives in line with women’s participation in the division. She suggested that parity with participation would result in ‘one of the guys having to leave their job’, so the division chose to maintain the status quo. The division did, however, set a 50 per cent gender target on the recruitment of female graduates. Interestingly though, all the gender targets set by the Building Division were lower than the company’s existing female participation rate (Table 3) and there were no gender target limits set on specific construction roles or men.

The gender targets Can-do has set appear to be conservative and lacking in any considered strategy or consideration of how the company’s existing recruitment practices might be gendered. Rather, female participation targets stand alone and apart from the existing recruitment practices. There is scant reference to men’s power in the annual report, and interviews only mention the cost to men from such an approach. Because of the highly masculine nature of the construction industry, masculinity and gender in written policies, annual reports and gender targets appear to be restricted by policy authors to the simplest understanding of gender and always addressed in terms of the basic female-to-male ratio.

15 According to statistics provided to me by the HR Manager.

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Targets not quotas

Interviews and observations with company senior managers and employees showed a resistance to affirmative action approaches even to achieve targets, and often an outright hostility to quotas due to concerns about ‘fairness’. According to HR

Manager Tom, setting quotas ‘can end up being an excuse for not having a meritocratic process’ and can lead to ‘bad outcomes’ including ‘undermining the legitimacy of women’ and ‘giving women an unfair advantage.’ As a result, Tom said that Can-do were ‘pro-targets but anti-quotas.’ Perceptions of unfair advantage emerged in conversations and in participant interviews on site and at the Gender

Diversity Strategy Day (see vignette 4.i). Interestingly, having a male and a female researcher in the field revealed that male participants were more likely to express sentiments of ‘reverse sexism’ or ‘unfair advantage’ to my research colleague Adam than to myself, as the participant observation debrief below confirms:

Me: And in terms of reverse sexism?

Adam: Yep. So nearly every bloke I spoke to basically gave that narrative

about women in construction.

Me: I never get this narrative. That’s probably because they find out I

was a woman in construction, maybe.

Adam: Or maybe just the fact that you’re a woman. I don’t think they

would say that to a woman because there’s too much political

incorrectness inherent in what they’re saying. (Debrief Interview, Event

5, Appendix B)

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Merit and unfair advantage

That said, some men such as Operations Manager Raymond openly expressed the sentiment that current formal moves by Can-do to address gender equality were not meritocratic. Raymond’s comment also reveals that he expected female applicants to be better qualified, not equal to male applicants before they were recruited. Raymond explains:

The whole gender thing gives me the shits as well sometimes, because

there’s, you know, … above me, they’re like pushing me to, “Oh yeah,

more women, more women.” And I go, “Well hang on. If I need to

employ people then I will advertise for the role. I will interview for the

role and I’ll pick the best candidate.” Just because she’s female … If

she’s crap, then I’m not gonna put her on because this guy might be

better. But, if she’s really good and better than him, then I’m gonna give

her the job. (Raymond, Operations Manager)

‘Merit’ is often code for measuring up to and bettering the male norm. In her interview, Executive General Manager Rachel, warned that the introduction of gender targets without a comprehensive strategy or understanding why the company needs targets would be seen as superficial and interpreted as ‘pushing men out of jobs’. A similar view was expressed by Gail, a commercial manager I interviewed from a large Can-do construction project. She noted that following the Gender

Diversity Strategy Day, her regional general manager broached the subject of gender targets at a peer meeting she attended. According to Gail, the regional general manager seemed to trivialise the matter of gender targets, being unable to quantify the women’s participation rate in the Building Division and then proposing an ill- conceived solution to bolster women’s numbers by recruiting female electricians. As

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Gail observed, the solution proposed left the problem unresolved as Can-do does not engage in specific electrical work. Besides which, there are fewer women in construction trades in Australia than in construction degrees.

There was like a whole heap of men and three women in the room. [The

regional general manager] comes to the end of his update and says,

“Now there was something else that I was gonna talk to you about. I’ve

just forgotten it.” Then he said, “Oh right, that’s it! I remember. We’ve

got a problem with gender diversity at Can-do” … He went on to say

that Can-do have a 17 per cent representation of women. When I

questioned him as to whether or not that was just in the building

[division] or the company as a whole, he couldn’t answer. He said, “So

they’ve really gotta look at ways that we can employ more females.” One

of the ways that they’ve decided they can do that is that they’ve noticed

there’s a lot of female electricians. So, even though we don’t do any

electrical work ourselves, he doesn’t see any reason why they can’t take

on an electrician. (Gail, Commercial Manager)

The capability of women

The other point Gail made in relation to this incident, is that gender targets are framed around women only. Both Raymond and Gail’s quotes show that by framing gender targets around women, a perceived female lack of capability is brought into focus. Indeed in Raymond’s view, only women who are exceptional and above the norm or men should be recruited. This reasoning assumes that all men are of similar capability and they set the bar that women need to reach and exceed. Both examples also highlight the perception that increasing the number of women means putting fairness to one side. Senior females on staff suggest that a focus on targets alone

124 without any explanation or strategy, may pave the way to resistance from male employees, with men fearing they will lose their next appointment to a woman.

Equally, without any proper scrutiny of existing recruitment practices, the appointment of women in the future may be perceived as illegitimate. Reflecting again on the meeting, Gail captures this view:

I think he managed to convince every man in the room that the next job

that does go to a female over a male will be because Can-do need to get

their percentages up - not because she’s actually worth it. On the way,

back I said to the car full of men, “What did you think about what Tom

said about the [gender diversity]” And they said, “Well we know that the

next job is gonna go to a female.” … at the admin level that has no

effect, but on this job where there’s six section managers and there’s one

female, and they’re all vying for a job on the [next project] … So [Tom]’s

just put the wind up a room full of people that don’t employ anyone and

have no influence on anything. (Gail, Commercial Manager)

Managers within Can-do Constructions appear to have a varied understanding and readiness for change in relation to gender equality, and this appears to have translated into how the company addresses gender equality (also reflected in vignette 4.d and

4.e). Ownership of gender equality and gender targets within the division appears to be vague, with both HR managers and operations managers resisting responsibility

(and see vignette 4.h). Rachel in her role in the division’s senior management also observed that there was no sanction or reward currently attached to gender targets, despite an expectation for regional managers to report against them. Rachel’s interview reveals that this practice may change, as there were plans to link manager bonuses to gender targets in 2017. The specifics of this arrangement, according to

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Rachel, remain unclear and were notably absent from the discussions at the division’s

Gender Diversity Strategy Day.

4.5 DISCUSSION

Women’s access to construction careers persists as a problem at Can-do

Constructions. This problem has largely been viewed as resulting from too few women choosing to enter the industry. As this chapter has shown, however, the cause of the problem is not so straightforward. Notwithstanding Can-do is continuing to recruit narrowly from traditional tertiary degrees, there is undoubtedly a ‘pipeline’ problem in the Australian construction sector that cannot be ignored

(WGEA, 2016c, 2017). An overemphasis on the ‘pipeline’ however, has hidden the existence of other gendered problems associated with recruitment. In this section, I add to the existing knowledge base by emphasising the gender dynamics in the recruitment process at Can-do and by introducing the masculine privilege dimension into the discussion.

My study finds itself in agreement with scholarly literature on the barriers to women’s entry into construction. Like Moore (2006), I found that company managers emphasised women’s individual career and education choices, ignoring the image problem of the industry itself. In line with Abigail Powell (2006, 2009), I found that women and men choose construction careers for similar reasons: for the pay, professional development and satisfaction. I found, however, that managers responsible for recruitment routinely treat men and women applicants differently, pigeonholing women into different categories – those who are suitable for a construction career and those who are not – while leaving men’s suitability unquestioned.

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As with the analysis of Andrew Dainty et al. (2000a), I too found that the recruitment process for women was more problematic than for men, both in terms of their entry into the industry and their subsequent attempts to be recruited internally on projects.

Just, as Dainty et al (2000b), had, I found that the process of recruitment still carries gender bias. Women are expected to be better than, not equal to men. Turning to the

Recruitment Policy and practice, my findings align with the observation from French and Strachan (2013) that most recruitment policies merely state they treated candidates equally, with little detail on measures in force to curtail discrimination. I also observed that Can-do replicates the recruitment structure and process described in the Dainty et al. (2000a) research where HR is largely bypassed and the responsibility for recruitment left to operations managers.

4.5.1 RECRUITMENT ‘RULES-IN-USE’

In addition to these findings, my research also revealed that recruitment practices in construction were more complicated than existing literature suggests. I observed that recruitment involves a complex interaction between formal policy and informal rules, both of which are permeated with by gender norms. Graduate and external recruitment appears to be guided by formal policy. In contrast, it is the informal male networks that help candidates access the company and put in a good word for them.

I found generally that Can-do’s Recruitment Policy encourages employee referrals, which help men ‘get their foot in the door’. This disadvantages candidates with no links to informal male networks, meaning most women, leaving them to measure up against formal standards often not applied to men with references. In short, I found in their present form, that graduate and external recruitment practices have a gendered effect (Gains and Lowndes, 2014).

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My research also found the company’s Recruitment Policy was opaque, with critical gaps in the recruitment process: interview style and format, number of questions, put by whom and criteria of assessment (Raiden and Sempik, 2012). Moreover, interviewees were assessed by gendered actors, predominantly men. Like Dainty et al.

(2000a), I found that operations managers, all male, were the gatekeepers who finally determine the candidate ‘fit’. In my study, I discovered in line with the literature that

‘fit’ is based on gendered norms that privilege masculinity and reward male candidates for their predictability (Kanter, 1977, Bjarnegård, 2009).

Advancing the literature, however, I found that recruitment ‘rules-in-use’ are inherently gendered in ways that advantage men’s recruitment in construction. Unlike in graduate and external recruitment, I found that the ‘rules-in-use’ that guide internal recruitment are largely informal. Internal recruitment at Can-do appears to combine

‘word-of-mouth’ recruitment as described in literature (Dainty et al., 2000a, Fielden et al., 2000) with the practice of team leaders ‘picking their team’ and ‘taking their team with them’. While academic literature including Raiden and Sempik (2012) and

Moore (2006) highlights the widespread use of informal recruitment amongst men and the challenge women face in informal practices, it does not discuss the gendered dynamics of internal recruitment. In my study, candidates and their referees must be seen to reflect gendered rules of masculinity such as predictability, reliability, authority, strength and technical competency to prove they fit. Additionally, my research found that internal recruitment appears to be structured around a system of homosociality and loyalty between male construction professionals. These professionals form strategic alliances, including bonds between team leaders and their chosen candidates. Operating through tacit rules, recruitment at Can-do seems to be

128 perpetuated by gendered actors who themselves seem to benefit from the same practice.

4.5.2 RECRUITMENT: GENDERED ‘RULES-IN-USE’

Francesca Gains and Vivien Lowndes (2014) remind us that rules are gendered in different ways. Rules may have a gendered effect, rules themselves may be gendered and gendered actors work with the rules. Focusing on gendered effects, I have observed all three ways that recruitment ‘rules-in-use’ have different gendered dimensions that serve to maintain men’s overrepresentation in recruitment.

Throughout the research, I never observed any able-bodied men of European appearance whose ‘fit’ was brought into question. They just seem to blend in. Not so men of Asian appearance who, I observed, occasionally in the recruitment process have their robustness and authority questioned by senior men of European appearance. On these occasions, race got in the way of ‘fit’. Like gender, race cannot be hidden. In most cases, however, men’s ‘fit’ went without comment. Stella Nkomo

(1992) adds to Joan Acker’s (1990) work by noting that just as organisations are never gender neutral, nor are they race neutral. For women, their ‘fit’ was commented on, discussed and analysed, even categorised by managers, peers and even other women. Meanwhile men’s capability was not only assumed, it set the standard against which women were measured, and which they were expected to exceed.

Unlike women who were held to the highest scrutiny and recruited using formal rules, men were able to use both the formal and informal rules to their advantage because men, as gendered actors, make and control the ‘rules-in-use’. Across each level of recruitment, men are given the power to recruit, select and appoint candidates. 129

Even men who are not in positions of power are usually complicit and advantaged by this practice. To paraphrase Michael Kimmel (2013, p. xiii), ‘men have been running downhill, with the wind in their backs’ under the existing recruitment ‘rules-in-use’.

In recruitment at Can-do, men as a group enjoy an institutional privilege at the expense of women as a group (Messner, 1997).

4.5.3 ACTS OF PRIVILEGE IN RECRUITMENT

It is my argument that a lack of attention to the ‘rules-in-use’ by Can-do HR policy authors and senior executive managers and the way these affect women’s recruitment

- their gendered effects – is a result of masculine privilege. As the following commentary highlights, this privilege shows its face through a culture of denial and backlash and resistance.

A culture of denial is obvious at Can-do in its narrow problematisation of women’s recruitment. This is seen purely as an issue associated with women’s individual and educational choices, leaving the rules of recruitment and men’s overrepresentation unexamined. Denial is also clear in the way managers seem oblivious to the gendered nature of recruitment and the consequences of narrow recruitment practices. One example of this is recruiting from only traditional construction degrees to the exclusion of business, architecture and interior design degrees. Another is leaving recruitment largely to the discretion of male managers. Further examples are the insidious practice of assessing a candidate’s ‘fit’ and not acknowledging the power of strategic alliances in the recruitment process. Acts of denial are refusing to accept construction’s image as a deterrent to women’s recruitment, its historical resistance to women and the challenge it has in retaining and promoting women within a construction career.

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Resistance to change is also in evidence in the recruitment practices at Can Do

Constructions. The company’s focus on increasing women’s representation through ill-considered, toothless gender targets standing in isolation to existing recruitment practices suggests that the matter of women’s recruitment is not being taken seriously and points to acts of institutional resistance (Lombardo and Mergaert, 2013). As

Powell et al. (2006) and Chappell and Waylen (2013) predicted, initiatives aimed at raising women’s numbers alone may have negligible success in transforming construction’s recruitment outcomes if, at the same time, practices that maintain men’s overrepresentation are not addressed. Hooper (2001) reminds us that in traditionally male dominated sectors, ‘swapping’ female for male bodies will offer little disruption if the existing gendered practices and norms remain untouched.

Unlike women, there are no targets to address men’s advantage. It leaves the ‘rules- in-use’ in place and the notion of ‘merit’ unchallenged. Resistance grips onto the gender status quo to keep it firmly in place.

Probably the strongest evidence of resistance is the stagnation of women’s numbers across all company targets since these were set in 2011. In the Building Division, the unwillingness of senior managers and leaders to set targets on site positions which might challenge the leadership status quo suggests resistance. Instead of raising gender targets on divisional managers, management has deemed it acceptable to put the emphasis on increasing the number of women in the least powerful roles such as positions for university graduates. This resistance aligns with Michael Kimmel (2013) proposition that privilege assumes the entitlement to occupy leadership roles. The inability of senior executive managers - including operational managers and project leaders – to agree on a coherent gender diversity strategy and clear enforcement mechanisms points to a passive resistance to women’s entitlement to gain status and

131 power equal to men in the company. The use of scornful humour by male managers and male participants as well as attitudes of offhandedness and avoidance when gender equality is discussed – most notably at the Gender Diversity Strategy Day – further portrays a sense of discomfort and resistance. As Jacqueline Watts (2007c, p.

259) reminds us, humour can be used as a mechanism of social exclusion, as humour does not ‘officially’ count or get taken to task and operates as a form of resistance.

When there is a fear that the power balance is being threatened or eroded, the privileged often push back and resist measures (Rosenblum and Travis, 1996, Flood and Pease, 2005). At Can-do, moves to introduce targets on women were viewed as a shift away from the entrenched method of recruitment that had worked so well for men. Gender targets hit directly at men’s sense of entitlement to hold positions of power. Men saw them as giving women something they were not quite entitled to

(Flood and Pease, 2005). This matches the point made in research by Powell et al.

(2012) and McIlwee and Robinson (1992) who reported that participants felt women were afforded advantages in construction, but not ‘unfair advantage.’ Claims at Can

Do of women’s ‘unfair advantage’ reflects what Thomas and Plaut (2008) describe as an emotional loss of entitlement. Yet, while men might feel disadvantaged with the introduction of targets, their legitimacy as construction professionals is not being questioned.

I am conscious that privilege is relational and not only influenced by gender. I acknowledge in my study, that men of Asian appearance do not seem to travel as easily through the recruitment process as men from a European background. They are more likely to have their ‘fit’ questioned and, like other social groups, they lend themselves to marginalisation in the recruitment process. Similarly, I heard protests from one participant, a site manager, about the ‘fairness’ of Can-do’s Indigenous

132 apprenticeship recruitment initiative. Murray and Bjarnegård (Forthcoming) also emphasise that for men who do not meet the masculine ideal, a dual problem emerges. They do not benefit from the advantages associated with their sex, but they are also seldom recognized as being disadvantaged by their gender. Although I did not observe this in my study, it is important to highlight that initiatives focused on building the number of women alone rather than breaking down the hegemonic masculine codes that shape the recruitment ‘rules-in-use’ are necessary if construction companies are serious about improving their gender equality and recruiting the best talent.

In summary, the pipeline problem highlighted by other researchers is real. So are the other aspects of disadvantage raised elsewhere: gender bias, informal recruitment practices and weak gender diversity policies. What this research provides, however, is a new level of complexity. It outlines the gender dynamics in the process of recruitment for construction. My research has shown that the ‘rules-in-use’ at Can-do reinforce rather than shift these dynamics. I have shown that the formal and informal rules at Can-do reinforce gendered practices which disadvantage women. I have also shown that these processes maintain masculine privilege. They are reflected in a culture of denial and acts of resistance and backlash.

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5 THE LEAKY PIPE: THE PROBLEM OF WOMEN’S RETENTION

5.1 INTRODUCTION

In the construction industry, the poor participation rate for women is compounded by poor retention rates. As noted in Chapter 1, the early enthusiasm of women for a construction career wanes as their exposure to the industry increases. Retaining women in construction careers is a significant problem. The decision to leave a career in construction means abandoning years of personal investment in education and training. Construction companies do not benefit from women’s departure either.

Turnover of staff equates to a loss of talent and intellectual property and it exacerbates the industry’s skills shortage. This chapter draws attention to how the formal and informal ‘rules-in-use’ in construction have a gendered dynamic that acts to exclude women from the sector and ultimately undermines women’s retention. A key finding of this chapter is that there exists a culture of denial that ignores the gendered effect of formal rules by prioritising project delivery, long work hours, presenteeism and total availability. It also ignores the effect these practices have on women’s retention. Furthermore, formal company rules focused on flexibility, parental leave and anti-harassment that are targeted at addressing women’s high turnover have little sway in the face of the institutional denial and individual backlash positioned against women’s inclusion. Together these acts of masculine privilege enhance men’s hold on power and keep the construction industry a male space.

This chapter is split into four sections:

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 Section 5.2 outlines how the literature interprets the problem of women’s

retention in construction roles.

 Section 5.3 and 5.4 focus on the study of Can-do Constructions. This study

details the gendered dynamics between the formal company rules and the

informal practices known as ‘rules-in-use’, and their effect on women’s

retention in construction careers.

 Finally, in Section 5.5, I return to existing literature and discuss how my

findings compare. I conclude this chapter by suggesting that masculine

privilege through a culture of denial and backlash, has an undeniable

influence on a woman’s decision to abandon her career in construction.

5.2 PROBLEMATISING THE LEAKY PIPE

Academic literature paints a grim picture of the problem of women’s retention. This is understandable, given that the participation rate for women has declined in the last decade from 17 per cent to 11 per cent despite a steadiness in the number of women entering construction related tertiary degrees (WGEA, 2016c, 2017). By any measure, construction continues to be male dominated and those women who do choose a career in the industry are more likely to leave their jobs than men (Professionals

Australia, 2007). Scholars have broadly identified three main reasons why women leave: (1) rigid work practices, (2) a male dominated and masculine construction culture, and (3) weak policy responses from management. This chapter adds to existing knowledge by emphasising the gender dynamics of retention and introducing a dimension of masculine privilege to this discussion.

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5.2.1 RIGID WORK PRACTICES

Construction’s traditional male career models and work practices have been identified as the first barrier to women’s retention. The industry is characterised by long work hours, project oriented work, geographical mobility, unbroken career paths and the expectation of total availability. It is against these work benchmarks that employee’s value is measured (Fielden et al., 2000, Watts, 2007a, Barnard et al.,

2010, 2012, Francis, 2017, 2007). Anything other than making work one’s life is interpreted as a lack of commitment to career, profession and company (Watts,

2007a, Lingard and Francis, 2007, Barnard et al., 2010). As Watts (2007a, p. 40) concludes, these workplace expectations of employees are ‘gendered assumptions grounded in idealised images of masculinity.’ These expectations are rigidly enforced and, although construction companies have in place ‘family friendly’ policies such as parental leave, employees of either gender who do not comply risk stigma and difficulties in their career progression (Barnard et al., 2010, Watts, 2007c, Sang et al.,

2014). Andrew Dainty et al. (2000a) conclude that for women in the construction industry as elsewhere, the burden of carrying the bulk of society’s care responsibilities leaves them with a stark choice between career and family. At those points where caregiving is required, women begin to drift away from the construction sector.

5.2.2 MALE DOMINATED AND MASCULINE CONSTRUCTION CULTURE

The second barrier to women’s retention is the construction industry’s ‘boy’s own culture’ (Fielden et al., 2000, p. 118) where women are routinely ‘othered’ through the use of humour, language and behaviour (Faulkner, 2006, Watts, 2007b, Sang and

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Powell, 2012a). According to Bagilhole et al. (2008) and Faulkner (2009a) inappropriate humour in construction that is risqué or sexist in nature is often shrugged off as harmless. This practice confirms women’s place is on the outside

(Bagilhole et al., 2008, Faulkner, 2009a). Faulkner (2009a) adds that while swearing is an accepted norm, it also serves as a marker of belonging used by both men and women (but not always appreciated by both). The usual quaint paternal apology to women for swearing that occurs in front of them is another symptom of construction’s gendered culture. Moreover, through the use of sex based language including the generic ‘he’, women are made to feel like invisible ‘non-entities’ in construction (Faulkner, 2006).

Also, literature points to the practice of routinely scheduling company and industry social events outside work hours (inconvenient times for carers) and focusing the events around stereotypically male interests like beer, football and golf (Watts, 2007a,

Faulkner, 2005, 2009a, Sang et al., 2014). Literature reveals that some women faced with these signals of exclusion and attempting to ‘belong’, resort to survival tactics that sometimes involve ‘undoing’ their gender and adopting anti-woman stances

(Faulkner, 2000, Powell et al., 2009). Miller (2002) for example, found that Canadian women engineers espoused beliefs and values consistent with the masculine value system that is viewed as the key to success in engineering companies. While some women might try to ‘act like one of the boys’ however, they continue to be treated as women and discriminated against. This is evidenced through inequitable remuneration and poor career advancement (Francis, 2017, Hunt, 2016). The lack of any challenge from the mostly male senior managers to sexist behaviour and discrimination against women has the effect of legitimising these exclusionary practices (Fielden et al., 2000). According to Dainty and Lingard (2006) and Francis

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(2017), frequently out of frustration with their treatment and lack of career progression, women decide to abandon their construction careers.

5.2.3 WEAK POLICY RESPONSES

Academic literature points to a third barrier to women’s poor retention, the construction company’s ‘superficial’ (Greed, 2000, p. 192) and narrowly focused policy responses to women’s exclusion. French and Strachan (2013) find that, despite gender equity becoming an accepted demand from employees and the government introducing legislation to address sexual harassment and discrimination, only a small proportion of construction companies have allocated resources and developed policies to achieve gender equity. From these companies, the policy responses have largely been centred on women16 rather than on their own masculine work practices and culture (Greed, 2000, Sang and Powell, 2012a, Galea et al., 2015). Dainty and

Lingard (2006) observe that construction companies have traditionally shied away from providing child care provisions, flexible work hours, career break programs, part-time work and alternate career pathways. Nor are they keen to address short- focused project resourcing decisions for women or men. In practice, ‘family friendly’ and ‘flexibility’ policies are still viewed as a ‘woman’s issue’ and carry a career cost if put to use (Barnard et al., 2010, Sang et al., 2014). French and Strachan (2013) found that construction’s gender diversity policies including parental leave allowances generally met the minimum legislative requirements but rarely exceed them.

16 The literature suggests that gender equality initiatives used by construction companies include gender reporting, making the business case for gender diversity, raising awareness of women’s career opportunities in the construction industry, establishing support networks and training for women, promoting women mentors and role models and introducing flexible work policies (Galea et al. 2015, Sang and Powell 2012, Greed 2000).

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It is clear from the literature that women are leaving construction because of family responsibilities, the lack of flexibility, discrimination, exclusion and inadequate corporate policy responses. Although academic literature makes a strong case for construction companies to introduce work life balance, flexibility and paid parental leave (Lingard and Francis, 2004), they have been slow to take up of policies of this nature. This has created a gap in the literature in determining the effectiveness of such formal policies on construction sites and gauging their effect, if any, on women’s retention. I contend that literature highlights the effect construction norms

(long hours, presenteeism, and total availability) have on women’s retention, but overlooks the effectiveness on site of formal company policies like paid parental leave in retaining women.

For the most part, literature has focused on construction’s masculine culture and its effect on women. It has paid little attention however, to the way men (and some women) collaborate to maintain construction’s masculine culture. More specifically, it has failed to examine the role hegemonic masculinity plays in the constant exclusion and resulting low retention of women. Raewyn Connell’s (2002) hegemonic masculinity lens has been applied to architects (Sang et al., 2014) and the blue collar trades (Iacuone, 2005) but not to white collar professionals in construction.

Academic literature has yet to run a concurrent study of gender and the rules to work out the gendered dynamics of the ‘rules-in-use’ and determine whether, by their very nature, they act to privilege men over women. Although scholars have pointed to construction’s ‘masculine culture’ as acting against women, none have explained how the ‘rules-in-use’ by systematically privileging men over women, act to undermine women’s retention. My contribution to existing knowledge is in emphasising the gender dynamics of employee retention at Can-do and introducing a masculine

139 privilege dimension to this discussion. Filling this gap of knowledge is a prerequisite to formulating transformative policy responses.

5.3 RULES OF THE GAME

The retention of female employees is a real issue for Can-do Constructions. Unlike for recruitment, there is no overarching employee retention policy despite numerous company policies shaping work place expectations on construction sites (as noted in vignette 5.b). To understand the employee experience and the reason why women leave construction careers, this section will define the formal and informal rules that shape workplace practices. It will then progress to a discussion on the gendered nature of these rules and practices. It will explain how they act on women’s sense of inclusion in the construction sector and result in undermining their retention.

By way of context, I begin with a selection of vignettes. The first, vignette 5.a is from the Can-do Constructions’ Building Division Gender Diversity Strategy Day. At this event, 40 selected company ‘leaders’ came together to discuss and strategise the issue of gender diversity reform. The problem of women’s inclusion and retention was raised throughout the day. Female employees account for just 17 per cent of Can- do’s Building Division. This low level of participation appears to be a problem for

Can-do yet, as vignette 5.a reveals, women’s turnover has never been measured or analysed.

Following the vignettes, I will discuss the formal rules at Can-do that appear to affect work practices and employee retention.

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5.a) Why do we lose them?

As I step out of the lift I am greeted by a floor to ceiling

artwork: “Gender Diversity – Can-do Construction”. This is

the Building Division’s Gender Diversity Strategy Day.

Moving through the corridor I approach a large room filled

with bright colours and sparse furnishing. My eyes are

drawn inside the room to a large bowl of Minties, small

fridges of fizzy drink and a soft toy Kangaroo. It strikes me

that the room looks more like a kindergarten than an office

space. A young casually dressed woman hands me a name

tag and directs me to a locker with my name on it. I am

surprised to see no picture of an apple or cat beside it like

in my kinder days, but like speaking to an infant the

woman asked to put my bag and mobile phone in the

locker.

I am drawn to long elegant scrolls dangling from the

ceiling. Each scroll has a quote printed on it. The quote

describes the experience of women in the Can-do

Constructions business. The first quote I read,

acknowledges the transformation of construction away

from the nudie girl posters, Christmas parties at topless

bars and executive assistants being propositioned late at

night in the photocopy room. The quote continues, “All

this was very present when I began in 1992 – I no longer

observe/hear of such incidents”. The next quote makes the

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case for change: greater innovation, better collaboration

and empathy for colleagues and customers. It concludes

that for gender diversity to occur, change would be

required and people in construction would need to “engage

with others in a way that we haven’t done before.”

I move from one scroll to another. I am surprised by the

brutal honesty of these women but not by their feelings of

frustration. I am also surprised that their brutal honesty is

on show for everyone to read.

One scroll describes how a woman was told by her male

line manager that she had been selected for a management

development program because they needed more women

on the program. Her excitement came and left because she

realised that she was “the token woman”. The scroll beside

this describes the experience of another woman who had

been invited to collaborate on a tender. This woman was

left wondering what her role on the tender was. Her male

colleagues told her she was the token woman and it was her

task to “sit there and twinkle at” the client.

My concentration is interrupted by the Rolling Stones.

‘Start me up’ plays and a team of facilitators usher me and

40 of Can-do’s people of influence – 25 men and 15 women

- into an amphitheatre erected in the centre of the room. As

I look around I recognise I am one of the oldest women in

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the room; most are under 45. The men, on the other hand,

are either weathered by the construction site or aged over

40. There is a good sprinkling of men in their 50s and 60s

too.

After introducing herself and the objective of the day, the

facilitator asks the room two questions: what was your first

reaction when you read the quotes on the scrolls and how

do you feel about gender diversity at Can-do Construction?

Many of the men express their shock at what they read on

the scrolls. “I can’t believe people say these things” says

one. Although the discussion is calm and considered, it

skips quickly from disbelief to the value and capability of

women. Women’s value and capability are repeated

throughout the day: framed as conversations about

women’s confidence, their management capability and the

effect of part-time work on their ability to deliver

construction projects.

The conversation moves from the scrolls to the issue of

women’s retention. One man ponders aloud, “Why do we

lose some? Is it [because] all they see is bashing? Bashing

and the hours?” Another man turns to the human resources

manager and asks, “What do the exit interviews say

regarding why people leave the business?” The human

resources manager for the Building Division stands up and

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makes his way to the front of the amphitheatre. He explains

that obtaining quality knowledge from exit interviews is

difficult because people do not provide honest reasons for

fear of ‘burning [their] bridges’. He then adds an

observation. When he has seen people leave Can-do for

whatever reason their peers subject them to a character

assassination. He finds this unfair. Not lingering on this

point, a woman sitting close to me asks him what the

gender split is for employee departures. The human

resources manager explains that the company does not

conduct a gender analysis of employee turnover; women

and men are grouped together.

Vignette 5.b which features next, reflects on the physical presence and priority given to company policies and provides an introduction to the formal rules that shape work place behaviour at Can-do. Woven into this discussion are the informal rules that together, in this case, produce the ‘rules-in-use’ fixing expectations on employee behaviour. The gendered dynamic of the ‘rules-in-use’ can be noticed throughout the discussion and will be revisited later in the analysis section.

5.b) Making it to the site office wall

A mosaic of policies greets me at the entrance to the site

office. Thirteen laminated A4 company policy statements

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huddled together with blu tack17 in full view of the site

team. The policies are flanked by enlarged copies of the

contract drawings, a project staging diagram, programs

and an artist’s impression of the completed job. I was not

surprised that the policies were showcased like this; it was

the norm on each site I visited. What differed from project

to project was which policies the project leader had chosen

to showcase. On this large project, the following policies

made the site office wall: the company values, the

environmental, health and safety policy, rehabilitation

policy, employee learning, smoke free workplace policy,

Indigenous participation plan, quality policy, industrial

relations policy and the company Code of Conduct.

However, on all three sites I visited, I noticed that no

diversity policy, sexual harassment, sexual discrimination,

or parental leave policy made the wall. Then again, I

wondered if I was the only one noticing the policies on the

wall…as people sped past me.

From the data, I have identified four formal rules that shape work practise at Can-do:

Code of Conduct, Operating Principles, the Employment Contract and the

Construction Contract. All rules are authored and issued by different Can-do departments including legal, human resources, safety and the company’s Employee

Foundation. They come in the form of contract, code or policy. While all rules are in

17 Reusable sticky putty commonly used to attach lightweight objects to walls.

145 writing and communicated formally within the company, they are not valued equally.

This is largely because of the informal rules in operation.

5.3.1 THE CODE OF CONDUCT

The Code of Conduct provided to me by Can-do Constructions – (Appendix A, No.

4) is authored by the Board of Directors and outlines the standards of behaviour expected by the business and its employees. Behavioural standards are measured against the company’s six core values of collaboration, respect, integrity, excellence, trust and innovation. The Code of Conduct reaffirms the company’s equal opportunity policy and harassment and bullying policy, clearly stating that:

every employee has the right to be treated equally and with respect,

dignity and courtesy… to come to a work place that is free of

discrimination and harassment… we must not engage in behaviour that

intimidates, offends, degrades or humiliates a colleague…

It makes provision for breaches of the Code of Conduct to result in unspecified disciplinary action possibly leading to employee termination.

5.3.2 THE OPERATING PRINCIPLES

The other formal rule that guides employee and business behaviour is the company’s

Operating Principles issued to me by Can-do Constructions (Appendix A, No. 29).

Four Operating Principles are said to guide Can-do’s conduct in business, these are

Safety, Sustainability, Diversity and Inclusion and Customer Focus. According to

Executive General Manager Troy, Can-do was struck off the government tender lists a decade ago in response to its high fatality record. This crisis marked a turning point

146 for the company. Ever since then, the principle of safety has occupied centre stage and been woven into all the company’s practices and language. According to participants, safety is the most valued operating principle, coming first among the four. Safety in this context means protection from physical danger. It does not include the psychological consequences of harassment, bullying or fatigue from working long hours, despite these being identified as potential sources of harm. As

Troy sees it:

We would all like to say that our principles are equal – [diversity] doesn't

get the air play you know. Safety has strong airplay and it's hard to top it,

for good reason. First and foremost we don't want to hurt anybody

regardless of who they are, and we don't want to hurt the public– you

can't avoid it. Then everything else is vying for second spot ... (Troy,

Executive General Manager)

On Can-do Construction sites, the company’s Values and Operating Principles are ubiquitous. Screensavers, posters and email alerts on the intranet constantly reaffirm these rules. Despite this, they do not seem to form part of the ‘rules-in-use’ that guide how people work, unlike the construction contract and the employment contract which will be examined next. First though, here are three vignettes that capture how work practices are ruled by the construction contract. Vignette 5.c also demonstrates the division between head office and construction site, while vignettes

5.d and 5.f highlight the power of the construction contract on workers’ lives.

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5.3.3 THE CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT

5.c) The plush and the push

It is four o’clock on the ground floor of head office. People

pour into the large and open space. Natural light bounces

off the dramatic cut of Sydney sandstone that acts as both

feature wall and structure. The absence of construction

clothing at this event is noticeable; men wear business

attire and women wear skirts and suit jackets. The

‘Welcome Crew’ who are identified by their t-shirts wander

through the crowd smiling. At the rear of the room and in

the corners, drinks and food stations provide refreshments

including beer, wine and freshly squeezed orange juice. In

the centre of the room, a table overflows with Lego pieces

and semi-constructed buildings. Small cards on the table

ask, ‘what should our future work place look like?’ I wonder

whether anyone in the room is thinking about the

construction site as a workplace.

At the front of the room, four large TV screens

simultaneously show a fly-through of the new head office

under construction. The CEO, climbs upon a podium

wearing a t-shirt printed ‘Nextplace’ over his business shirt.

He reminds the room that safety is our priority and we all

must drink in moderation at this event. He then excitedly 148

explains to the audience that the first construction

milestone of the head office building has just been

completed. The company has handed over a floor in the

head office building to another company. ‘What a moment

of pride it’s been to hand over to our first customer’, he

says. “Yes, we finished at 11pm with one hour to

spare…but we still finished on time.” The room responds

with laughter.

The next milestone is the completion of our floor. “We’ll

move in when our construction team hands it over.”

There was no response from the construction team; they

were too busy to attend the event. The flashy

‘corporateness’ of this company event seems so distant

from the unpretentious feeling of the construction site

across the road. It was two worlds within one.

5.d) The project cycle of survival

Two of the people I shadowed on site were smoking. The

smoke breaks punctuated our day and gave me a chance to

get to know them better. I ask Howard, a senior project

engineer what his last project was. “It’s the hardest project

I’ve ever done. We worked huge hours. We got smashed.

The program was tight and we were running behind,” he

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says. The project was then hit by floods and cyclones and

industrial relations problems with the union. “That choked

us.” Each week, a team member left: “They couldn’t cop

it”. Some employees got better offers from other

contractors. It was during the mining boom: labour and

housing was hard to come by. But Howard stayed until the

end of the project. As he stubs out his cigarette, I ask him if

he would work on a project like that again, now that he has

an eight month old baby? “Maybe not the hours but that’s

what makes it fun; it’s hard. Every day’s a different

challenge. The hardness makes it great.” Walking back into

the site office, Howard scans the open office. “This project

is in the honeymoon period, the same shit will happen

here.”

5.e) An economy of favours

We had a meeting at 12 o’clock in the site office with all the

sub-contractors. It was held in a dingy office that stood in

stark contrast to the main Can-do site office and reflected

the power hierarchies between the Can-do professionals on-

site and the sub-contractors. The meeting went from 12 to

three-thirty. Walter, the construction manager I was

shadowing didn’t stay right to the end of that meeting.

There were two things that struck me from the meeting.

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The first was that alcohol was being used as a carrot in

Walters’s negotiations with the subcontractors. Delivering

on or before schedule meant subcontractors would be

rewarded with a ‘piss-up’ and a meal. Today on site there

was a ‘topping-off’ ceremony to celebrate the final concrete

slab being poured. It would be a big drinks ceremony that

went on all afternoon on-site for the workforce: known as

‘the boys’. The steel contractor told Walter they were

holding drinks at a local pub that afternoon too. I found

this quite striking and contradictory. There were posters on

the site wall highlighting the problem of excessive drinking

and safety and yet there was very much this feeling that

alcohol plays a big part in the workplace.

The other thing I noticed following Walter today was that

his meetings with subcontractors were all about shaving

time off their program. “How long do you reckon it’d take

you to do that pour?” and they’d say, “Oh that’ll be 10

days,” and then the two Can-do managers, would just

laugh at them and say, “Oh get real.” The pinch was on

these subbies. It was almost like a public shaming in that

meeting because, if any of them really wanted to offer up a

realistic timeframe, they were just howled down every

single time.

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Each project has a construction contract. Construction contracts take various forms and the projects I visited came under three different types of contract18. The most traditional form of contract is fixed lump sum.19 This type of contract places the emphasis on the project completion date and provides for hefty financial penalties should the project not be completed by the contracted date20. Time therefore equals money.

Can-do did not issue me with any contract documents but participants on each site I visited openly spoke about their contract type and the key contract terms. These include the program completion date, the management fee percentage and if applicable, the daily overrun penalty known as liquidated damages. Participants on site may not know the company Values and Operating Principles from memory, but they can readily recite the key contract conditions and project completion date. At

Can-do as vignette 5.c reveals, there is a clear expectation that project completion will be a priority, no matter what the contract type. Even on projects that do not penalise Can-do for running overtime, project leaders still seem to run their work as if they do. To ensure all employees are on board with the project delivery, project leaders are incentivised for project delivery21. It was clear from my on-site observations and interviews that the program to completion sets the tempo and intensity of work on site.

18 The three projects visited had different forms of construction contract: managing contract, public private partnership and fixed lump sum. 19 Also known as ‘hard dollar’. This may take the delivery model of ‘construct only’ or ‘design and construct’. 20 Other forms of construction contracts include construction management, managing contractor with a cost plus fixed or percentage fee, schedule of rates, guaranteed maximum price, alliance and public private partnership. 21 As revealed in Event 6, Can-do Gender Diversity Strategy Day (Appendix B)

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Aggressive behaviour

In the drive to meet the project completion date, it was observed that some forms of aggressive behaviour by the project leaders and site team directed at other team members and subcontractors were tolerated and even encouraged (see vignette 5.e).

[There is only] one management technique which was to push. As

everyone does at Can-do, there’s no varying... (Gail, Commercial

Manager)

We get, we constantly get told to get angry at subbies (Jane, Site

Engineer)

Most participants claimed they had either witnessed or suffered from abusive behaviour (see vignette 5.a). I did not witness physical violence at Can-do, although sometimes it seemed to be only inches away. Those delivering the abuse were seldom sanctioned and in most cases managers and peers looked on in silence. Coercion and consensus often seem to go hand in hand, as Project Engineer Sinead recounts:

I remember when I was working on the first job…the foreman came in

the site office …and he ripped shreds off me for something. He just

stood up in his big foreman way, and stood over my desk, and yelled at

me. He just ripped shreds off me. I was just horrified because I’d come

from an all-girls school and I’d gone through a very pleasant university

upbringing and I’d worked in offices before and people may have

disagreed on stuff but no-one ever yelled at each other…. The project

manager…didn’t even raise his eyes. (Sinead, Project Manager)

Participants (Site Manager Jarred, Project Design Manager Fay and Site Manager Bob to name a few) label this dominant, aggressive behaviour as ‘old school’. Yet it is 153 evident that this ‘school’ of behaviour exists very much in the present despite running counter to the company values and its Code of Conduct.

On site I observed that meetings occupy much of the time of participants and, although they are widely attended, they generally have just one or two speakers. This suggests a command and control format. My observations are echoed by Carly:

We have team meetings…the only people who talk are two bosses in the

room. No one else talks. (Carly, Project Manager)

Meetings, especially with subcontractors, seem to be a primary arena for driving the program of work, resolving issues and performing masculinity (see vignette 5.e). The subcontractor meetings I attended were often pantomimes where Can-do professionals put their stamp of authority and control on display and where alcohol and public shaming seem to be the instrument of choice. Though the construction contracts on some Can-do projects do not carry heavy penalties for late completion22, the use and acceptance of aggressive, domineering behaviour to drive the project’s completion remains one of the ‘rules-in-use’.

As noted above, many participants describe this behaviour as ‘old school’. Some even boast about it and others emulate it. A group of women and men reported to me that they were uncomfortable with the abusive and aggressive behaviour on site. Yet, while they may have shown me their discomfort through their comments and body language, no one actually made a stand against it. I describe this type of behaviour in more detail in Chapter 6 (see Vignette 6.f). I argue that for women and men, the practice of aggressively negotiating with peers and subcontractors has gendered implications. I found that for men to imitate this behaviour was almost

154 unremarkable. It may even serve to improve their ‘fit’ in the team. I did not witness any men condemning this type of aggressive behaviour when I witnessed it. I suggest that if they had, it would have meant them falling outside the hegemonic masculine code, leaving them open to being labelled ‘soft’. I conclude therefore that the ‘rules- in-use’ that permit aggressive dominant behaviour act through a gendered process of consensus and coercion to enforce compliance, especially among male workers.

Women and men alike were complicit in the aggressive behaviour. Some women told me they were being encouraged to ramp up their aggression, but I found women faced a predicament placing them in an uncomfortable position no matter how they responded. If they appeared too aggressive, they were chastised as ‘emotional’ and

‘overreacting’. If they seemed too gentle, they were seen as lacking the drive to push the program of work forward. In the face of aggressive confrontations, women reported that their biggest fear was of shedding tears in front of a male peer or a subcontractor. If a woman cries publicly she irretrievably loses her legitimacy as a construction professional. Faced with this fear of never ‘fitting in’, women have devised tactics to negotiate their way through an aggressive work place.

There’s been some situations where I’ve had to walk away because I

don’t want them to see me crying, because they’ve been yelling at me.

(Bridget, Safety Manager)

We don’t do feelings as engineers.... I’ve got them; I just don’t bring

them to work. (Nicole, Estimating Manager)

22 Such as a management contract.

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She sat me down and said, “Don’t ever cry at work. If you have to cry,

go to the bathroom. Don’t ever let anyone see you.” (Dorothy, Site

Engineer)

Some women suggest that in the face of aggression, non-reaction is the best form of defence. Commercial Manager Evelyn warns, however, that in long term this approach runs the risk of encouraging the cruel sport of ‘breaking women’. This is a practice that pushes women to leave the sector. As Project Manager Carly notes, these gender rules are so pervasive that even with decades of construction experience, women are still subjected to them:

I start asking, “Well is it me? Have I done something wrong?” Even after

25 years in the industry, I still lose my confidence because of the way

that they operate…. they just give you a feel that you are incompetent.

(Carly, Project Manager)

In the long term, those who apply the ‘rules-in-use’ that call on aggressive interaction to drive a program, deny these have a negative effect on women’s retention. The

‘rules-in-use’ leave most women and no doubt many men exhausted. I believe these rules contribute to their low job satisfaction and the decision to leave their career in construction. The drive to finish a project on time and meet the contractual requirements creates the expectation of extended work hours. Working conditions are formalised in the Can-do Employment Contract and enforced by project leaders, as demonstrated next in vignette 5.f. As vignette 5.g sadly shows, they also exact a real cost on employees’ lives.

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5.3.4 EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT

5.f) Not left guessing

Observable knots of people, often gendered, form in parts

of the site office space including the kitchen, with several

conversations going on about various issues. The site

office is a porous space with nowhere to hide. There is

background discussion about the disastrous Ashes loss.

People are pulled together, buttonholed into this

discussion.

Standing at his desk positioned at the other end of the long

site office, the project director yells across the rows of

heads: ‘See you on Monday, Ronald. Make sure your start

time has an 8 at the front of it’.

Faces look up from their computer screens and heads turn

towards Ronald, the project lawyer. Acknowledging the

comment with a wave of a hand, Ronald leaves for his long

weekend.

This event caps off a day of public ribbing for Ronald.

From the moment he arrives his peers poke fun at his

arrival time on site each morning. Since basing himself on

site, he has been repeatedly pulled into line by the project

director to arrive on site before 8 am, just in case the site 157

team has an issue needing his assistance. No one ever

does, but that doesn’t stop the ribbing.

5.g) The personal cost

I could feel my eyes burn; I fought back a rush of tears.

Standing at the bus stop in the middle of the city, it was

then I realised that I needed to find a kiosk that sold bus

tickets. Physical and emotional exhaustion overwhelmed

me.

I had just spent the day shadowing a site manager on a

large city project and now I was attempting to make my

way by public transport across the city to see my father who

was very ill in hospital.

The long hours on site were one thing but today it was the

openness of an older man, a site manager that caught me

off balance. On our way to smoko23 in a nearby food court,

the site manager disclosed to me that he was suffering

panic attacks each morning on his drive into work. He was

also drinking more heavily than normal and had recently

taken up smoking again. I was surprised by his frankness.

His manner - direct and affable – had already reminded me

of my last manager when I was working in Construction,

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Phil, whose body I had repatriated from Dubai on his death

a few years ago. Phil had a massive heart attack; he was 49

years young.

I bought my bus ticket from a kiosk a short walk from the

bus stop. The tears came as the woman in the kiosk

extended me a gentle smile. As I walked back to the bus

stop, my head low to hide my eyes, it struck me how

difficult it was to carry out two roles in construction; career

and carer. Today, both roles felt unrelenting.

The Employment Contract, a formal rule at Can-do, was provided to me by a participant (noted in Appendix A, No. 34). It sets out the expected workplace behaviour as well as work hours, remuneration, leave entitlement and intellectual property. The contract refers to the Code of Conduct and states that any breach will be taken seriously.

Observing long work hours

On the subject of work hours, the contract reads that line managers will set the work hours for employees and these will ‘generally fall’ between 8.30am and 5.30pm

Monday to Friday with an ordinary work week comprising of 37.5 hours. The contract then specifies that ‘from time to time’ as an employee, you ‘will be required to be flexible in order to meet the requirements of your role…[and] to meet our

23 An Australian term for a tea break or morning tea.

159 changing business needs.’ It concludes that overtime payments for additional hours worked are accounted for in the employee’s total salary package.

In practice, however, none of the participants interviewed or observed on full-time contracts consistently worked anywhere near 37.5 hour a week. The only people who appeared to work a 37.5 hour week were two part-time workers, who were actually contracted to 20 hours per week. As per the employment contract, working hours are set by the project leader. As participants across a range of roles and sites observed as well, the actual hours were significantly higher than the ‘ordinary week’ mentioned in the contracts.

The working hours are ridiculous. (Jane, Site Engineer)

A 13-hour day Monday-to-Friday… on average, three out of four

Saturdays. (Angus, Project Director)

On average, participants on full-time contracts said they consistently worked between

55 and 80 hours a week. Most of the sites I visited worked a minimum of 7am to

5.30pm from Monday to Saturday.

Project leaders, as vignettes 5.f and 5.g demonstrate, explicitly and implicitly demand long work hours. This is especially so towards the completion of a project when employees are expected to ramp up their hours, in some cases to 80 hours a week or more. As Project Engineer Christopher explains:

I worked three weeks straight, 14, 15, 16-hour days. It’s expected and it’s

known so you can sort of prepare yourself for that in the lead-up to it.

(Christopher, Project Engineer)

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Project leaders often set an implied blanket rule in relation to work hours - as vignette 5.f demonstrates – to which all team members are expected to adhere, no matter what their role is. Accommodating extended work hours is a problem for women and men with care responsibilities. Participants frequently recognised they were being sandwiched between inflexible childcare arrangements and inflexible work arrangements. For women who carry the bulk of care responsibilities, long inflexible hours were problematic and affected their decision to stay at Can-do or to leave.

Hour creep

The average number of work hours spent on site seems to be growing as well, with participants reporting that Saturday work - traditionally an industry ‘catch-up’ half day - is now ‘not compulsory, but expected’ (Martin, Site Engineer). On some sites

Sunday work is also expected, even when the project is not even near completion. In one instance, senior management sent an email condemning the practice of Sunday labour but according to Project Manager Sinead, management’s message reaffirmed that Saturday work and long site hours were still expected:

In the interests of work/life balance there are no more meetings to be

scheduled on Sunday. It’s a six-day week only... meetings between 6.00

am and 6.00 pm, Monday to Saturday. Unless it was a real emergency.

(Sinead, Project Manager)

The email did not bother to clarify what was considered as ‘a real emergency’. This was left for Can-do employees to decode. Interviews revealed how on some sites where employees were expected to work every second Saturday, it quickly became clear that Saturday (and even Sunday) work depends on the program status and on

161 who the project leader is. This same inconsistency was observed in the allocation of union rostered days off (RDOs)24.

Away from the site, participants revealed they were also expected to respond promptly to work requests in their time off work. Commercial Manager Gail reflects:

No‐one has ever pulled me up and directly said, “What hours are you

working?” but you get a lot of emails at like nine, 10 o’clock at night, on

Saturdays and Sundays. I sort of feel if you can’t get to those emails

within a certain period of time, then that is noted. (Gail, Commercial

Manager)

Management is no exception. Operations Manager Raymond reveals that his work hours cut into his family and leisure time:

I had a young family …I was trying to be home by at least by…seven

o’clock. I’d be leaving pretty early in the morning. But then what I would

do is once my kids went to bed, my wife went to bed then I’d stay up

and catch up on all the emails… Two-thirty would have been my mark

but there were some nights that I was going to four. Or a couple of

nights that I didn’t go to bed because I had to get a report done.

Weekends, I tried to minimise how many times I went into the office on

a Saturday and a Sunday. (Raymond, Operations Manager)

While long hours are considered as the norm, presenteeism – the need to be on the job even when there is no work - is also prevalent. New recruits in their induction quickly learn that presenteeism is valued. As Project Manager Carly noted, even when

24In Australia, unionised construction labourers who work a 38 hour week over a roster period of four weeks are eligible for a paid rostered day off. The unions for construction workers diarise 12 RDOs a

162 there is no work to attend to, young people ‘sit there because their bosses are there.

They just think it’s expected of them.’ According to Site Manager Willie, presenteeism in the form of long hours is expected, with the reliability of employees judged on the hours they keep:

The project director really set the tone in terms of expectations around

hours of work…on this project he is a really hard taskmaster. He is

known to break people. (Willie, Site Manager)

The monitoring of work hours is facilitated by porous open plan office layouts and a company computer system that tracks when employees are on line (see vignette 5.f).

Some participants justified the long hours they worked as payoff for their high salaries. This was reportedly the narrative from management. Participants also recognised that workloads often dictated work hour expectations:

You get an email, “Anyone who’s worked at least one Saturday should

get the RDO [rostered day off] off.” And then you go to your manager,

“I want this RDO off.” They go, “Oh like you’ve got a lot of work on…

Maybe you shouldn’t have the day off.” (Martin, Site Engineer)

There can be no doubt that construction professionals at Can-do have heavy workloads. The participants I shadowed had little down time and spent much of their day resolving issues, or ‘firefighting’ as they call it. Commercial Manager Gail calculated that she receives four emails every two minutes and would emerge from a half an hour meeting with upward of sixty emails. With no letup in workloads,

year. On these days sites are often closed. White collar construction professionals are not usually eligible for RDOs. They are expected to attend site on these days and work.

163 participants reported being incapable of switching off after hours or on their annual leave. For instance, Project Director Angus noted:

I remember being on the phone to Ireland from holidays trying to chase

up the replacement generator… You’re checking your phone, checking

your emails… You can’t afford to switch-off’ while the project is

running. (Angus, Project Director)

Even though employees are electronically connected to their project by mobile phone and email, I observed some sites where project leaders place a heavy emphasis on people, paper and physical presence. Sites also seemed to shy away from investing in technology. Construction professionals on the largest site for example were unable to take photos, videos or review documents on their company issued mobile phone.

This left them therefore to rely on paper drawings and face-to-face meetings as means of communicating and resolving problems. It appears that investment in technology on each project is left to the discretion of the Project Director. There is seemingly little thought given by Can-do senior managers to the implications of this state of affairs on employee productivity. Though technology makes the day-to-day work of construction professionals easier, it could be argued that it runs the risk of exacerbating the problem of total availability.

War stories and workload

A number of participants I observed took pride in their heavy work load and the urgency required to deliver it. A heavy workload seemed to be the mark of an employee’s reliability and indispensability to Can-do. This I observed in my field note:

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I asked Jarred if he gets through the work every day and he just laughed

at that, “There’s way too much work to do.” He took pride [in this].

(Researchers field note)

Being part of a team that completes a hard or ‘distressed’ project is another marker of an employee’s reliability and indispensability. Vignette 5.d reveals how participants routinely recount ‘war stories’ of torturous project completions. These narratives often celebrate ‘heroes’ who with toughness and purpose did what was necessary to rescue a distressed project for the company. They invariably ignore the significant cost of these efforts on health and personal relationships. Also omitted from the narrative would be any recognition of the high number of distressed projects at Can- do and any analysis of the poor management decisions or under resourcing practices that led to them in the first place.

Given the recurring theme of working under heavy time constraints, it would seem that the employment contracts are drafted in a way that fits business needs and demands and acts to enforce the informal rule of total availability and presenteeism.

Project timelines and employee salaries are not negotiable, but their work hours are.

This flexibility is a one-way street that operates to meet the interests of the company.

I found little evidence of employees negotiating their work hours to suit their personal needs.

I also found that expectations of total availability and presenteeism were carried forward, with new projects being set up and managed on the same expectations.

Operations Manager Raymond confirmed that projects were being resourced and executed with ‘ridiculous programs’ and ‘expectations of working six days a week or seven days a week.’ The practice of under-resourcing projects was evident even to junior employees, as Site Engineer Martin observed: 165

If everyone worked what they did in the contract, you’d need more

workers. (Martin, Site Engineer)

It appears that the ethos behind the construction contract and the employment contract is for employees to work long hours, be totally available and practice presenteeism. These are the ‘rules-in-use’ that determine what is expected of Can-do employees and how employees will be valued. What is more, Can-do’s Code of

Conduct and Operating Principles appear to completely turn a blind eye to these

‘rules-in-use’.

The gendered effect

The ‘rules-in-use’ have a gendered effect on women and men working in construction. Site Engineer Julie observes:

We always deliver our projects on time and generally under budget but

it’s at the expense of people doing it. (Julie, Site Engineer)

The study’s findings revealed that for men, the ‘rules-in-use’ cut to the core of their health, well-being and personal relationships. Stories of divorce were prevalent and sometimes referred to by participants as the ‘battle scars’ from a construction role.

While mental health related issues – stress, panic attacks, insomnia, fatigue and anxiety – were not openly discussed in public, instances were commonplace (see vignette 5.g).

Likewise, the high number of suicides in construction (Milner et al., 2017) seemed to be completely left out of conversations. Over the research period, there were three instances of subcontractor suicide reported by participants. All were men. One participant confided that in her Can-do project team three employees were being

166 watched carefully, for fear they might take their own life. I found this shocking.

There were also concerns on one project that a subcontractor whose employee had died might ask for additional time to complete the work. Regardless of any situation it seems, the deadline is paramount. I suggest that stress, anxiety and silent despair are the opportunity cost for being considered a stoic, strong and reliable employee.

All are part of respecting the hegemonic code of masculinity.

Women participants also reported stress and fatigue to themselves and their personal relationships. Like men, women are expected to endure in silence in strict accordance with the existing ‘rules-in-use’ that stress long hours, total availability and presenteeism. Women with a family have no alternative but to negotiate and execute on their own a balance between the rules and caring for their family. Two women participants outlined this issue in interviews. Gail encapsulated it this way:

To give you an example of what my typical day looks like, I set my alarm

at 4.00 am in the morning. I try and do an hour and a half’s worth of

work before my kids wake up at 6.00 am. I then do drop off [to childcare

and school]. I have two drop-offs. Then I double back around and come

to site. I’m probably one of the last people to walk in at a quarter-past

eight, eight-thirty. And, whether it’s something that I am sensitive about

or whether it actually happens but I feel like the fact that I’m walking in

half an hour, an hour later than everyone else is, is noted by everyone in

the office. So I then work ’til about five, five-thirty. I go home. I bath

the kids. Put them to bed. I eat dinner. Do the washing and ironing and

then I do some more work. (Gail, Commercial Manager)

Nicole’s view was succinct:

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I do what the boys do but then I go home and I do what their wives do

as well. (Nicole, Estimating Manager)

The sheer workload – paid and unpaid - that women report having to cope with leads them to reconsider whether a career in construction is sustainable. In some cases, the alternative is to leave or take a more junior or part-time position. While female participants spoke of career ‘survival’, male participants assumed that men could manage both a construction career and family duties.

5.4 PATCHING THE LEAK

In response to employee feedback about their day to day struggles and in an attempt to ‘patch the leak’ of women from the pipeline, Can-do introduced a new work/life balance program and flexibility initiatives for employees. It also strengthened its existing parental leave provisions. They sit alongside other policies mirroring current legislation such as diversity and inclusion policies and equal opportunity, harassment and bullying policies. More recently, Can-do began a gender pay audit to address the wage gap between women and men. The next section begins with vignette 5.h that returns us to the Building Division’s Gender Diversity Strategy Day, where the challenge of flexibility was debated and resisted.

5.4.1 FLEXIBILITY PILOT AND WELL-BEING LEAVE

5.h) Inflexible flexibility

A middle-aged man posed a problem to the group

attending the gender diversity strategy day. “It’s hard to 168

manage a part-time person working from home. The whole

team is nervous that she isn’t working, and it gives her an

unfair advantage. How do you trust them? How do you

manage them?” A woman sitting in front of me responded,

“It is hard from the other side too, when you are doing

part-time work you feel like they’re constantly managing

the expectations of their managers”.

A man in the back row chimed in with a comment – “it’s

strange that people can’t be trusted given the hours they are

working”. To this a man in the front row responded, “Some

roles are not realistic, others are. For example, there were

two ladies on my site doing shared administration and they

made it work.” A discussion about which roles could be

‘done’ flexibly on construction sites continued. “We are

going to have to make a philosophical shift. We have to

make it happen. The moment we think hours equate to

output, we are screwed. If we can’t judge by output, then

we have a problem,” said a woman next to me. The man in

the front row countered, “But we must also be safe on site

and safety equates to supervision and output is also based

on time too.”

The larger group split into pre-assigned smaller groups. My

group’s focus was flexibility. I participated in the

conversation but, as researcher and outsider, was careful

not to overstep the mark. Including me, my group 169

consisted of four women and two men. We tossed up ideas

for flexibility and wrote them on a whiteboard. The first

suggestion was to return to a five-day week: starting

Monday and finishing Friday, without Saturday work. I

smiled to myself, recalling the conversations I had with my

academic colleagues who were shocked that a five-day

work week was considered ‘flexible’.

A woman my age raised the issue that people have different

flexibility needs, therefore flexibility is a not a one-size-fits-

all response. Each time flexibility was defined in these

terms, someone would pull back on the cord. “But what

about site supervision? We have a safety responsibility. We

can’t just let people come and go from site.” No one

challenged these statements and the group shifted back to

the five-day week option. It was palatable.

Returning to the main group, we watched as others

proposed solutions to a similar problem. One group had

been asked to redesign the way people work on site by

reducing work hours by 50 per cent and doubling the

number of employees. This group assumed, correctly, that

the normal work hours were 60 to 70 hours a week. They

proposed a 30-hour week roster suggesting that if a project

was designed with this roster in mind, it may possibly

work. The larger groups were less convinced, labelling the

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30 hour roster as “too difficult” to execute on a real project.

It did not give the project team much “give” should the

project go wrong and they need more hands on deck. There

was no thought that around the world, and even in

Australia, work in remote locations is conducted this way.

This suggestion was parked, like all of the “flexibility”

suggestions.

In 2012, in response to employee surveys having rated work life balance as the biggest issue for employees, Can-do Construction established a flexible work policy

(received from Can-do, Appendix A, No. 8). This policy was to support individual requests for flexible work arrangements where practical in an effort to balance the employee’s role and the needs of the company. The policy encouraged employees to negotiate with their line manager flexible work practices acceptable to both parties.

The written policy gives examples of flexibility including flexible work hours, part- time hours, working from home and job sharing. All the while, the policy stresses that flexibility is a ‘give and take’ arrangement.

In conjunction with its flexibility policy, Can-do launched a flexibility pilot on a large high profile city project (policy received from Can-do, Appendix A, No. 19). The pilot encouraged individual employees to negotiate with their line manager a single flexible work measure that could be implemented in their existing role. This could be for example, leaving early once a week or fortnight to pick up the children from school or arriving late to work once a week to accommodate morning sport. The pilot was not rolled out across the business. It was replaced instead with well-being leave, an additional four days of leave per year to be spent on physical and mental well-being.

The reason for its replacement, according to Human Resources Manager Helen, was 171 to bring Can-do’s overseas business units ‘in line’ with Australia and allow Can-do to

‘offer flexibility across the globe’. That said, Helen also confirmed that the company’s flexibility offerings varied in line with the existing industrial relations legislation in each country. For instance, the flexibility offering was only modest in

Asia and the USA compared to Australia where additional leave days was provided.

A brochure building the case for work life balance was issued to all employees. It gave them examples for how they could spend their new well-being leave days, including attending ‘a yoga retreat, a meditation course, a preventative health check- up or carer’s respite.’ The brochure also encouraged employees to take responsibility for their own well-being by eating well, keeping active, drinking sensibly, maintaining good relationships and taking lunch breaks. I was handed the booklet by a male participant (vignette 5.g) (Appendix A, No. 21). His image was on the front of the booklet. He told me that each day on the way to site he suffered panic attacks but he was not sure if it would be wise to take his well-being leave.

While well-being leave was mocked in some circles for its emphasis on ‘yoga and shit like that’, most participants interviewed were thankful for the additional leave.

Nevertheless, they were unsure if their workload would permit it. Few participants planned to use the leave for meditation or yoga, instead opting to spend the time with their family or catching up on ‘domestic administration’ such as going to the bank and to the hairdresser. On two of the three sites I visited, well-being leave was operated through a roster system and appeared to be used by employees. It represents a ‘small win’ towards transforming the working lives of employees on site.

That said, I was unable to track whether these rosters were maintained throughout the busy closing stages of projects.

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Participants regarded the flexibility policy and the pilot with apprehension, as did project leaders who perceived flexibility negatively. In their eyes, increased flexibility meant decreased employee and project performance and greater stress on project delivery. Commercial Manager Gail observed that project leaders on her site disapproved and resisted efforts to enhance flexibility while the senior company leaders were encouraging them:

Whenever anyone important comes [to site], they stand on the steps on

the back deck and present to all of us. Troy made a point of saying how

well the business had been going and how much profit they had

declared, and how the shareholders were very happy. That’s when he

spoke about the wellness day initiatives and really focusing on safety, and

not so much program. Afterwards a lot of people were speaking about

the fact that the project director was so livid…he had been pushing

everyone for the last year to work to a program and push hard and Troy

came and told us that we could relax and take four days off a year. (Gail,

Commercial Manager)

Some senior executive managers also felt that the flexibility initiatives would make the company less competitive, especially if Can-do was the only contractor in the market making such allowances for its employees. No thought was given to talent retention. While some company leaders proclaimed the importance of incorporating flexible work practices, few actually modelled their effects. Indeed, changing the work practices of company managers seemed to be almost out of the question:

Obviously, leaders are not going from full-time to part-time. (Helen,

Human Resources Manager)

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Some participants counted the rigid work practices in construction as a key factor undermining women’s retention but then justified these practices with a shrug and reasoned that this was ‘just the way construction is’.

That is not to say flexibility does not exist at Can-do. Some short-term, hidden, informal ‘give and take’ flexibility, made conditional on the program and on employees making up the ‘lost’ hours was reported by participants to be in place.

Access to informal flexibility often relied however on a strong, commonly homosocial relationship with one’s line manager or project leader. Male participants were found to be using informal flexibility more than female participants. Men said they were able to ‘duck and weave’ (Alan, Site Manager) during the times they needed to collect children from day care.

Women, on the other hand, appeared to rely predominantly on formal, visible flexibility arrangements. None of the 36 men participating in this research had formal flexible work arrangements but five of the 24 women worked part-time. The drawback for those women using more obvious formal flexibility paths was that they drew criticism from their male peers who felt women were being granted an unfair advantage and then challenged their capacity to undertake principal construction roles on site (see vignette 5.h). Site Manager Jarred suggested men who police other men (and women) in relation to flexible work arrangements and the practice of presenteeism:

Put it this way: some jobs you have females working there. That’s fine.

The only difference is if they’re getting different … sometimes they’ve

got kids so they get to come in later, get to go home earlier. Don’t have

to do the lockup and don’t have to come in Saturdays. If that was a

bloke doing it, all hell would fucking break loose. But I understand why 174

’cause I have a kid. But, if I start going home early ’cause my daughter or

someone’s sick or my wife’s … people start talking about it. (Jarred, Site

Manager)

Jarred’s quote also demonstrates how presenteeism operates, with only the work undertaken on site valued. There is little consideration that those working flexibility might also be ‘catching up’ on work from home.

In the latter stages of this study, Can-do introduced several other initiatives to address employee well-being and employee retention. These included an annual online health and well-being survey to track employee well-being, the incorporation of well-being and flexibility into the employee performance review process and establishing a 60 hour week (including travel time) global minimum health and safety standard. Can-do also introduced, on some projects, a new open plan office layout that stands in contrast to traditional temporary shed office accommodation on site.

Informally, project teams initiated exercise classes on site, mostly outside of work hours. Although the company has set in place formal policies to address employee work/life balance, the ‘rules-in-use’ continue to control work expectations. Gail observes:

Can-do they’re one of the best construction companies that I’ve worked

for in terms of acknowledging that we need a work/life balance. And

they say all the right things and they [are] doing everything…boot camps

and fit bits and all sorts of crap. But, at the same time, there’s still that

requirement of presenteeism. If you’re not sitting at your desk you’re not

working… (Gail, Commercial Manager)

Human Resources Manager Helen draws a lesson from the pilot program: to accommodate project lifecycles, flexibility needs to be factored in at the project 175 establishment phase and embedded into role and work design, not just left to ad hoc arrangements. Despite the soundness of this logic, Can-do’s revised policy and most of its initiatives remained focused on the individual rather than on implementing structural change such as building flexibility into resource planning for projects or introducing a blanket ‘all roles flexible’ rule to shift the default position. I argue that a contributing factor to women’s poor retention rate is the stigma associated with part- time or flexible work and the company’s inability to accommodate and enforce flexible work practices on site. Indeed, a general lack of flexibility is an important contributing factor to women’s lack of retention and their poor career progression.

This will be discussed in Chapter 6.

While flexibility is a major barrier to women’s retention, so is parental leave. I begin the next section with a few vignettes that describe the stigma attached to parental leave and the gap between policy and practice. The first vignette 5.i taken from the

Building Division’s Gender Diversity Day explains why 50 per cent of women are lost to the company when they go on parental leave. Vignette 5.j brings us back to site to highlight the resistance to women returning from parental leave. Finally, vignette 5.k takes us to a gala event that celebrated women in construction. This vignette demonstrates that even women about to give birth, are still expected to accommodate the ‘rules-in-use’.

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5.4.2 PARENTAL LEAVE

5.i) Gone missing

Later in the day, the issue of parental leave and women’s

retention is raised. The human resource manager is once

again called on to answer questions. He explains that

across the business only four out of ten women return to

the company after parental leave. He adds that a further

one out of ten is made redundant as the replacement is

considered ‘a better candidate’. An older man interrupts

him and suggests that women don’t return from parental

leave out of choice; they would rather be at home with their

children. Raising his eyebrows, the human resources

manager responds that one in two men who take primary

care leave also don’t return. He adds, “it looks like those

who take parental leave are shamed for doing so.”

5.j) Dying from unfair advantage

Fay, a well-dressed woman in her early 30s, suggested we

grab a coffee offsite so that she could speak to me about

gender issues. It was clear that this topic was sensitive and

not something she wanted to address in the site office. As

we slip through the heavy site gates of the medium-sized 177

public works project and make our way to the nearby café,

Fay explains that she is looking to have children in the

future but foresees a huge issue in negotiating her

maternity leave. This is even though Fay has been working

in a close-knit team for fifteen years with Cameron, the

project leader and Grant, the site manager. Fay tells me she

thinks retention of women, particularly around pregnancy

is a real problem for the company. She has seen that

women are not supported before or after they go on

maternity leave. “If they are not pushed out of the industry

altogether and decide to return, they are relegated to the

development or the commercial side of the business”. As

we leave the noise of the site behind us, Fay notes that

currently their site has two women on maternity leave: one

unplanned and one planned. The woman who fell pregnant

unexpectedly told Fay, ‘Once I have a baby, I am dead to

them’ [Can-do Constructions]. Fay tells me she has been

calling this woman monthly while she is on leave, to make

her feel wanted and valued. It is part of a new initiative Fay

and others [women and a senior male manager] have

developed in their region at their own instigation.

As we entered the café, I broach the issue of Fay’s

colleague Jacqueline’s staged return from maternity leave,

which I’d learnt about the previous day. Jacqueline is an

engineer who sits diagonally opposite Fay. Returning from

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maternity leave 10 months earlier, Jacqueline had

negotiated with Paul, the operations manager who oversees

all the resourcing of projects, to continue to work her

formal contracted hours (37.5 hours per week) ‘flexibly’ for

three months. For Jacqueline, this included three ten-hour

days on site and the remainder of hours made up over two

days working from home. The operations manager told

Jacqueline not to broadcast her ‘flexible’ arrangement. After

three months, Cameron, the project manager terminated

this arrangement after he had fielded multiple complaints

from members of the male site team. They thought it was

unreasonable that Jacqueline was not physically on site

during her shifts and were aggrieved that she was not

working every second Saturday, like them. Cameron gave

Jacqueline a choice: work part-time in a commercial role or

put your child into full-time childcare. Jacqueline chose the

latter. Fay tells me that she doesn’t really know Jacqueline

well, but that she has watched how Jacqueline was not

supported after she returned from maternity leave. For Fay,

it was the negative comments made by the site team about

Jacqueline and her competency as an engineer that she

found most unfair.

I asked Fay if her male colleagues had experienced this

issue when they had returned from paternity leave. ‘There’s

no issues’ she said. She explained that the men don’t see

179

having children as an issue in their world; they don’t think

about negotiating parenting with work. As we walk back to

the site, Fay says, ‘I shouldn’t say this but they all do the

same, you know. They get married young. They have kids.

They’re all clones of each other. Very similar. Very similar

education backgrounds. Private school boys that have two

kids, who don’t rock the boat’. After a moment of silence, I

ask, ‘What about the guys who do rock the boat? The guys

who do step up and parent, who do care, you know, take

time off for care responsibilities?’ Fay replies, ‘they aren’t

supported either’. It also impedes their next job

opportunity. ‘They are not considered for higher positions

on the next job. They are seen as not being capable of

stepping up to a higher role or a higher responsibility’.

With that, she takes hold of the heavy site gate and inches

it open for us to pass through to the site office.

5.k) Delivering the baby

Standing at the podium during the Awards night

celebrating the work of women in the construction

industry, she leans into the microphone and says, “I’d like

say a couple of more thank yous. To my husband who is at

home with our three week old…I thought construction was

tough, it has nothing on mothering. Quick thank you

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to…most of all to Teddy R the construction manager on

this project, he gave me the autonomy to run the project the

way I think it needed to be run. He also gave me the

support I needed. The duration of the project was pretty

much the duration of my pregnancy; I finished work on the

Friday and had baby Rhonda on the Monday. But Teddy’s

certainty gave me the support I needed.” The MC, a man

known for his landscaping and topless male modelling

interrupted her speech, “…and worked you right up until

you had a baby!” The MC turned to the audience of 1000

people. “Well Done Teddy, you are a real champion

making a pregnant woman work all the way up to having a

baby!” The room responded with laughter.

In addition to generous child care rebates (Appendix A, No.3) and dependent sick care rebates (Appendix A, No. 17), Can-do Construction offers paid parental leave that is above the minimum legislative requirement for ‘primary’ carer and ‘partner’

(Appendix A, No. 10)25. Notwithstanding the shift in terminology, parental leave is principally seen as an issue for women and operates as a major barrier to women’s retention (see vignette 5.i). As vignette 5.i outlined, of its female and small pool of male employees who take parental leave as ‘primary carers’, only half return to Can- do. The practice of parental leave results therefore in the loss of a significant number of highly qualified and trained staff. What is more, no section of the company -

25 All the documents mentioned here were issued to me by Can-do HR.

181 operations managers, human resources managers or project leaders - appears to take responsibility for the management and return of employees as new parents.

On site, parental leave policies are of little relevance (see vignette 5.b and 5.i) and parental leave itself carries a stigma (vignette 5.j). None of the male participants I interviewed said they had taken parental leave as a ‘primary carer’, most took two weeks ‘partner’ leave, forgoing the six weeks’ unpaid leave. Even amongst younger participants, women were still seen to fill the role of primary carer and some participants still held the belief that parental leave was as ‘a time for women to bond with their child’ (Willie, Site Manager). Participants also tended to hold a relatively heteronormative view: rarely was there the consideration that people might be in same-sex relationships.

Bearing the cost of parental leave

Most project leaders who themselves have a stay-at-home wife, view parental leave as an actual cost plus a resource cost borne by individual projects. Costs associated with parental leave, including parental leave payments to employees and resourcing costs associated with the replacement of employees, have historically been born by the project rather than the company. The gendered effect of this practice includes some resistance to employing women on site and a backlash towards women going on parental leave. Women are also routinely left to strategize and negotiate their departure, return and career ‘survival’ (see vignette 5.j).

Once she is pregnant, any consideration of a woman’s welfare and career on site becomes patchy. I observed care being given to one pregnant woman on a large project. Yet another interviewee working on a construction site said she was expected to walk in her pregnancy a kilometre along an uncovered path to the site 182 office from the staff car park like her peers under the hot summer sun. Suffering from the heat, she raised the matter with her manager several times but no action was taken until she almost fainted.

Women participants recognised a pattern of consciously overworking female employees in the lead-up to their parental leave, with little consideration for anything but the project (vignette 5.k). One particular participant reported that she was worked so hard before going on maternity leave that she was hospitalised for exhaustion on her last day of work. This was despite asking her manager to confirm her replacement two months earlier. Throughout the lead-up to her parental leave, she had numerous conversations with her manager who subsequently revealed that he never had any intention of replacing her and was conscious that he was overworking her:

When I confronted them about it, they said yes, they were trying to get

every last drop out of me.26

To save on resourcing costs, the roles of those on parental leave are often not replaced on sites. Instead the workload is distributed amongst the remaining team members, fuelling resentment from colleagues who are expected to carry the additional workload. For women this practice further contributes to women’s retention problem as it leaves them exhausted and demonstrates that there is no room for flexibility on Can-do’s Construction sites.

Recognising the gendered effects of this practice, the company recently introduced a rule that costs associated with parental leave would be borne by the company rather by than the project. This policy shift has been slow to catch on in different regions

183 however, with some regions clinging to practices of the past and senior executive managers reluctant to embrace change.

Finding a way back

Once on parental leave, employees have historically lost contact with the company. A lack of contact is understandable as it appears from the conversations at company events and our interviews that neither the HR Manager nor the operational leaders are responsible for employees returning from parental leave. What can influence women to return is the project status and the woman’s informal networks. For example, women seem to boomerang back to the same project they left on parental leave, although sometimes this happens earlier than they would have wanted.

For other women back from parental leave after the completion of the project they had last worked on, returning to the company poses a real problem. One participant reported that even though she had been guaranteed employment on return from parental leave, her calls to the HR department were never returned. So she ended up calling a senior manager who arranged for her return. She was not alone in her experience. In response to these issues, Can-do Constructions has recently begun piloting programs such as a buddy system and ‘keeping in touch’ days to promote employee connection over the parental leave period. Even so, the process for reintegrating employees back into the company and determining which department is responsible remains ambiguous.

If employees do find their way back from parental leave, they risk being made redundant (see vignette 5.i). They are routinely denied flexible work arrangements on

26 Name withheld to protect anonymity.

184 their return or have their new ‘flexible’ arrangements met with resistance (see vignette 5.j). There is little recognition by the company or by their peers of the toll parental leave takes on women’s pay equity and progression. Female participants with over ten years’ tenure at Can-do reported receiving no pay increases or bonuses over the time they were on parental leave. This resulted in significant pay gap differences with their peers and was only adjusted after raising the issue of pay disparity with their manager. As Sinead explains:

I had three kids but, by the time that process of being pregnant during a

remuneration review and then being on maternity leave [was over], six or

seven years had gone by. Came back and I’m still doing the same job as

the blokes or anyone that hadn’t been away. But I’d missed six [pay]

reviews ... I had had no increase, essentially, in six years. And then I’ve

had a 20 per cent increase over the last two years. (Sinead, Project

Manager)

Recently in a bid to address the gender pay gap across the business, participants reported that they had been partially compensated although superannuation and bonuses remain unadjusted. Many women reported that the company had ‘forgotten them’ during their parental leave period, as they received no annual pay rises, bonuses, invitations to networking events or even a call to return to work (see vignette 5.j). All of these omissions are markers of exclusion. They do little to encourage employee retention.

Women returning from parental leave express gratitude. They say they feel ‘lucky’

(Karen, Project Manager) that they did not lose their job while on parental leave.

They rarely assert their rights. Yet, most women note the effect of parental leave on

185 their career progression and how managers direct them away from sites into roles with limited progression potential (discussed further in Chapter 6).

At Can-do Constructions, the introduction of paid parental leave and other care entitlements, even flexibility policies and well-being leave in their current state, has been far from transformational. These policies have rarely been enforced by senior management and have done little to change the way work is handled on site. The effect of all this is to diminish women’s career satisfaction and their retention in the construction industry. Additionally, it seems that other rules such as diversity and inclusion, equal opportunity, harassment and bullying policies appear to have had little to no effect on the construction site. It remains a highly gendered space, and is at times antagonistic towards women.

The next section begins on the construction site with a collection of three vignettes and a collage of artefacts from my observations. While sites vary in their gendered nature, the vignettes below provide an understanding of the gendered and heteronormative nature of Can-do’s construction sites. It acts constantly to undermine women’s inclusion and retention within the sector.

5.4.3 DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION POLICY

5.l) Sexualising the space

The name ‘Brooke’ featured prominently on the site walls.

Her name was spray painted under the ‘Penetration Behind

sign’. ‘Penetration behind….Brooke.’ Someone had added

that, ‘Brooke loves it’. I asked the Construction Manager 186

“Who is Brooke?” He replied “What do you mean?” I said

“Well her name is written all around the site.” “I’ve never

even noticed it,” he responded.

5.m) Marking his territory

Figure 1: Marking the territory

A collage of photographic artefacts from construction sites (left to right starting at top left hand corner) Sexist graffiti, ‘Brook loves it’; penis drawn on a tool belt harness; graffiti ‘fag’ etched into the safety sign; Woman’s name painted below ‘Penetration Behind’ safety sign; Void cover ‘Don’t touch cunts! But I like touching these. Eats Shoots and Leaves’; Image of women’s breasts on the back of a hardhat and ‘I heart Boobies’; ‘$2 Peep show’ image graffiti; Woman’s name (Charlotte) underneath ‘Penetration Behind’ safety sign and three comments: ‘learn to spell you illiterate junky’, ‘your stuck in charlottes web’ and ‘you’re illiterate’; and final image of breasts on hard hat. 187

We started off on the weekly safety walk: Bob, myself and

six subcontractor representatives. We are walking the entire

site together to look for safety hazards that need to be

rectified. Walking in single file through the narrow path of

formwork propping, my eyes focus on the tool belt harness

of the man in front of me. It has an ejaculating penis,

drawn on it. Unlike the safety hazards pointed out, no one

seemed to notice it or comment.

5.n) A woman’s presence

I was apologised to four times today by blue collar

construction workers. The white-collar guys did not seem

to care if they swore in front of me. Each time a man swore

and saw that I was in earshot, he mumbled an apology. I

still remember the first time a man apologised to me on

site. I was a construction cadet on my first job working for

a concreting supply company. It was a sweltering day.

Standing at the top of the staircase, I was watching

concreters finish the top slab. Many of the concreters were

topless, wearing shorts and knee high gumboots. I was not

paying much attention to the concreters. I had just met

Luke, a plumber who had been my father’s apprentice. A

loud tirade of profanities came from the deck. Luke and I 188

turned around just in time to see a tattooed concreter lose

his cool. Moments later, the tattooed topless concreter

stood in front of me. He apologised for swearing. I was

stunned and mildly embarrassed. The whole work crew had

stopped and were now looking over at me - the only woman

on site. They watched for my reaction. “No worries”, I

replied. Luke gave me a smile. That was the first of many

apologies.

Can-do has a suite of policies focused on addressing disadvantage and discrimination, known in the literature as barriers to women’s retention. During the period of this research HR issued me with two revisions of the Diversity and Inclusion Policy

(Appendix A, Nos. 13 and 31). The aim of the policies was to demonstrate that ‘all individuals are supported, respected and connected’, no matter what ‘gender, race, age, ethnicity, physical appearance, physical or mental disabilities, values, lifestyle, religion, sexual orientation and identity etc...’ The revised diversity and inclusion policy dated May 2015 (Appendix A, No. 33) is a comprehensive policy that sets out the company’s reasons for change27and the Board of Can-do’s commitment28, goals29, actions30 and responsibility for the Diversity and Inclusion Strategy31.

27 Innovation and productivity, core values, a desire to be employer of choice, global market forces and ‘the right thing to do’. 28 Realising gender equality, workplace flexibility, accessibility, inclusive culture and holistic support to employees throughout their key employment experiences. In relation to gender diversity, the Board would set a gender target on leadership as per the ASX Governance requirement and support succession planning, career development, graduate programs, mentoring and recruitment activities. 29 Goal to become a leader in establishing and maintaining a diverse and inclusive workplace by educating employees and embedding diversity into the culture and through career development to all key talent. 30 This section detailed the various ways the company would “measure” diversity and inclusion through, employee feedback, employee groups, data collection including for retention, and benchmarking.

189

Tracking retention

In relation to women’s retention, the policy aims to track the retention of employees by gender split and work towards greater work place flexibility. Interestingly, as vignette 5.9 demonstrates, six months after the diversity and inclusion policy was released, the Building Division was still not tracking employee turnover by gender.

Unlike the earlier version of the diversity and inclusion policy, the revised policy was silent on the consequences or sanctions for non-compliance.

The only Can-do initiative that seems to be correcting the balance of gender equity is the recently introduced gender pay audit on women’s but not men’s salaries.

Interviews with Can-do’s HR managers downplayed Can-do’s gender pay gap. Three female participants in the research in middle management and senior roles received substantial pay adjustments in the range of 25 to 30 per cent. Parental leave was certainly a contributing factor to the underpayment of some women, but not all.

Women, like Project Manager Carly who had a long tenure in construction described instances of salary underpayment in the order of 60 per cent during their career.

While women were thankful for their salary adjustments, they were also disappointed that the pay gap had ever occurred in the first place and were left wondering how long they had been valued less than their male peers.

In conjunction with the Diversity and Inclusion Policy, Can-do also has an Equal

Opportunity Policy (Appendix A, No. 6) and a Harassment and Bullying Policy

(Appendix A, No. 2) that addresses sexual harassment. These policies pre-date the revised Diversity and Inclusion Policy and they effectively mirror Australian government legislation. The Harassment and Bullying Policy spells out behaviour

31 The People and Culture Committee of the Board and the Global Diversity and Inclusion Council

190 that is encouraged like ‘treating everyone with respect, dignity and courtesy’. It also spells out the unacceptable: ‘Racial graffiti, comments or jokes, crude jokes, gestures and sexual innuendo, requests for sexual favours, unwanted sexual attention, bullying, swearing and physical threats, yelling and screaming or deliberately ignoring someone’ and the sanctions including ‘demotion, counselling or termination’

(Appendix A, No.2).

A gendered space

As with other policies such as Parental Leave, Flexibility and the Code of Conduct that are intended to shape work practices at Can-do and make the company more attractive to women in the long term, a gap exists between policy and practice. Again, the problem of ownership and enforcement of these policies seems to be working against their success (see vignette 5.l and 5.m). Construction sites remain a gendered space, not just by the number of men employed there but by the behaviour accepted and expected there. In defiance of Can-do’s Code of Conduct, Operating Principles,

Diversity and Inclusion Policy and Harassment and Bullying Policy that jointly encourage respect, support and inclusion, I observed sexist graffiti, sexual graffiti and pornography (see vignette 5.l and 5.m) as well as gendered language on Can-do project sites. As documented earlier, I also listened to incidents of bullying. Unlike a trip hazard that is spotted and rectified to uphold safety standards, sexist graffiti does not seem to draw attention. There was also no penalty for this type of behaviour so these markers of masculinity (and heteronormativity) were left in place. I suggest therefore that the ‘rules-in-use’ tolerate acts such as ‘othering’, sexism, bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination that keep women subordinated and excluded.

which included all executive managers, talent and the diversity and inclusion manager.

191

A tolerance of sexism and ‘othering’ of women on site was evident in both subtle and overt ways. For example, women at Can-do were repeatedly infantilised and called ‘girls’ and ‘young’ regardless of age (I observed Site Engineer Angela being routinely called ‘young Angela’, for example). They were called ‘sweetheart’ by subcontractors (as reported by Site Engineer Jane) and even ‘babe’ (as reported by

Estimating Manager Nicole). Women are also denied a voice in meetings, asked to undertake administrative tasks not in keeping with their role, singled out and apologised to for swearing (see vignette 5.n). Few women saw any advantage in being treated as an adornment or a token, most of the women interviewed wanted to be treated as construction professionals and nothing else. In fact, men were not the only group to treat women construction professionals as the ‘other’. On some sites women in administration called on female construction professionals to perform administrative tasks such as reception.32

Gender safety

Most female participants could also recount stories of sexual discrimination or harassment directed at them by male peers, managers and subcontractors. Safety

Manager Bridget downplayed the five incidents she had encountered in her ten years in construction. She explained that they were slight in comparison to her female colleague who was filmed in the shower at work, forced to change phone numbers to avoid harassment and had a client repeatedly comment on her breasts. Female participants made the point that Can-do when compared to smaller contractors had better ‘gender safety’. One woman participant excused men for acts of sexual

32 In some instances, women in administrative roles were observed to contribute to the social isolation and gender bind felt by women in professional roles. For example, by requesting professional women

192 harassment claiming it was hard for men to control their sexual urges when they worked in close proximity with women.

Certainly, participants – female and male - agreed that in the last decade the construction industry has improved and become more accustomed to women. The removal of porn from the site shed walls and the end of Friday afternoon strip shows on site were cited as evidence of this. As Gail reflects:

12 years ago…my very first construction site. On a Friday, I’d be the

only person left in the office because they would bring the strippers in

and the form workers had set up a special platform stage for the

strippers. The whole joint reeked of pot and alcohol. I’d be trying to

work away, and every now and then I’d hear a, “Yeah!” 10 minutes later,

“Yeah!” Yeah. She was obviously reaching a high point of her

performance. (Gail, Commercial Manager)

Project Manager Paul reasons at the Gender Diversity Strategy Day:

13 years ago, it was a lot different: toolboxes with girlie magazines and all

that. There’s no place in the industry for that anymore, which is a good

thing. (Paul, Project Manager)

Despite these tangible signs of change, the young women interviewed were stilled startled by the overt attention they received from male workers and colleagues when they first arrived on site. As a female researcher on site, I too was ‘othered’ (see vignette 5.n). Unlike my male research colleague, I was not given a nickname (to my face), I was apologised to for swearing and it was repeatedly assumed that my male

to perform administrative roles such as reception duties. When the professional women rejected these requests, they were isolated.

193 colleague was the construction profession ‘insider’ and myself the ‘outsider’ who had never worked in construction.

Can-do Constructions’ tendency to split up its few women construction professionals and place them on sites with no female peers does nothing to protect against such behaviour. Even when there were other women in administrative roles on site, women construction professionals like Dorothy were unprepared for the social isolation they felt as the only woman professional in a meeting, in a team or on a project:

When I first started, I was like, “Wow! There’s a lot of guys.” I was

23…. I remember my first month on-site and it was quite overwhelming.

Guys would just be checking you out: you’re on that site and people

stare at you. (Dorothy, Site Engineer)

For mid-to-late career women, the sexism and exclusion in construction is wearing. It undermines their job satisfaction. As Nicole explains:

You cop it the whole way through your career…you’re asked out

constantly by your work colleagues... a lot of it is more innuendo than

anything. Just enough to get your anxiety levels like ridiculously high…

I’ve had [it] bloody everywhere … you leave because you’re

uncomfortable. (Nicole, Estimating Manager)

Carly, a Project Manager who has since left Can-do reveals:

There were quite a few young women on that project and almost every

second day there would be one in the bathrooms, crying… I could not

wait to leave [Can-do]. I mean I had my family telling me, “You should

resign. Don’t stay there.” Because I was coming home and I used to cry 194

a few times ’cause I’m so frustrated. So angry… They have good values.

They have policies. But they don’t really live it. (Carly, Project Manager)

Attempts to address sexism by the company, including resilience training and events specifically focused on women were seen by some women as an insult that aggravated their isolation. As Nicole explains:

Why would you segregate women any more than they’re already

segregated? (Nicole, Estimating Manager)

Sexist practices did not sit well with most men either, but female participants noticed how few publicly spoke out against these practices or acted to address them.

Executive General Manager Barbara felt that men were complicit by their inaction:

Most guys won't call other guys up [to call out bad behaviour]…it takes a

lot of courage. (Barbara, Executive General Manager)

The normality of the sexist practices made women feel that to get by in construction, they had to put up with them or leave. Even young site engineers new to construction like Angela recognised that women who do not accept the markings of masculinity on the walls of their work place are neither welcome nor fit for construction.

I think if you’re not liking the dick drawing, then you’re not really meant

to be here… (Angela, Site Engineer)

Angela’s construction site had the most prominent displays of sexist graffiti of all the sites I visited, yet interestingly it was the one with the greatest concentration of women construction professionals. The client’s team was almost completely female.

Although the site team tolerated the presence of these physical markers of exclusion,

195 there were also visible practices of inclusion. For example, at every lunch time the entire Can-do Constructions team sat together and conducted an enjoyable and friendly general knowledge quiz from the newspaper.

The pull of policy

When I quizzed them, female and male participants recognised that there were company policies to eradicate sexism, but most did not know the policy specifics.

The general response from male participants was that diversity and inclusion policies were largely irrelevant to them and their careers. For women, the response was mixed. Some women saw Can-do’s policies as finally giving them opportunities previously denied to them, but other women felt their male peers resented them for this. A few women rationalised that the policies were a safeguard should they run into trouble in their career. Other women like Nicole, who had been made redundant after making a sexual harassment complaint at a smaller firm, was determined to

‘laugh off and never report’ any future incidents. Others saw the policies and initiatives around diversity and inclusion as tokenistic and acts of corporate ‘box ticking’. On a positive note, the few women I interviewed who had made sexual harassment complaints at Can-do Constructions said that these incidents were handled well by the company.

When gender equality issues were raised on site, the conversation tended to centre on women, not on work practices.

I find that quite often the discussions around gender diversity is

capturing the percentages of women, not necessarily looking at the

flexibility needed to cater for all those types of women that are on the

site. (Gail, Commercial Manager) 196

Gail’s observations reflected my own. Gender equality seemed to be absent from conversations on site. If it was raised, it was met with discomfort and weariness. This response may be considered a form of backlash and resistance. For mid-level women managers, particularly those who are negotiating family and work, the current policy focus proves to be misguided and inadequate.

No one has ever paid me enough attention during these years when I

need it the most to help me through this period. Our young female

engineers and our young male engineers are supported to no end. They

are promoted like they are the golden-haired children. And they do a

good job. They’ve got a lot of responsibility but, as soon as you hit

middle management, you’re in the lost land [emphasis added]. (Gail,

Commercial Manager)

It seems that the policies aimed at retaining women miss their mark and appear no match for the ‘rules-in-use’. As a result, these policies do little to tackle women’s ongoing exclusion from construction or the resistance to flexible work practices and parental leave on site by project leaders. All these factors cause women to leave Can- do Constructions.

5.5 DISCUSSION

There are multiple factors including a lack of career progression (Chapter 6) that drive women from their construction careers. This chapter finds that the problem of women’s retention in construction is more complex and gendered than the literature suggests. The major departure point for women seems to be parental leave. Fifty per cent of Can-do’s female employees are lost at this juncture. Notwithstanding the fine intentions behind Can-do’s Paid Parental Leave Policy, in practice this policy and

197 others aimed at retaining women were found to be overridden by the construction contract and the employee contract. Together with traditional gender norms, these contracts are what set the workplace terms – the ‘rules-in-use’ - at Can-do

Constructions. In this section, I first examine the similarities in findings between my research and that of others. Then I shift the focus to my contribution to existing literature by emphasising the gender dynamics of the ‘rules-in-use’ in construction and their effect on women’s retention. I also introduce to the literature and analysis on women’s retention the dimension of masculine privilege.

My study echoes existing literature in identifying the barriers to retaining women construction professionals. As with Barnard et al. (2010), I also find that a range of factors undermine women’s accession to rewarding construction careers and contribute to their departure. It was not surprising to find that the ‘rules-in-use’ value employees who are able to thrive amid coercive, rigid work practices modelled on traditional male career norms. These include long work hours, geographical mobility, expectations of unbroken career paths, total availability, presenteeism and full-time employment (Fielden et al., 2000, Dainty and Lingard, 2006, Watts, 2007a, Barnard et al., 2010, Sang et al., 2014). I found too, that project leaders, line managers and peers used techniques such as public shaming and derision to tightly contain any deviation from these informal rules. As in Dainty and Lingard (2006) analysis, I found that women construction professionals of childbearing years had difficulty reconciling the demands of work and family and were left on their own to negotiate this balance.

Also like Sang and Powell (2012a), I found that the exclusionary nature of construction operates to ‘other’ women and remind them both subtly and overtly of their gender and difference. My study witnessed a tolerance of gendered and sexist language, behaviour and banter on construction sites, as well as sexual harassment

198 and discrimination. This reflects the findings in Faulkner (2009) and Watts (2007b)

UK research from almost a decade ago. Moreover, in my study, I noticed how participants of both women and men seem to overstate how conditions have improved for women on site. In an effort to fit in and overcome their social isolation, I found that junior women new to construction try to ‘undo’ their gender

(Faulkner, 2000, Powell, 2009). The difference that I found however, was that this was not the case for women across all ages and career stages. I found most women in mid to senior roles abandon this approach on realising that any attempt at collusion on their part – acting like ‘one of the boys’, adopting an ‘anti-woman’ approach, accepting gender discrimination and seeing the advantages outweigh the disadvantages - rarely if ever gains them acceptance and inclusion. As with Fielden et al. (2000), I found that senior male manager and peer inaction, either through ignorance or an unwillingness to challenge the status quo, served to normalise the

‘othering’ of women.

As for company policy responses, it is recognised in the context of French and

Strachan (2013)’s research that Can-do appears to be one of the few construction companies with the policies and resources in place to address issues affecting women’s retention. For instance, Can-do’s Paid Parental Leave Policy exceeds the legislative requirements. I concur with Greed (2000), Sang and Powell (2012a), and

Galea et al. (2015) that company diversity policies focus on women and underrepresented groups leaving those who are over-represented, men, out of the picture.

Further to this literature however, I would argue that to date too much emphasis has been placed on the ‘stickiness’ of construction norms as barriers to women’s retention. The question should be what effect the broader formal company policies

199 and rules (Construction Contract, Employee Contract, Code of Conduct, and

Operating Principles) are having on women’s inclusion and ultimately women’s retention. With regards to women’s retention, I find that existing literature lacks a nuanced understanding of how the formal rules of companies operate - by competing for attention, challenging each other and linking up with industry norms - to produce the ‘rules-in-use’ that shape workplace behaviour (Waylen, 2017). This shortcoming in existing literature may however be explained by the fact that, unlike in my study, most construction companies have few established formal rules on flexibility, diversity, inclusion and parental leave.

5.5.1 RETENTION ‘RULES-IN-USE’

At Can-do, I found that not all formal rules are equal and that those formal rules that emphasise the importance of project completion seem to dominate in the work place. The primary rules embodied in the construction contract and employee contract also act to support the informal rules that promote long hours, full-time employment, presenteeism and total availability. I also noticed that even on projects where the construction contract does not penalise the contractor for late completion33, the informal work rules still apply. I contend that they together form the ‘rules-in-use’ with which all employees on all projects are expected to comply. In this context, I found that the other ‘newer’ formal company policies and rules –

Code of Conduct, Operating Principles, Harassment and Bullying, Parental Leave,

Diversity, Inclusion and Flexibility – although well intentioned and often generic, have limited power and are routinely trumped by the ‘rules-in-use’.

33 When the construction contract is not a traditional lump sum or hard-dollar contract, for example.

200

For example, parental leave at Can-do is still viewed as an actual cost plus a resource cost to construction projects rather than a cost borne by the company as a whole.

There is little recognition of the obstacle this presents to achieving women’s pay equity, career progression and ultimately their retention. The idea that paid parental leave costs the project leads to overt and covert discrimination against those who avail themselves of their entitlement, making them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome when they return to work. This contributes to the common decision to leave the company after taking parental leave.

Some informal, short-term and largely hidden informal flexibility in work arrangements does exist on certain construction sites. I found however that little room is given to accommodate formal flexible work practices that support workers with care responsibilities or those making adjustments to work times following parental leave. This makes construction sites unattractive or even impracticable workplaces for those with care responsibilities.

Fiona Mackay (2014, p. 552) reminds us that ‘new’ rules are shaped by the gender legacy of the environment in which they are ‘nested’. She tells how sometimes when new rules are introduced, there is usually a process of contestation and interpretation in which actors are inclined to ‘remember the old’ and ‘forget the new’. I found at

Can-do that the ‘newer’ rules focused on addressing employee inclusion and work life balance were often disregarded on site. I found one of the reasons ‘newer’ rules

(Code of Conduct, Parental Leave Policy and Flexibility policy) are so easily forgotten at Can-do is that they do not address the ‘rules-in-use’ directly. Another is that they lack penalties for non-compliance (as do the Operating Principles, Diversity and Inclusion Policy) or they lack enforcement (as does Harassment and Bullying).

To Patricia Yancey Martin (2006) point, I would add that in authoring ‘newer’ rules

201 to tackle diversity and inclusion, Can-do has in fact embedded existing gender power relations into its new policies and rules by not addressing the structural aspects of the existing gender order.

5.5.2 RETENTION: GENDERED ‘RULES-IN-USE’

Incorporated in the ‘rules-in-use’ - the organisational practices, values and expectations of appropriate behaviour - is a well-established set of gender arrangements that institutionalise unequal power between men and women (Acker,

1990, Chappell and Waylen, 2013, Sang et al., 2014). Rules can be gendered in various ways: they can be gendered themselves, they can have gendered effects, gendered actors work with rules and rules can produce gendered outcomes (Gains and Lowndes, 2014). I found that the predominantly male project leaders and peers practice coercion and consensus to enforce the ‘rules-in-use’ (Rogan, 2015). I also observed that the ‘rules-in-use’ at Can-do uphold a ‘gendered logic of appropriateness’ (Chappell, 2006) that values the hegemonic masculinity codes of reliability, authority, strength and dominance. Can-do’s ‘rules-in-use’ place a premium on ‘heroic masculinity’ perceived as necessary to deliver distressed and difficult projects (Mackay and Rhodes, 2013, Watts, 2008, Styhre, 2011a). The ‘rules-in-use’ also act to exclude women, pushing them out of the.

As a result, I observed that the value of employees is determined largely by their undivided loyalty to a project and their ability to pressure subcontractors and subordinates successfully to deliver on a project. I found that Can-do places extreme demands on its construction professionals, but that the care of its employees and others is routinely outsourced. Here in the construction context, the concept of ‘the greedy institution’ developed by Coser (1974) and others (Franzway, 2001, Mackay

202 and Rhodes, 2013) seems particularly apt. The greedy institution keeps men bound to a hegemonic code that costs them their health, their relationships and even their life.

I found that female construction professionals are in a double bind: Be willing both to commit to construction’s male-oriented rules and deliver the care at home expected from a female (Coser, 1974, Franzway, 2001, Martin, 2006, Mackay and

Rhodes, 2013). Women who cannot manage the former seem to be destined for the latter.

In addition to witnessing the effect of these rules-in-use, I observed the other effect of hegemonic masculinity: a tolerance of women’s subordination expressed through sexism, sexist graffiti, language, humour, gender pay gap and sexual harassment.

What emerges from my study is that for women, the process of ‘gendering’ persists throughout their construction career. As in a hurdle race, women are expected to glide over persistent obstacles put in their way and keep pace with men running on a clear track. The sense of not being treated fairly and not fitting in contributes to women’s deciding to leave construction. It consolidates masculine overrepresentation in the industry.

5.5.3 ACTS OF PRIVILEGE IN RETENTION

Because of their opaqueness, there is a structural blindness to the ‘rules-in-use’ by

Can-do policy authors and managers when it comes to problematising women’s retention. This is a result of masculine privilege revealed through a culture of denial, backlash and resistance.

A culture of denial at Can-do is shown through the problematisation of women’s retention that overlooks the ‘rules-in-use’, their gendered nature and their gendered effect. Denial is evident in the enforcement of formal rules such as the construction 203 contract and employee contract that contradict formal policies ostensibly aimed at promoting gender equality, inclusion and women’s retention. A culture of denial turns a blind eye to the aggressive and bullying behaviour used to drive construction programs despite its flouting of company values (collaboration, respect, integrity diversity, trust and inclusion). Indeed, a culture of denial privileges employees who respect and enforce masculine work practices. It rewards those who are permanently available to needs of the organisation and excludes those who are not.

A culture of denial within Can-do shows up as well in its disregard of specific contractual terms which limit work hours. Instead of rewarding compliance, the company honours its leaders and employees for their project delivery results, thus validating and legitimising practices of total availability and presenteeism. Denial means that the company’s definition of a good worker is not one who practices collaboration, safety and inclusivity, but rather one who spares no effort in delivering unswerving project completion even in the face of adversity. A culture of denial overlooks the problem that privilege is relational and favours the dominant group that has always constructed, defined and allocated values and rules (Johnson, 2001).

At Can-do, a culture of denial prevents senior managers from inquiring into the effectiveness of ‘newer’ rules aimed at encouraging women’s retention and finding out why these rules are failing in practice. For instance, in the Building Division it is disregard for the Parental Leave Policy that results in the largest loss of women, a fact which escapes most of the company managers. Similarly, a culture of denial results in an inappropriately designed Flexibility Policy structured to meet the flexibility needs of the company, not those of the employee. Instead of systematically incorporating flexibility into project delivery and standardising work hours, the policy keeps the onus on the individual to negotiate and relies on a false premise of ‘give

204 and take’. Placing the onus on the individual to formally negotiate any flexibility only encourages the hidden informal flexibility existing on some sites that rewards those who conform to the ‘rules-in-use’. Can-do’s offering of three days’ well-being leave ignores the fact that employees are currently working almost double their contracted hours. Another symbol of resistance to change is Can-do’s setting of a maximum 60- hour week as a global minimum safety standard.

Another sign of a culture of denial is the extent to which formal company rules are represented as being gender neutral, with no consideration given to their gendered effect. The company blithely ignores how adhering to the ‘rules-in-use’ aligns with codes of masculinity that legitimise men’s privileged status on the construction site.

This study found a few other factors that reveal denial in relation to parental leave practices. First, despite recent changes to the name, terms and details of Can-do’s

Parental Leave Policy, it continues to reflect the traditional heteronormative expectations of primary carer and supporting partner, thus reaffirming women’s role as carers and men’s role as breadwinners. Second, Can-do senior managers have paid little attention to parental leave in practice. There is no acknowledgement that women taking parental leave are routinely left on their own to negotiate and organise their departure, return and career ‘survival’. Third, despite the introduction of an annual gender pay audit and changes to the costing of parental leave34, there appears to be little recognition of the financial and career cost to women in taking parental leave. The paradox is that fatherhood at Can-do is seen as a career asset while motherhood is penalised, with men traditionally viewed as the reliable worker.

Applying that same logic, the gender pay audit at Can-do only analysed the salaries of women, leaving men’s salaries free from scrutiny. Rosenblum and Travis (1996)

205 remind us that those who are privileged enjoy an ‘unmarked’ status that reflects their legitimacy and inclusion. This seems to be the case at Can-do.

One of the strongest expressions of a culture of denial is the reaction of disbelief by

Can-do managers at the persistence of sexism on construction sites. In practice, masculine privilege is so pervasive on sites that workers freely scribble sexist graffiti on their attire or the site walls without so much as a hint of reproach from project leaders and workers. As Raewyn Connell (2006) argues, tolerance of sexist behaviour is a marker of a form of masculinity that promotes the position of women as subordinate sexual objects rather than legitimate equals. To use Puwar’s (2004) terminology, women at Can-do are ‘space invaders’ in a heteronormative male space.

These various expressions of denial have the cumulative effect of gendering women over the course of their career in ways which undermine their wellbeing and confidence. They act to undermine women’s retention and reaffirm men’s entitlement to a construction career. Being within the norm, earns one the privilege of inclusion. Men are left free to focus on their work and career with distractions kept to a minimum while women find themselves questioning their fit and value.

Resistance is obvious when, even after company leaders are shown evidence of the sexism at the Can-do Gender Equality Strategy Day, they appear unwilling to respond with detailed policy initiatives to address the practices of exclusion. McLaren

(2000) remarks that those enjoying privilege often refuse to acknowledge the reality in practice of certain social relations of dominance and subordination.

Resistance at Can-do shows up in the form of a rejection of flexible work policies on site, particularly when it comes to the return to work of women following their

34 Parental leave is now required to be costed to the business not the individual project.

206 absence on parental leave. In the Building Division, the ‘locking out’ by managers of formalised flexible work practices (such as the staged return from parental leave and the provision of part-time or shared roles) leaves women with no choice but to individually negotiate their return to work with managers who actively resist non- standard working arrangements. Because flexible work arrangements are viewed as abnormal, women are also subjected to backlash. This often takes the form of disapproval and contempt from peers, who perceive women as asking for ‘special’ treatment. As a result, instead of focusing on existing work practices and their gendered effect, the focus shifts to women and their capacity to fit in with the norms of work. True to Thomas and Plaut (2008) definition of institutional resistance, Can- do’s reluctance to enhance diversity and inclusion by incorporating flexibility into their project planning and delivery is itself a form of institutional resistance that acts to preserve masculine privilege.

In summary, retaining women professionals in the construction workforce is a long term multi-faceted challenge. The cumulative effect for women of rigid masculine work practices, the persistent ‘othering’ of women and disregarded company policies on the construction site is exclusion. These markers of exclusion all contribute to women’s decision at Can-do to leave the industry. Also apparent is the fact that formal company rules aimed at addressing women’s inclusion in the workplace are often trumped by other existing formal rules such as the construction contract and the employment contract. Together with informal rules, these formal rules reinforce gendered practices and act to disadvantage women. I have found it is through a culture of denial and backlash and resistance that masculine privilege is preserved in construction. This is a critical determinant of women’s retention. Poor retention of women in construction has a direct impact on women’s progression into leadership

207 ranks, as do other factors such as homosociality and the informal promotion practices that will be discussed next.

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6 THE FALSE CEILING: THE PROBLEM OF WOMEN’S PROGRESSION

6.1 INTRODUCTION

The construction sector is vertically gendered, with men overwhelmingly holding the positions of power and influence. As explained in Chapter 1, men dominate the positions at the head of construction companies. The reasons for this dominance and women’s lack of progression in the construction industry are complex. This situation is not simply due to practices directly related to career progression – opportunities for promotion, meeting leadership scripts and career pathways - it is also influenced and compounded by the recruitment and retention practices in construction that were discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. As noted in these chapters, practices which uphold masculine privilege mean that fewer women enter the industry in the first place, and those who do enter depart more frequently and sooner than men.

Ultimately this means there are fewer women left in place to compete for promotion to the top. Having noted the impact of these practices in earlier chapters, this chapter turns specifically to the issue of women’s and men’s internal progression and retention to determine what acts of privilege – denial, neutrality or backlash – act to maintain men’s overrepresentation in positions of power.

This chapter suggests that in the construction sector, the ‘rules-in-use’ that shape career advancement are not gender neutral nor are they applied objectively. A key finding of this chapter is that progression at Can-do Constructions operates through acts of homosociality, where particular masculinities are demonstrated instrumentally and expressively. Instrumentally, employees are required to form strategic alliances 209 with male managers and demonstrate their dependability and compliance with rigid work practices and career path norms. Expressively, employees need to perform (and be complicit in the performance of) accepted forms dominance, authority and control. It is through the adherence to practices of homosociality that men gain advantage and advance their careers in construction.

This chapter is divided into five sections:

 Section 6.2 of this chapter looks at how scholars have interpreted men’s

progression into positions of power and the problem presented by women’s

underrepresentation at the top in construction.

 Section 6.3 focuses on the formal policies of Can-do Construction that are

designed to shape career progression and redress the gender imbalance at

management level.

 In Sections 6.4 and 6.5 outline how career progression and promotion are

managed in practice and the implications for women and men.

 Section 6.6 revisits the literature in relation to my findings and draws

attention to the gendered dynamics of the ‘rules-in-use’ that shape career

advancement. It concludes by suggesting that an outcome of masculine

privilege is that the ‘rules-in-use’ that determine who will be successful are

not based on merit. They are gendered and they act to reinforce male

dominated leadership.

6.2 THE TALENT PIPELINE

Across all industries, career advancement is shown as a vertical upward movement into positions of power. Scholars have long confirmed that women are

210 underrepresented in positions of power in construction (Powell et al., 2006, Greed,

2000, Watts, 2009). The absence of women in management positions has a flow-on effect, with a lack of female role models in the sector. Construction sociologist

Andrew Dainty found that women and men experience disparate career progression, with men rising to power more swiftly than their female colleagues, even when working at the same occupation in the same construction firm (1998, 2000b, 2006).

Jacqueline Watts (2009, p. 525) points to a ‘diversity paradox’ where over recent years the gender diversity narrative has gained in prominence, yet leadership ranks in the construction sector remain almost entirely male dominated. The existing literature highlights three core reasons for women’s lack of progression: (1) informality, (2) male work norms (3) skills and visibility. Each of these will be discussed in turn.

6.2.1 INFORMALITY

Australian academics Erica French and Glenda Strachan (2013) estimate that 75 per cent of Australian construction companies do not apply any specific promotion strategy to improve gender equality in leadership. Instead, as their research shows, companies call on women to alter their educational and lifestyle choices to create change. Even though studies of the construction industry in Australia and the UK

(Dainty, 1998, Mills et al., 2008, Raiden and Sempik, 2012, Watts, 2009) have found criteria for progression, (including formal employee performance appraisals and position descriptions used to assess performance) in place for all employees, these practices are routinely ignored by managers when selecting employees for promotion.

These scholars observe that progression, like recruitment in large construction companies, tends to operate informally bypassing the Human Resources Department and its criteria. This leaves the responsibility for progression to the discretion of

211 managers and largely determined by ‘who you know’ (Watts, 2009). The practice of informality in promotion, coupled with a highly competitive and short-term focus on business interests, is what encourages construction employees to build and maintain wide internal company networks and develop links to middle management to help them progress in their careers (Dainty et al., 2000b, Bagilhole et al., 2008, Raiden and

Sempik, 2012).

6.2.2 MALE WORK NORMS

In the absence of clear promotion criteria, scholars have established that managers tend to give preference to employees that fit their notions of the ‘ideal worker’

(Dainty et al., 2000a, Watts, 2007a, Raiden and Sempik, 2012). The ideal worker is an employee who follows the traditional male career cycle – an unbroken full-time career with long company tenure – and conforms to masculine codes of behaviour: presenteeism, long hours, total availability, control and command management

(Dainty and Lingard, 2006, Mills et al., 2008, Raiden and Sempik, 2012, Sang et al.,

2014, Greed, 2000, Bastalich et al., 2003). By contrast, no value is seen in career breaks to birth children or care for elderly parents (Dainty and Lingard, 2006).

6.2.3 PROJECT DELIVERY SKILLS AND VISIBILITY

Once identified, employees earmarked for management roles are given access to project delivery skills that are valued in the business then trained for frontline site- based operational roles, often on large, high profile projects. As Dainty et al. and others observe, a greater scope of responsibility in these core business roles provides these employees with higher visibility to senior management (Dainty et al., 2000a,

Faulkner, 2005).

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Aside from Andrew Dainty’s research comparing the career paths of both female and male UK construction professionals, academic literature is largely focused on the progression of women (see also Sang and Powell, 2012b, Watts, 2009, Francis, 2017).

This literature has found for women that relying on networks in informal structures to progress their career presents a problem (Francis, 2017). True to the traditional gendered work models followed in construction, managers often see women as a flight risk once they begin a family. Perceived as unreliable by nature, women are generally assigned low profile office based support roles that offer them little

‘progression capital’ (Dainty et al., 2000b, Moore, 2006, Sharpe et al., 2012). Childless women fare little better, being judged by another gender standard as having ‘failed’ in their womanly duties (Mills et al., 2008, Watts, 2007b, Bagilhole et al., 2008).

The existing literature shows that women do not appear to benefit from long company tenure to the same extent as their male counterparts. Because their career progression is slow, women who move from one company to another to gain advancement usually find themselves faced with the same dampening practices

(Dainty 2000). In the UK and Australia, studies have shown that career aspirations for women are tempered as they gain tenure in the construction industry. They face growing disillusionment with their career prospects, especially when they need to negotiate work and family arrangements (Dainty et al., 2000a, Watts, 2009, 2012,

Francis, 2017). As a result, women readjust their career objectives or leave the industry altogether. This further reduces the supply of potential female managers

(Dainty, 1998).

Those women who are successful tend to see their advancement as the result of their own ability and personal circumstances (family status and personal qualities including aspiration and career planning) rather than coming from the support of others such

213 as mentors and sponsors (Francis, 2017). Franzway et al. (2009, p. 101) adds that both women and men frequently assert that merit is based on gender neutral terms and that those who do not succeed just ‘don’t cut the mustard’ or measure up to the demands of construction management. For women who do rise above the pack, their capability is treated as an exception. This means that women rarely gain the status of an authentic and authoritative construction professional (Faulkner, 2005, 2009,

Franzway et al., 2009, Watts, 2009, Professionals Australia, 2010). Francis (2017, p.

18) concludes that construction companies have yet to grant women the ‘permission’ to lead or to succeed.

As Francis (2017) reminds us, one of the limitations in the research to date is that most of the data is drawn from interviews or surveys with of women who are still working in the industry, most under 40, who have yet to negotiate their rise into senior management. Additionally, with the exception of French and Strachan (2013), existing literature has tended to ignore the formal progression policies in place at different companies. This leaves a gap in understanding how the formal processes in place translate into practice in the face of informal rules and practices. My research is aimed in part at addressing this gap.

For the most part, scholars have tended to focus their attention on women’s lack of power and numbers in construction leadership (Watts, 2008, 2009, Francis, 2017,

Faulkner, 2009). This has resulted in two omissions. There is no deep understanding of the practices that maintain men’s power and overrepresentation in leadership or the operation of gender practices on the career progression of women and men. In other words, the literature falls short when analysing the gendered dynamics of the ‘rules- in-use’ and determining whether by their very nature, these dynamics act to privilege one group over another. Although scholars have pointed to construction’s ‘masculine

214 culture’ as an impediment to women’s progression, no one has yet spelt out how the

‘rules-in-use’ systematically privilege men over women. I contribute to the existing knowledge by scrutinising the gender dynamics of promotion and career progression at Can-do and by introducing a masculine privilege dimension into this discussion.

To formulate transformative policy responses, it is necessary first to fill this gap of knowledge.

6.3 CLIMBING THE LADDER

Can-do Constructions is almost completely dominated by men at every level of management details in Table 3, in Chapter 4). At company level, men account for 80 per cent of board members and 81 per cent of the national executive (see Can-do

Construction’s 2016 Annual Report, Appendix Y, No. 27). Data provided by HR suggests that Can-do’s Building Division is no exception, with men occupying 89 per cent of executive management roles. Most project director and construction management roles are also filled by men, with only a handful of women present in these roles across the country. Women occupy a small percentage of management roles, namely in functional positions not specific to construction such as marketing, law and indigenous affairs. Women are present in the Building Division in junior

(Site Engineer) and mid-level (Project Engineer and Design Manager) roles. Over the last three years, women’s overall participation at Can-do Constructions has edged up slightly, with women accounting for 22% of junior and mid-level construction roles,

11% of people management roles and 13% of senior management roles35.

35 Statistics provided by Can-do Human Resources Department. These statistics include group services, such as HR, Marketing and Communications, Health and Safety but these ancillary services contribute a very small percentage to the overall Building Division.

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The first part of this section focuses on the written company progression policies that are made available to employees: the formal policies. The company has several formal policies designed to influence the career progression of women and men, yet notably absent is a policy that outlines the process of employee promotion. What emerges is a complex mix of formal policies influencing progression at Can-do. The second part of this section uses participant observation and interviews to define the

‘rules-in-use’ that employees must follow to proceed into positions of power, such as executive management, operations and project management.

What emerges is that there is no overarching policy shaping employee career progression. Rather what exists is a collection of overlapping smaller policies that shape the career advancement of employees. None of the policy documents issued to me by Can-do carries any sanction for non-compliance. In comparison to its formal policies guiding recruitment and retention, Can-do has few codified policies guiding the upward mobility of its employees.

The next section outlines how management at Can-do Constructions identifies and selects high potential employees to promote. In this section, I draw attention to the role and effectiveness of Can-do’s formal Employee Performance Review and its

Talent Identification Process and their influence on the career progression of employees. To place everything in context, I begin with a brief vignette (6.a from the

Gender Diversity Strategy Day) that captures the inconsistency in application of Can- do’s performance reviews across the Building Division.

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6.3.1 PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

6.a) An act of non-performance

Towards the end of the gender diversity strategy day, the

group of forty leaders from across the building business

discussed how managers might identify employees who felt

excluded or discriminated against in the business so that

they might be supported to be able to progress through the

ranks. One of men standing in the rear of the room

suggested that managers raise these matters during

employee performance reviews. The head of the Building

Division, spoke up. He explained to the group that as a

division, the Australian building team had the lowest

completion rate of performance reviews globally in the

company. A debate followed as to why this might be:

‘People don’t care about performance reviews because

they’re not getting pay rises,’ or ‘the pay rises received are

minuscule,’ someone added. The debate trailed off into a

conversation about flexible work in the Building Division

and the division’s poor completion rate of employee’s

performance reviews that have been left unresolved and

without consequence.

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Reviewing performance

Performance reviews measure and score employee performance. The outcome of the performance review has an impact on employee pay and bonuses, it guides in the company’s Talent Identification Planning. The performance review process as described in the Performance Review Policy document (Appendix A, No. 11 provided by Can-do) outlines that line managers need to review employees twice a year. The focus of the performance review according to this document is to provide employees and their line managers with the opportunity to discuss ‘performance for the past period, development planning for the upcoming period and specific areas for performance improvement.’ The aim of the reviews is twofold: to ensure employees are performing to standard, but also to identify opportunities for further career development and advancement.

Employee performance is determined according to a wide range of factors, some of which are outside the employee’s direct control. These are: employee goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), performance relative to peers, demonstration of company values and behaviour, feedback from clients, peers and other managers and performance of the business. The performance review document is silent on gender and negotiating bias. This silence has been recognised as a major impediment to the equal treatment and advancement of male and female employees (Eagly and Karau,

2002, 2007).

In 2016, Can-do’s Australian Building Division reported the poorest completion rate of performance reviews globally (see vignette 6.a). Interview data reveals that managers give varying degrees of attention and importance to performance reviews, with career planning apparently left up to the employee.

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I had a performance review where you set goals with my direct manager

here. He was like, ‘Did you meet your goals from last year?’ I said, ‘I

didn’t have any ’cause I was on leave.’ And he’s like, ‘Oh okay. Have you

got goals for this year?’ I’m like, ‘No. Do you have anything specifically?’

He’s like, ‘No. Everyone’s happy with your work. See ya.’ So that was,

that was my goal-setting and performance review. (Bridget, Safety

Manager)

I asked someone on-site, ‘Who actually reads that development plan?’

They said, ‘Oh no one does.’ No one sees it… The HR lady runs with

this spiel that, ‘Your development is your responsibility. It’s up to you to

do it.’ (Gail, Estimating Manager)

The Performance Review Policy explains that employees are given a performance rating on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being unacceptable performance to 5 being exceptional performance. If an employee receives a score of 1 (unacceptable performance) or 2 (developing performance) the policy calls for employees to be monitored and sanctioned for non-performance: ‘performance must be improved within a reasonable period to time to remain in the position’. By contrast, the policy does not provide for any reward or promotion if the employee scores 4 (superior performance) or 5 (exceptional performance).

Moreover, the performance review policy does not outline what happens to the employee’s performance score once the assessment is completed. To make sense of the policy, I have drawn on interview data from Executive General Manager Rachel,

Operations Manager Raymond and Human Resources Manager Helen. These interviewees describe how, after following the employee reviews, a team of senior managers and human resources managers meet to calibrate the employees scores on

219 a performance bell curve. In terms of the calibration process itself, Helen explains that employees’ scores are compared and adjusted depending on the assessment of managers:

We all do our own employees and then we come together and calibrate

as a group, and look at all of them to make sure that we think it’s being

fair. You’ve got two checks. (Helen, Human Resources Manager)

Helen adds that it is the responsibility of the human resources representative to put a

‘gender lens’ on the calibration process, an informal procedure not covered in the policy documents. But as Helen explains, this ‘gender lens’, an action to counter male advantage, seems to be applied only to women:

We always make sure that women are represented [in the calibration

group] and there isn’t any unconscious bias. And we flag women on

parental leave and all those sorts of things as well. So that definitely has a

gender lens. (Helen, Human Resource Manager)

6.3.2 EARMARKING TALENT

At Can-do, talent and succession planning operates separately from the performance review process. I was only provided with a small extract from the 2013 Talent and

Succession Planning document (Appendix A, No. 18) by Can-do. This extract refers to the need to build a ‘female pipeline’ into the top five levels of company management, but it is light on detail and fails to describe how this should be done.

According to interview data, for talent and succession planning, executive managers select ‘high potential’ employees taking into account their performance review scores and their perceptible leadership abilities and potential.

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Leadership capabilities are documented in the Leadership Framework Document

(Appendix A, No. 9). They are broken down into nine categories: big picture thinking, customer focus, judgement, clarity, focus, accountability, developing future leaders, team builder, and ability to lead change. When dealing with the development of future leaders, the document also notes that Can-do managers need to be ‘a good judge of talent and can accurately project how people are likely to respond in various circumstances’. Executive managers are also advised ‘to select strong people, hiring the best available from inside or outside’. The document does not describe what

‘strong people’ are. It also makes no reference to any manager training to help them perform this task. While the term ‘diversity’ is woven into the Leadership Framework

Document - for example, ‘creates a team of leaders who value diversity and act as role models’ - it makes no overt reference to gender diversity per se.

Senior managers conduct talent reviews alongside performance reviews. While employees are informed of their performance review scores, they are not told whether they have been short-listed as ‘high potential’ employees. According to

Human Resources Manager Helen, talent identification and succession planning is an

‘HR process… it’s not something… employees need to know.’ General Manager

Rachel disagrees with the approach of not informing ‘high potential’ employees they have been earmarked for leadership roles, but confirms it ‘is the company line’ and practice.

According to Rachel, the general manager and operations managers class all employees on a grid that determines if they are a (1) technical expert (2) rising star (3) low potential, low performance or (4) performing to criteria. Employees identified as

‘rising star talent’ then undergo an assessment against secondary criteria that reflect their international and interstate mobility and commercial savvy along with other

221 measures. In Rachel’s opinion, the process lacks a clear framework and relies instead on senior management’s familiarity with all employees. This disadvantages those employees who are not well known to senior management. As she explains:

It was very subjective because there was no rating criteria. It was just us

sitting in a room saying, what do you think of that person, so you are

completely reliant to the relationship with the [senior] managers. And

you are reliant on the operations manager knowing you. If they don’t

know you, you don’t really get rated. (Rachel, Executive Manager)

Recognising this, Rachel says she asks project leaders rather than the more senior operations managers to plot their team members on a grid because, from her experience, they know their team members better than the operations managers do.

Rachel adds that approximately five per cent of employees are identified as having

‘high potential’. A development plan is put in place for these employees and they are coached accordingly. The Career Development Plan maps out the employee’s progression in three phases: immediate term, in 1 to 3 years and in 3 to 7 years. It is the responsibility of the HR manager to track how well high potential candidates are meeting their development plan goals. Rachel concludes that despite the existence of these formal processes, in practice talent management identification rarely develops into an executed Career Development Plan. This is because ‘in reality when people are busy, it [talent development] is the first thing that gets chopped.’

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6.4 UNEARTHING THE PROGRESSION ‘RULES- IN-USE’

Interviews suggest that the formal performance review and talent management processes at Can-do have a negligible impact on career progression. They also have little effect on who is promoted and when. Participants suggest that other informal practices are more important. Senior Project Engineer Grant identifies the more common pattern of his promotions being the result of his networks and personal relationships with his managers:

Every time I wanted a promotion, it was not through a formal

procedure: it was a network that I knew the project manager and knew

the operations manager, and they knew me. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’ve got

very, very good in the last two performance reviews. I want a

promotion.’ It was a matter of, I was looking after one scope on the

project and we lost almost eight million dollars. That didn’t mean that I

was a bad engineer. I was a long way over the budget but I’d delivered a

scope safely and quickly. So things like that were taken into account

which aren’t picked up in performance reviews. (Grant, Senior Project

Engineer)

Equally, when Executive General Manager Rachel was asked whether performance reviews shape an employee’s career progression, she bluntly responded no, noting: ‘It doesn’t. It is lip-service bullshit’.

Without reference to any promotion policy, it appears that when promotions happen, they are routinely informal and unplanned. Interviewees report that promotions are most likely to occur in response to an employee’s departure when a

223 position needs to be filled, under threat of resignation from the company, as a result of being ‘in the right place at the right time’, in recognition for ‘pulling it off under pressure’ or when ‘pulled through by a manager’. To back this up, not one interviewed or shadowed participant that was asked reported ever having formally applied or been interviewed for a promotion.

Due to the informal ad hoc nature of promotions, it is difficult for participants to pinpoint a method for advancing one’s career at Can-do.

[Progression] really just depends where you get dropped in the company.

(Keith, Senior Project Engineer)

Progression, I think it’s kind of a mixture of right place at the right time

and being capable of doing it. (Christopher, Project Engineer)

On the surface, it appears that luck is often the catalyst for promotion at Can-do. On closer inspection however, it becomes clear that progression practices at Can-do seem to follow two ‘rules-in-use’, each of which reflects a gendered dynamic. The first is the practice for employees of forming strategic alliances and sponsorships with managers. The second is being sponsored by male managers for possessing the

‘leadership potential’ that in construction is imbued with gender. Vignettes 6.b and

6.c in the next section illustrate the first rule of strategic alliances and sponsorships.

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6.4.1 INSTRUMENTAL MASCULINITY: HOMOSOCIALITY AND SPONSORSHIP

6.b) The monkey bar to power

I ask Doug, an operations manager, to tell me about his

career progression. At each step along the way he names a

man. Often the same man. The man offered him job, asked

him to run a project, sent him to save a failing project,

moved him overseas or interstate or across Sydney. He has

led hard projects full of hard men. He had to because the

man asked him to and he said yes. He now has his own

division and knows all the men in power well enough to

phone them up. He worked very hard to get here.

6.c) Breaking through the pack

Doug was on site today and he wandered over to Howard’s

desk. Never did the conversation touch on work. The two

men talked only about rugby union. It was little wonder,

Howard had laid a Wallaby’s scarf across his computer

monitor and slipped a Wallaby’s jersey over his chair. He

was off to watch the Rugby World Cup. Having both played

rugby union for elite private boys schools the two began to

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compare notes; had they played in the first fifteen and

which well-known rugby and rugby league players had they

played against. Excitedly Doug reminisces about a match

where he had ‘accidentally’ – wink wink - belted a now

famous rugby player in a ruck. According to Doug, the

player got up and laughed and told him, ‘You’re next.’ He

was, Doug sniggered.

Howard had brought Doug under his wing, brought him

into his division and promoted him to senior project

manager. Doug is known as ‘a hard-arse’ and Howard

made it known he likes this. At the end of this project,

Howard wants to be promoted to construction manager, he

told Doug so. ‘It’s about putting yourself forward to those

key people in the company. It’s also about relationships.

Relationships are key,’ he tells me.

The first progression ‘rule-in-use’ I have identified is an extension of the informal recruitment practices detailed in Chapter 4. Like recruitment, career advancement at

Can-do appears to rely heavily on informal male networks. A lack of transparency around progression and promotion strengthens the need for employees to form strategic alliances with senior managers, who themselves have forged strategic alliances of their own to advance their own career. As tenure acts as a marker of employee predictability, long industry and company tenure provides employees with the opportunity to build large informal networks. Over time, strategic alliances may

226 take the form of sponsorship, making them very different from one-off promotions.

Sponsors remain long term patrons, even when the employee or the sponsor moves companies.

The tie that binds

At Can-do constructions, strategic alliances and sponsorships have a gendered flavour. The gendered effect of an overrepresentation of men in positions of power coupled with the informal nature of promotions appears to benefit men more than women. Interview data reveals that men at Can-do recognise career advancement is gained by forming strategic alliances through informal networks.

In terms of career progression, networking has been really important and

having people who you work with and proving you’re a good worker,

getting taken with them on different jobs seemed to be the story.

(Phillip, Foreman)

[Networks] It’s been everything… I’ve had a lot of managers looking out

for me and helping me… There are lots of different networks on every

project…Those that were together stayed together and helped to

promote together (Grant, Project Engineer)

In this industry it’s not what you know it’s who you know, and I truly

believe that… (Jarred, Site Manager)

Networks within companies are essential. (Angus, Project Director)

A woman’s understanding of career advancement on the other hand, evolves with her exposure to the construction industry. Young women with few years in the

227 industry such as Site Engineer Phoebe, being unsure how career progression takes place at Can-do, are left to rely on the formal performance review process:

I don’t know. I’ve got no idea. I just, fingers crossed… I think it’s, it’s up

to whoever your boss or operations manager is at the time. But, you

know, it’s hard to, to tell in such a mammoth organisation. You’re

relying on someone to kind of notice you from up here that makes that

call. (Phoebe, Site Engineer)

Women with over a decade’s experience in construction observe that their career progression has operated at a different rate to that of men and seem to plateau after the first five years. They recognise the importance of forming strategic alliances but point to the male alliances often known as ‘boys’ clubs’ from which they are excluded. A constant refrain from experienced female participants is that they find it difficult to progress, with only the formal progression review and talent mapping process to rely on:

I’ve had a lot of problem with progression my whole career. It certainly

plateaus and I find that, particularly in my first years in [rival company] I

progressed fairly quickly. (Poppy, Contracts Administrator)

It really is a boys’ club. It’s so exclusive that they won’t allow anybody in.

And I just didn’t know how to get into it… It would have been whether

they like you or not. Not merit … (Evelyn, commercial manager)

Going up the ranks…it's still pretty hard because it's still the club and

I'm still not getting access or I'm condescended to or I have to do three

times as hard or ‐ but no one really talks about it because you don’t want

to whinge about it. Rowena, project engineer) 228

For men, formal career progression and talent management processes rarely feature in their experience of career progression. No male interviewees mentioned the barrier of a ‘boys’ club’ Few admitted to having experienced difficulty in progressing their career and many described theirs as a ‘natural’ career progression (Project Engineer Christopher).

Leading the way

Most male managers at Can-do describe a career advancement that relies heavily on sponsorship and long-term strategic alliances with male superiors, while emphasising their high work ethic and skills (vignette 6.b). For example, Operations Manager

Raymond moved from company to company with his sponsor, while Doug, also an

Operations Manager, recounted that he had two sponsors at Can-do. Loyal to his sponsors, Doug had moved companies, countries and interstate to rescue ‘distressed’ projects when asked to do so.

By comparison, only two women interviewed, both in senior roles, described being sponsored by a senior male manager at points in their career.

At IConstruct [Can-do Construction’s opposition], I never asked for a

promotion. I benefitted from Tim Flynn who was a construction

manager when I started and every time Tim went up he called me up.

And he said to me, ‘You’ve gotta do this now. You’ve gotta do that

now.’ So I never, I haven’t been someone who had to say, ‘I want that

role. I want that role.’ (Rachel, Executive General Manager)

Both women acknowledge that sponsorship accelerated their career progression and boosted their personal legitimacy amongst their male peers. They also acknowledge how hard career progression is for women without sponsorship. 229

In my 25 years of experiences it's the first time I've experienced it

[sponsorship]. True sponsorship. Would have made some other decades

be a little bit easier to be honest. (Barbara, Executive General Manager)

Realising they are travelling an exclusive path, senior women at Can-do, in terms of their career survival and progression, call themselves tongue-in-cheek ‘the over- achieving Can-do bitches’.

The vastly different access to and experience of sponsorship between women and men suggests that homosocial loyalty is what underpins sponsorships and strategic alliances in construction. It appears that some women are aware of this but find it hard to secure sponsorship. Where they do, they tend to flourish. When they are excluded however, they need to rely more heavily on the formal progression procedures, the very ones that senior management and most of their male peers seem able to sidestep. Men tend to find it easier to find and gain sponsorship from those

(predominately male) in positions of power to gain career advancement in return for loyalty, predictability and commitment. Being sponsored has three beneficial effects: sponsors provide their protégé with access to ‘progression capital’, they give their protégé the opportunity to shine in front of decision makers and they pass on their own experience of successful and acceptable career strategies.

Access to progression capital

At Can-do, ‘progression capital’ – meaning the access and opportunities to build leadership networks and experience - is gained through experience in project management and delivery. In other words, to run and lead the business, employees must first demonstrate that they are able to run a construction project. In lieu of formalised training programs, sponsors provide their protégés with opportunities to

230 build their project delivery skills and support them in this process. Through my research it became obvious that managers tend to give men greater access to progression capital than women, even at graduate level. This includes being entrusted with the responsibility for work packages and tasks with greater time and cost value.

Men also receive more often than women invitations from their manager to attend important meetings and social gatherings.

The interesting thing is that, despite looking after the steel contract, Jane

doesn’t get invited to meetings with the steel contractor. (Field note)

Dennis was the ‘teacher’s pet’ or definitely somebody who was very

good at positioning himself well in regards to others. He has a good

relationship with the project director. They’ve worked together before at

[project name]. The day before I shadowed him he’d been invited by

Ethan to attend a meeting with the project directors at the head office.

He was the only project engineer in attendance. (Field note)

The other thing is that in construction, there are always still companies

that take the team to lunch or drinks, or the football. It’s always very

male-focused. So, if I was a male administrator, they would ask me but,

because you’re a female, they don’t tend to even remember you. (Poppy,

Contracts Administrator)

Access to progression capital results in protégés being promoted, often ahead of time. 27 year-old Project Engineer Christopher sponsored by Project Director Angus explains:

I just hang off Angus’ coat tails…I haven’t to date requested to go onto

a project… He [Angus] brought me over here. When I came over here,

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he sort of acknowledged that the role I was doing, was moving into was

a project engineer role and the title change would come…I think that’s

sort of given me responsibility maybe before I’ve been ready to take

responsibility. So it’s almost been forced upon me, which, inadvertently,

has made you sort of step-up to the next role before you’re actually at

the next role…I think your performance speaks for itself but can very

easily be overlooked if, if the right people aren’t speaking to the right

people… It’s about having someone on the team who, you know, trusts

in your ability and gives you the opportunity to perform. Angus was very

good at pushing my case forward through the required management

levels in order to get that job change. I think, if you had a manager that

wasn’t as well-positioned within the company and had the company

contacts, it wouldn’t necessarily happen as quickly. So I think that was a

real advantage. (Christopher, Project Engineer)

Site Manager Alan had a similar experience. He began working with his Construction

Manager Christian on the last project and then moved with him onto his recent project. Alan explains that the career progress ‘trigger’ is that Christian took him under his wing and strategically ‘exposed’ him to different aspects of construction management (industrial relations and safety management) to allow him to build the necessary skills for promotion. This relationship has also given Alan access to a promotion opportunity ahead of time.

Over the last two years, there’s been a real deliberate exposure by

Christian… You want to talk about career progression: that’s the trigger.

That’s my observation. That’s where it goes or it stops. I mean I never

joined the company and thought, ‘Fuck I wanna be a site manager.’ I

could think of nothing worse than having to deal potentially with the

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unions and a screaming match at the front gate. But Christian was very

deliberate in his exposure [to me] of issues so we learn…. [Then] we had

people leave. And Christian said, ‘You’re moving desks and you’re gonna

go here.’ And I thought, ‘Oh fuckin’ hell.’ He said, ‘Look mate I know

it’s two years earlier than we planned but you, it’s now or never.’ So I

said, ‘All right,’ (Alan, Site Manager)

Some interviewees were not aware of how sponsors give them access to progression capital. For instance, Operations Manager Raymond, with 25 years’ experience, describes a continuous sponsorship relationship with his manager Conrad that has spanned multiple companies. This relationship existed up until two years ago. On reflection, Raymond struggles to really pinpoint the catalysts for his career advancement. He recognises that Conrad was a ‘good influence’ but he is quick to emphasise his own talents and ability to deliver complex projects in full view of senior management.

If I didn’t have some sort of talent, I probably wouldn’t have got to

where I got to. My previous manager, Conrad, was probably a good

influence. Like he’s been a good boss and whatever else but I did stand

on my own two feet you know and, coming to Can-do as well, I was able

to stand on my, I was able to deliver what needed to be delivered. He

was always a good influence, good sounding board, etc. But, the way I

look at it as well is that there was a lot of what I was doing that was

making him look good as well. It’s like anything, you know. Life tends to

lead you in, if you’re in the right place at the right time. I was given the

right opportunities so doing that job at Valletta Street was always

regarded as one of the toughest jobs I ever did. I really pushed myself

there to think outside the square. It still remains for me the most

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challenging project that I’ve ever been involved with in terms of what we

had to achieve and in the timeframe. You get a lot more people coming

down to your job that wouldn’t normally come to your job. I s’pose what

you’re achieving day-in, day-out is then there on display. People can see

how fast it’s going up and they’re like, ‘Who’s looking after the

structure?’ you know. I s’pose it’s being given those opportunities but

then making the most of them when I’ve been given them. (Raymond,

Operations Manager)

As Raymond’s quotation and vignette 6.c reveals, sponsorship often runs hand-in- hand with promotions, as sponsors are willing to champion the protégé’s claim to advancement and link their reputation to the protégé’s advancement. As a trade-off, sponsorship brings loyalty and predictability from the protégé to the sponsor.

Compared to their male peers, women seemed to spend longer in non-management construction roles than men. This either because they need to prove they are not just equally but better qualified than their male peers or because they are forced to stay on at tasks with a lower perceived value, such as document control.

It’ll be two years this year [as a site engineer], I was aiming to get

promoted again by the end of this year to a project engineer. Some

people say that you should be a bit longer. I don’t really know how long

you should be a site engineer for. Pretty sure I’m doing a better role than

some other site engineers. (Dorothy, Site Engineer)

Can-do’s internal recruitment practices (detailed in Chapter 4) seem to compound women’s progression difficulties. Unlike many of their male colleagues who find it easier to forge strategic alliances and move from project to project within the same

234 team (see Chapter 4), women feel they had to prove their ability all over again each time they move projects. This delays their career advancement. As Gail explains:

I’d like an operations manager who actually knows who I am. I’d like a

senior commercial manager that stays longer than four months. I’d like a

project director that actually understands what I do and values it, and

understands the experience that I have and the capacity that I have, who

will put me up for the next role regardless of me having three kids. (Gail,

Commercial Manager)

When women vent their frustration at the lack of progression, managers often assign them additional tasks often outside of their main duties to demonstrate their worthiness for promotion. These thankless tasks added to their already heavy workload often take the form of ‘workplace housekeeping’, such as organising social events like Christmas parties (Site Engineer Dorothy), football carnivals (Site

Engineer Phoebe), undertaking document administration (Site Engineer Angela), conferences, reception duties and power point presentation slides (General Manager

Rachel). In terms of progression capital, these tasks offer little value and are often directed at junior women, actually slowing down their progress. While some of these tasks do provide a degree of visibility to senior leaders, they also reinforce traditional gender roles and do little to provide women with the opportunity to shine.

An opportunity to shine

The second role sponsors play is to give their protégés avenues to exhibit their skills in front of those in power and then to advocate for their promotion (see vignette 6.b and 6.c). This may be as simple as inviting the protégé to a management meeting or seating the protégé close to the project leaders in the site office. It could be as

235 profound as entrusting the protégé with a high profile task. Either way, admission, visibility and advocacy give the protégé legitimacy in the eyes of senior management, particularly operations managers who oversee employee’s progression of employees.

At Can-do a pattern emerges where sponsors place their protégé into valued roles on high profile projects. There is a direct correlation between the project's commercial risk and the value of progression capital on offer. Project Director Angus explains:

People get hung up on different titles but it also depends on the size and

the value and complexity of the project. (Angus, Project Director)

Given such opportunities, protégés can demonstrate their mettle and reliability to the company’s decision makers.

Sponsors also act as advocates for the promotion of their protégés and grant them access to a broader support network. This is important when there is a large field of employees and promotion is left in the hands of an operations manager like

Raymond who says he manages 550 people in his region. He relies on the advice of his project leaders to guide him in relation to employee promotions:

I’m relying on my construction managers, you know, and/or senior

project engineers that are looking at site engineers and project engineers

in terms of this person is ready, I’m relying on them…to provide me

with a recommendation. (Raymond, Operations Manager)

All participants – female and male - are aware that operations managers hold sway over promotions, but men seem to be especially conscious of the influence project directors and construction managers have over promotion decisions.

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If you know the construction manager, the operation manager, and, if

they see that you’ve got the ability, there’s every chance that you can get

promoted. (Ben, Senior Project Engineer).

Keeping to the path

Another way sponsors support their charge is by passing on valuable career path knowledge. This includes helping the protégés comply with the necessary often unwritten rules that determine their ‘management potential’. It must be noted that merit is often code for ‘male career path’. The first unwritten rule is that, to be considered for a senior executive role such as operations manager, executive general manager or divisional head, employees must first have a proven track record of leading a construction project. To do this according to Executive General Manager

Rachel, employees need to have followed the traditional construction career pathway

(identified by the green line in Figure 2) that offers little scope for deviation, with each role needing to be checked off before moving into senior management.

The second unwritten rule is that, to be considered ‘management potential’, employees must advance their careers early and swiftly. Interviews with operation managers reveal that there is an expectation for employees to reach project leadership roles such as construction manager or project director in first 10 to 15 years of their career. One should be construction manager by 30, project director by one’s mid 30s and operations manager by 40 years old. Those who do not progress at this speed are ostensibly ruled out. Project Manager Angus is in his early 50s. He reached project leadership in the required time frame and decided to stay on in project leadership. He recognises that, given his age, he is an exception to the rule:

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I’m outside the bounds of their normal people who run normal-size

projects. Mostly there are 30 to 40-year-old(s) running a $200 to 250, 300

million project…Project success. Track, proven track record. There is no

substitute for it… (Angus, Project Director)

Employees who do not keep pace undermine their progression capital. Operations

Manager Raymond explains that when employees tell him they have been in construction for over a decade and have not been promoted or moved into a management role, he discounts them:

“I’ve been here for 15 years, you know. I should be promoted.” Well,

no. What’s that saying to you? That’s saying to you that you’re not

cutting it to take that next step. Maybe you need to look at something

else. Maybe a design role, or something else. (Raymond, Operations

Manager)

Raymond’s quote reveals that he too perceives Can-do’s promotion processes to be meritocratic. It also infers that employees who do not progress at the required speed are not cut out for roles on the traditional construction career pathway (marked by the green line in Figure 2) and therefore better suited to lesser valued roles with a gendered flavour, such as design,. At Can-do ‘girly roles’, as coined by Estimating

Manager Nicole, include design, commercial, sustainability and interior fitouts. These roles, although essential for project delivery and often undertaken by men, have traditionally been female ghettos. Indeed, women are reportedly routinely directed towards these roles by their managers, in anticipation of future family commitments.

I pick the guys up on their assumption of whether she can handle it or ‐

or she's at the age of having a child or you know she has got a child.

They make these assumptions to the negative because they're thinking 238

about their own wives… and it's overt. It's not even unconscious. Really

smart, good women get sidelined. (Paris, Executive Manager)

Importantly, managers and employees alike perceive these roles to have less progression capital than construction roles and to be unlikely to eventuate in senior executive positions.

Quality. Environmental, Safety HR and all that’s obviously…paperworky

roles. Because girls always get put on the paperwork roles because

they’re good at paperwork. And we are. But it’s like I don’t want a job

just because I’m good at it, I want a job that’s gonna challenge me.

(Nicole, Estimating Manager)

There are exceptions though, including women who had set out to pursue a design career. Fay who is now a project design manager never felt her career progression had been undermined by her choice of role as a designer. She is conscious however of having followed a path of lesser resistance.

I have had a lot of opportunities and limited issues but I suspect that this

is because my career path was design. Other women who started at the

same time as me and wanted to be construction managers, site managers

etc. They have not had the same experience or opportunities. They have

been continually been shepherded towards traditional design roles and

contract admin. (Fay, Project Design Manager)

Beyond simply following the traditional career path, there is an understanding amongst male managers at Can-do that career advancement is reward for hard work.

One of the things I’ve learned about Can-do is, at the end of the day,

they do actually give a shit about their people, and their attitude towards 239

people who don’t is pretty intolerant. They expect a pound of flesh but

to a point. They won’t ask you for more than you wanna give. So, if you

don’t wanna give, you don’t have to give; just don’t expect the same

returns as the people who wanna give. (Doug, Operations Manager)

On the last job there was a 32-year-old who was given a project

management role. In the process of that job, the PM’s [Project

Manager’s] relationship with his wife broke down and they divorced. He

was under enormous stress. He’s now pulled through and has a new

relationship. But the project took its toll. By proving himself on that job

he has set himself up now. (Willie, Site Manager)

Expectations of hard work extend to prioritising work above care responsibilities and personal relationships. This has gendered implications for both female and male employees. For instance, the goal of making it to management in the first two decades of one’s career does not allow for an employee’s need to take career breaks such as parental leave. What is more, managers who are given the power to shape an employee’s career advancement are for the most part male with stay-at-home wives who ended their career to accommodate their husbands’ work demands.

I was pulled off to go to Brisbane. It was just me and my wife. No kids.

She was a school teacher. She resigned and then when we went over

there, she never found a job. (Raymond, Operations Manager)

It is suggested that to be considered management material, employees are expected to model their lives on that of an unencumbered male with no care responsibilities, who prioritises work above all else and is rewarded for his loyalty and reliability (long hours, no career break and total availability) with career advancement.

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When you look at the trajectory of how people are promoted… That

pond tends to be all of the same person with the same sort of history.

They hire on the fact that you’ve done that same exact job, or almost

that same exact job somewhere else in your career. (Paris, Executive

Manager)

The result of this unwritten rule is that the eligible talent pool and pipeline into management is narrow. It largely excludes women, who undertake the bulk of care responsibilities, as discussed in detail in Chapter 5.

For women, taking a career break to go on parental leave appears to have a significant impact on their prospects for retention and progression. Most women reported that on return from parental leave their career progression dropped down a speed and shifted into a holding pattern, especially if they asked for any reduction in work hours. At this point, most women were directed away from project delivery roles on site, finding themselves relegated to female ghettos such as the fitout division where management visibility and progression capital are minimal. As noted in Chapter 5, this left women with an either/or choice: career progression or family.

Project Manager Sinead, a Can-do employee for over a decade, explains that since having children her career progression has stalled:

There’s not a lot to say. I’ve kind of moved sideways…I am bored

witless. (Sinead, Project Manager)

When asked if anything has hindered her career progression, Commercial Manager

Gail responds:

Kids, Am I allowed to say that? (Gail, Commercial Manager)

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By comparison, none of the male participants reported that parental leave or children had had any impact on their career progression.

The effect of parental leave on career advancement is not lost on ambitious young women either. Unlike their male colleagues, they seem to adjust their career aspirations accordingly.

So I’m 27-years-old now. I wanted to be a senior project engineer by 30.

That was a goal. Now I’m a site engineer. Originally, when I started

engineering in that undergrad position interview, I told the project

manager that I wanted to be a project manager one day. [This

department] does not have any female project managers. I want to do

that except I just feel like having a baby would put a career stop to that.

So as long as I get to a senior project engineer role that would be good.

(Dorothy, Site Engineer)

Young men also talk about how they would like to balance family life with the heavy demands of work. Rather than scaling back their ambitions, some men suggested leaving Can-do and contracting so as to find employment working for a property developer client-side where they could expect more family friendly hours.

That is not to say that those who enjoy the spoils of strategic alliances and sponsorship are without skills and application either. Sponsorship does however provide a slipstream to progression that is not otherwise granted to people of equal skill or commitment. Sponsored employees do not need to spend their time applying for roles or developing tactics to make their career happen. That said, the chosen employees do need to prove they have the ability to deliver a project and manage a workforce, and the proof of success lies in the performance of masculinity. The next

242 section begins with three vignettes that observe the expressions of masculinity seemingly expected to be considered ‘management material’.

243

Most common base entry point into the company

Figure 2: Can-do Construction Career Pathways. This document was issued to me by a participant and does not form part of the 244 documents issued to me by Can-do. 6.4.2 EXPRESSIVE MASCULINITY: BEING THE PACKAGE

6.d) Leading by example

The construction programming training session I was

observing was for site based construction professionals,

from graduates through to project engineers. From the very

beginning of the session, it quickly became clear that this

event was not about the participants: it was about the

senior management. Today, all participants had to present

a fictitious construction program to a group of senior

managers from the Building Division for a building project

that did not exist. Two weeks prior, the participants had

been put into teams, given limited information about the

building project and asked to develop and present a

program that sequenced the construction works. The

assignment was on top of the participant’s normal

workload. Most of the groups had worked over the weekend

to complete it. As the participants found their seats, the

training coordinator I am introduced to tells me that a

program of this magnitude would take one experienced

programmer six weeks to coordinate and deliver.

245

Before the arrival of the operations manager and a general

foreman, the trainer – a senior programmer himself – tries

to calm the participants by telling them that the training ‘is

not meant to be a gang attack.’ But the first presentation

was exactly that. Some participants had pre-empted this.

One participant told me that the operations manager was a

‘hard arse’ and would ‘rip you a new one’.

The training started 40 minutes late when the operations

manager and general foreman strode into the room and

took up space under the window. The operations manager

was a slight man, in his late forties dressed in a suit and the

general foreman a man in his sixties wore site clothes. As

they walked into the room and took their seats next to the

window, the participants – twenty men and three women -

spoke to each other with their eyes. They were nervous (as

was I).

We had been told in the introduction that each group

would present for 20 minutes, however the first group’s

presentation ran for an hour. Instead of letting the

participants complete their presentation, the general

foreman interrupted each presenter and fired questions at

them. He interrogated their logic, their knowledge and

their confidence. His style was relentlessly, combative and

critical. There was no praise given. The operations

manager joined, so too the training coordinator. One by 246

one, the participants were publicly torn apart. The leaders

drilled down into details well beyond the information in the

briefing documents. The tension in the room rose. The

leaders feasted on the participants and started to compete

against one another to score the most points.

It was not all serious; the leaders used a good amount of

mockery and humour too. At one point a participant asked

the leaders whether he was making an incorrect

assumption. ‘Don’t be too cute. It’s not your job to

question us. We ask the questions, not you,’ laughed the

general foreman.

This was a very public test and I wondered who was

enjoying it. The young men on my table raised their

eyebrows at each other and fidgeted in their seats. They

were the fourth group to present.

There was also no doubt where power lay in the room.

Midway through the second group, the operations manager

left the room. He never returned.

The heavy questioning ceased. The feasting ended. The

presentations sped up. The remaining leaders were almost

disinterested by the presentations. After the event, the chief

programmer told me that the participants’ work was

exceptional, truly exceptional; not that the participants

247

themselves were told this. I was surprised he could see this

beyond the tint of masculinity that had nabbed my view.

6.e) Putting some cunt into it 36

Howard is young and ambitious. He heads up a large

proportion of the engineering works on site and manages a

team of young site engineers and graduates. After lunch, I

followed Howard, who is going away on leave for a month,

to a handover meeting where he is delegating his work to

people. Only men attended this meeting. The main players

were Howard, Doug, Nick and Lawrence, who sat at the

corners of the table. The three younger engineers from

Howard’s team sat in between the others. The young guys

didn’t really say much at all. They just listened and nodded

when appropriate. The other guys did all the talking.

Howard was heading overseas to watch the Rugby World

Cup. So the meeting started off with talk about beer, meat

pies and rugby including ‘pre-loading’ before the match

and smuggling alcohol into football games. After this, the

group bagged the consultant and there was a bit of

36 This event was observed by Adam, my research partner and transcribed from our debriefing session post-event.

248

badmouthing of some other people including somebody

who was nicknamed ‘the little bastard’.

The conversation turned to work. There were different

things that had to be done while Howard was away.

Howard asked Doug to attend a meeting for him while he

was away. Doug questioned Howard’s decision, but

Howard replied, “I want you to go to the meeting with the

plumbing subcontractor. I want you to put some cunt in

the meeting.” He used the word ‘cunt’ to mean, a bit of

mongrel, hard-nosed edge. Everybody had a laugh at that.

Doug looked like he really liked that idea of him being a

cunt and being asked to be a cunt. I had observed Doug

during the week; he walked around the site office with his

chest puffed-out wearing a big moustache. He looked like a

big peacock. Like he was just really peacocking around,

wanting people to look at him and see how good a job he

was doing. Doug replied, “Oh I’m just a puss. People just

call me ‘Pussycat Doug’. Lawrence is the real cunt around

here,” and everybody laughed at that as well but I got the

sense that Doug could really be a cunt if he needed to be,

as could all the senior guys.

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6.f) Performing authority 37

Walter, the man I was shadowing for the day, made me feel

welcome even though it was quite clear that he had been

forcibly volunteered into the role as someone to be

shadowed38. I was surprised that Walter, given his seniority,

was sitting in the middle of an open-plan office. The office

was full. Walter seemed very proud of the work he has done

in the past and very proud of the work that he’s doing on-

site and talked about it as if it was his doing that a lot of the

construction work had happened. He wanted to talk a lot

about himself. He had very little interest in other people.

He was a construction manager. In meetings, he arrived

and demanded attention. He managed at speed. Very fast.

Very quick managing. Lots of things at once. Quite

demanding…. There was a lot of posturing, a lot of

drawing attention to himself. He walked fast. He didn’t

suffer fools. I sat in on a three and a half hour meeting with

the sub-contractors and his language and tone changed

completely. Swearing increased dramatically, dropping his

‘Rs’ and speaking in this really sort of … more ‘ocker tone.

After the meeting, Walter got back and was sitting in his

chair, he was inundated by various people from within the

37 This event was observed by Louise, my research partner and transcribed from our debriefing session post-event. 38 Walter, did give his consent to participate, nonetheless.

250

office, asking him questions. It seemed to me that he was

managing 10 or 12 issues at once and he was across the top

of all of them.

At Can-do, observations and interviews reveal that to rise to the top, employees are expected to demonstrate they have the grit to lead in challenging, often confrontational environments. In this context, management takes on a gendered form. Dominance, authority and control (described in terms of dominance, driven, confident, highly competitive, decisive and aggressive), all masculine codes of behaviour, are the expected conventions of Can-do Constructions managers.

To get anywhere in the industry, you’ve got to be dominant, a dominant

person and show dominance… The people who do well are people who

influence. People who are confident and assertive. (Lawrence, Project

Quality Manager)

Highly-competitive, highly-driven, thick-skinned, confident of your

abilities…. look the other part is common sense. You need some

buildability, knowledge. You need to be a fast learner, technically…. You

need that spark… (Angus, Project Director)

Smart, confident and decisive (Carly, Project Manager)

I think you have to be very vocal, very aggressive. (Rowena, Project

Engineer)

That is not to say that all managers observed conducted themselves in the same way, ticking off each one of these behavioural codes all the time. Across the sites and events a variety of management styles could be observed. I found that these 251 masculine codes of behaviour were part of the management toolbox, particularly on construction sites. There was the expectation that managers would assert dominance over other men (and over women) as and when needed. In other words, dominance, authority and control are the markers of a construction manager. For instance, vignette 6.e shows senior management using an aggressive, attacking, authoritative style of management that masquerades as technical competence. It illustrates how this is used to test the nerves of employees under a barrage of questioning that has little to do with the technical task at hand. Vignettes 6.d, 6.e and 6.f reveal how performances of hegemonic codes of masculinity including authority and aggression are switched on when required (in front of senior management, for instance) and form part of the management practice celebrated at Can-do.

Vignettes 6.d, 6.e and 6.f also reveal that sarcasm and swearing, often socially risky, are routinely served up to demonstrate a manager’s dominance and control and rarely challenged by those present. Instead of being challenged, this type of behaviour is most often greeted by awkward laughter or silence. On site during these occurrences,

I watched as other participants’ eyes darted in my direction to see if the outsider had registered any reaction. On site, acts of dominance and control are often accompanied with aggression. These outbursts of emotion seem to be an acceptable extension of masculine rationality and level headedness (see vignette 6.d).

Aside from using the language, managers and aspiring managers perform dominance with their bodies. I observed men of all ages and levels of power actively performing authority on site through posturing and peacocking (see vignette 6.d, 6.e, 6.f). This included the puffing out of their chest, walking at a brisk pace, swearing, flaunting their technical expertise, speaking loudly and taking up space by spreading out their limbs. Meeting rooms in the site office are the perfect performance space and 252 subcontractors frequently the ideal audience. Drawing on the data collected by my male research partner working on the linked project (see vignette 6.e), it would seem that men appear to ‘do’ masculinity with most intensity when women are not present.

It is also against these masculine codes of behaviour of dominance, authority and control that potential managers are assessed and judged, just as management legitimacy is determined through the control and mobilisation of workers to deliver a project. I was repeatedly told by male managers that a ‘good manager’ is ‘a man who knows how to talk to men’. Women were notably absent from this description of

‘good manager’ and when they were mentioned, the focus shifted to women’s capability and technical competence. Men’s technical competence seemed to be taken for granted. For men, what sorted the wheat from the chaff was their ability to control other men.

Walking the tightrope to progression

Women construction professionals appear to be consistently plagued by stereotyping.

It clings to them effortlessly and is most obvious when women are new to a group.

Even in positions of power as Vignette 6.g below shows, women construction professionals find it difficult to sidestep persistent gender stereotyping. These stereotypes act to weaken their legitimacy and acceptance in the profession.

6.g) Did you bring the biscuits?

As I was observing John, a senior project engineer, he

explained that he had some sort of industrial relations

training session at 2.00 pm. He was put out by this because 253

he had only received the invitation yesterday. He made a

comment about HR sitting in Head Office and sending out

last minute directives and expecting everybody on site to

jump to their directive. John added that he really hated the

industrial relations and negotiations part of his job. I on the

other hand, was excited about attending this training

session. Industrial relations had always fascinated me.

Right now, it was a hot topic, as there was a Royal

Commission being conducted into trade union governance

and corruption.

At a quarter past two, I followed John to the meeting room.

He and half a dozen other project engineers filed in and sat

around the meeting room table. I took my seat in the corner

of the room, beside the only other woman who, like me,

was in her forties. One of the male project engineers, a man

aged roughly 30, took his seat and looked directly at the

woman who was sitting beside me and asked, “So where

are the biscuits?” The woman did not respond. She may

not have heard him or had chosen to ignore him. No one

else responded to the man’s question.

Once the room filled, a gregarious older man, named Tom

introduced himself to the room. He’d been with Can-do for

40 years and headed up industrial relations for Can-do. His

role, he told us, was to negotiate with the CFMEU

(Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union). Tom 254

explained that it was a particularly tough time, as all eyes

were on the industry thanks to the Royal Commission. Tom

then turned his attention to the woman sitting beside me.

Explaining that he was retiring, Tom introduced Julie as

his replacement. She was the new manager of industrial

relations at Can-do.

I wondered whether this would be the last time Julie was

asked whether she “brought the biscuits”.

Vignette 6.g suggests that maleness and masculinity are closely associated with power and management roles. Though gender stereotypes have shifted in society, they continue to function as a guide as to who can be considered suitable as manager and construction professional, and they remain strongly male. Women at Can-do are visible as women but invisible as managers.

Moreover, women find they are in a double bind if they attempt to model the masculine codes of behaviour (commanding authority, being competitive, confident, decisive, ambitious and aggressive) expected from construction managers. When women assert themselves as managers as men do, they find themselves being swiftly pulled into line by their male colleagues ‘for getting ahead of themselves’.

I was telling John [line manager] one day about how I’d spoken to the

project director and informed him that I had actually done construction

management, and had years of experience, and was his highest educated,

youngest, only female commercial manager. John got all flustered and

said he couldn’t believe that I spoke with such aggression to the project 255

director. He told me I have such a sense of entitlement and that I believe

that I’m owed something. And I said to him, ‘No, I don’t believe that

I’m owed something but, when the project director doesn’t think that

I’ve got the basic qualifications, I felt it necessary to point out to him.

(Gail, Estimating Manager)

Other women feel that their career progression has been hamstrung by some men’s resistance to being managed by women. This resistance leaves women continually renegotiating their legitimacy as managers. As Estimating Manager Nicole reflects,

Boys don’t like getting orders from females. So you sort of learn to be

nice to them to get them to do something. You’ve gotta become their

friend and then make it think that like it’s their idea. (Nicole, Estimating

Manager)

Women also find that male managers lack confidence in their ability as females to command authority and discipline from men. For women at Can-do, there is no escaping their gender.

…in any of the companies I’ve worked at there’s no way I could have

gone anywhere as a female. Because most of them, they’d pretend to

have respect for you but they wouldn’t. They still see you as a female.

(Nicole, Estimating Manager)

If management potential is assessed on an employee’s ability to demonstrate authority, control and dominance over unwilling men, it is a high hurdle for women to overcome. Either way in their present state, the ‘rules-in-use’ around progression favour codes of masculinity and, by extension, men as a group.

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Can-do is not blind to some of the challenges the ‘rules-in-use’ create for women. To address women’s underrepresentation in senior management ranks, Can-do established gender targets for executive management and pushed for gender equity in company strategy documents. These policies are discussed in the next section.

6.5 CORDONING OFF WOMEN’S PROGRESSION

I begin with a vignette 6.8 from an International Women’s Day event held at Can- do’s head office. This event showcased two female managers at Can-do and their rise to power. The narrative of this event was that women’s individual agency is the fix for the barriers women face as they climb into the leadership ranks. In other words, it is up to women to fix the gender equity imbalance in the positions of power at

Can-do.

6.h) Fixing the imposter

It is a few days after International Women’s Day. I am

attending a company’s event in the glass framed penthouse

of Can-do Construction’s head office. The room faces a

large high rise construction site. The site is so close I feel I

could reach out and touch it. Eighty well dressed women in

their 20s, 30s and 40s fill the rows of chairs and on cue,

Cyndi Lauper’s voice fills the room with her 1980s hit, ‘Girls

Just Wanna Have Fun’. Like me, most of the women wear

frocks or skirts with matching court shoes, only one or two

women wear trousers. Jewellery and emphasised femininity 257

feature prominently in their appearance. I know the dress

code well but had not recognised it until my research

partner pointed it out. There are two exceptions to the

dress code: a woman wearing a hijab who greeted everyone

on entrance and the catering staff who wear a white

uniform. Only three men attend this event and one is the

head of human resources. They wear suits without ties. No

one in the room is wearing construction clothing: no high

visibility safety vests, no steel caps and no branded

clothing.

The room goes silent as the male HR manager starts the

proceedings. He tells the room that the event is to mark

International Women’s Day and that it is important to

continue to mark this day as it is not a level playing field.

Men are privileged, he tells us, and they do not see how

uneven the playing field is. I wonder at this point, if men

are so unaware, why they are not required to attend this

event. The HR manager introduces today’s presenter, a

consultant, who is here to discuss ‘imposter syndrome’.

“Skirting leadership or open to possibilities? Helping

women to recognise and address the mindsets that block

success,” says the presenter with PowerPoint slides. After

giving an overview of her career in the advertising industry,

she explains to the group that low self-esteem and imposter

syndrome are what stand in the way of many women

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reaching leadership roles. The uneven playing field was not

mentioned.

After conducting a quick quiz, the presenter diagnosed the

women who seemed to be highly suffering from imposter

syndrome. She diagnosed that “typical female strategies”

including failing to step up to challenges is why women do

“not step up, but cop out” of the construction industry. As

a woman who left her construction career, had I copped out

I wonder? I feel a sense of vulnerability and annoyance

surging in equal measure because these labels do not

match my complex decision to leave a well-established

career.

The presenter then says it is a lack of confidence that

undermines women’s leadership potential. She refers to

men’s confidence and suggests, “wouldn’t you like to bottle

it?” Confidence is why men get leadership roles. Moving

through the triggers for imposter syndrome – including

being around others who are perceived to be more capable,

not being heard, aggressive work environments, feeling

excluded, being challenged, being overlooked for

promotions - the triggers sounded like a neat summary of

the barriers women face in construction. My thoughts are

echoed by a woman sitting in the front row who says she

mainly works with men and she feels routinely excluded.

The presenter suggests the woman needs be ‘authentic’ in 259

her dealings with her peers. What was meant by ‘authentic’

or how ‘being authentic’ might shift the behaviours of

others is not mentioned.

The presenter keeps to her script and introduces two of

Can-do’s senior female managers to the front of the room –

a regional general manager of construction and the

marketing manager. Underneath a PowerPoint slide that

reads: “How Can-do women made it happen!” the two well

dressed women in their 40s perch themselves on bar stools,

the construction site as their backdrop. Like their peers

(and myself) the women are dressed in an overt feminine

manner. Answering questions that seem to be pre-

prepared, the women are asked to explain what actions they

have taken to overcome their imposter syndrome, which is

assumed. The first woman explains that when she was

younger, she attended a meeting with her then boss where

she had remained quiet, not feeling the need to speak.

Afterwards her boss suggested that in future she speak in

meetings, adding that it would be a great party trick to have

someone young and blond say something sensible in a

meeting. From that point on, she told the room, I am very

prepared for every meeting I attend.

The second woman said that she overcame feeling like an

imposter by actively caring for ‘the guys’ on her team. This

means checking in with team members to see how they 260

were getting on. She adds that it was advantageous

sometimes being the only woman on site, “they

underestimate you as a woman, and so you have the

opportunity to stun them with your brilliance.” No one

seemed to pick up that this was the second story today

where men had expressed surprise at women’s construction

capabilities. Her comments are not met by the audience

with a sense of outrage; no one seems to bristle at the point

that it is up to women to prove to men their capability.

Drawing our attention to a pink Post-it note stuck to our

handout, the presenter asks the women in the room to write

down how we are going to ‘Make it happen’ this year and

then to stick the Post-it note onto one of the large

‘#Makeithappen’ posters positioned around the room. The

formalities end and morning tea is served. I make my way

to rear of the room and pour myself a cup of tea. A woman

beside me turns to her colleague and says, “well they

missed the pink elephant in the room: bias and

discrimination.” As the room empties, I began to read the

pink Post-it notes detailing how women are going to

‘#Makeithappen’. The first Post-it note reads, “Be

confident in giving direction on site to the male team

members and subcontractors.” Beside it, “Develop a more

positive mindset.” Another state, “Step up NOT Step

back!’ Below it, ‘Refocus: Be more positive and less ‘1/2

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glass empty.” “Be more than a mum back from mat leave.”

I let out a gasp. Seeing me read the posters, the human

resource leader approaches and offers that I take the

posters with me as they will end up in the bin. I decline.

I reflect that holding this event focused on women and their

imposter syndrome in the head office, away from the

construction site almost seems satirical.

It seems that the responsibility to be included in

construction and be considered management material lies

with women alone and their ability to ‘Make it happen’. All

the while, the construction site across the road remains

unaffected.

Focusing on women

In addition to the performance reviews and talent identification processes detailed above, Can-do Construction’s also has a small collection of policies focused specifically on women’s career advancement. Most prominent is a gender target for

Can-do’s board and senior executive management team. (Can-do’s Building Division also has a target for recruiting women into senior executive management that I discuss in Chapter 4)39.

39 In the process of setting targets, the building division kept their senior executive gender target at the present rate (17 per cent) of female representation. The division has not added any additional gender targets on other levels of management, for example, Operations Managers or Project Leaders.

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Aside from these policies, Can-do has published two strategy documents that make reference to women’s advancement. Most notable is the Building Gender Equity at

Can-do Y12-14 (Appendix A, No. 7) a strategy document that states that Can-do’s

‘top priority is to have CEO and Exc team commitment to gender diversity programs and have more women in C-level roles.’ This document sets out several ways to elevate women to the most powerful company roles. These include building an organisational culture free from gender bias, supporting flexible work and women’s professional development through mentoring, involving more women in high profile projects, raising women’s visibility and increasing the pipeline for women. The document also refers to gender reporting, establishing diversity as a key company principle and piloting unconscious bias training initiatives. While the introduction of these rules and practices are important in nudging transformation, the strategy document is however, light on specifics such as time periods, enforcement mechanisms and accountability. While the strategy calls for ‘putting a gendered lens on people practices,’ it does not mention which people or which practices. It prefers instead to turn its attention back onto women by seeking to ‘identify female talent at a deeper level.’ A fine sweeping objective, but again the document provides no details.

The second strategy document to be analysed is the Australian Can-do Diversity

Strategy FY12-14 (Appendix A, No. 1). This document is not gender specific. Indeed

‘gender’ is not mentioned at all, but it clearly has implications for gender outcomes.

This document begins by setting out the business case for a diverse representation in the company’s leadership ranks and provides the overview of a strategy that is

Document analysis and interview data reveal in Chapter 4 that there appears to be no strategy accompanying the gender targets.

263 broadly broken into three stages: (1) building awareness, (2) developing capabilities and (3) leading the industry. This document sets out clear steps for each stage and also provides accountability. For example, the Diversity Team (part of HR) is responsible for the design and implementation of the strategy. The document states that one of the objectives of the strategy is to ‘ensure that resourcing processes and principles are diverse and inclusive’ and that ‘the talent program identifies and promotes diverse talent’. The document makes no mention however, of how these objectives will be achieved.

According to interviews with HR Managers Tom and Tracy, alongside these written policies Can-do also offers a range of events and leadership training sessions for women. Tracy confirms that the leadership training programs dealing with career resilience and personal development are aimed at addressing ‘the unique elements that females face,’ but they are not focused on being ‘a women's in a man's world program.’ The training courses are focused on women 5 to 6 years after graduation

(late 20s and early 30s) when there is a ‘huge dropout’ and on women in middle management where ‘there is a concentration of females’. For middle management women, the courses focus on ‘giving’ women the skills and resilience to help with their transition into executive leadership. Like at the International Women’s Day event (described in vignette 6.h), a focus on women and their agency, appears to be the theme throughout the leadership training. In addition to these training courses, the company offers leadership programs that are not gender based. There are however no courses specific to men.

None of the women I interviewed reported having participated in these courses and most were uncertain as to the selection criteria. Some women expressed their frustration at the lack of transparency in the course selection process: 264

And you hear of people that they’ve been recognised and singled out for

management purposes but I don’t know what they see in that person to

put them up for that. They never communicate these things to you...I

don’t know what more I’d have to do to be considered for something

like a management course. (Gail, Commercial Manager)

It is interesting to note that none of the policies and strategies in these courses mention any gendered structural differences of power. They suggest that both the formal and informal rules in place governing progression are fair and neutral.

6.6 DISCUSSION

The literature on women’s progression in construction highlights the three main handicaps women face in competing with their male counterparts: informality, male work norms and access to project deliver skills. My study on women’s career advancement at Can-do supports these findings. My research suggests however, that there are additional factors at work that will be discussed in this section. These include the underlying gender dynamics in the promotions process and in career progression at Can-do as well as the action of masculine privilege within these processes and practices.

My research, like that of Erica French and Glenda Strachan (2013), demonstrates that specific talent management policies at Can-do have little bearing in practice on employee promotions and progression. Indeed, although Can-do does have a performance review policy and a talent/succession planning process, these seem to have very little influence on the career path of an individual. As the literature suggests (Dainty, 1998, Mills et al., 2008, Raiden and Sempik, 2012), promotions like

265 recruitment tend to be carried out informally at Can-do and at the discretion of the operations managers.

Also, as found in academic literature (Dainty and Lingard, 2006, Bastalich et al.,

2003, Sang et al., 2014), managers judge employees on their perceived and actual ability to adhere to traditional male work norms. This penalises women in their progression. Gender bias remains a constant problem for women’s progression. Male managers seeing women as lacking ‘authoritative knowledge, credibility and capacity’ as construction managers, shepherd them into career paths with less progression capital (Franzway et al., 2009, p. 100). My research found that adherence to male work norms acts to stall women’s advancement, especially on their return from parental leave. This leaves them in a career holding pattern.

My findings also demonstrate that the project nature of construction work is an ongoing problem for women throughout their career, as they find themselves constantly needing to prove their ability to each new line manager and project leader.

This pattern exhausts and frustrates women. It hinders their access to the project delivery skills so necessary for career advancement in construction. My study shows on the other hand that men’s construction credentials are rarely questioned; they travel with them and they are provided the progression capital, knowledge and exposure necessary for advancement. Just as in Dainty et al. (2000b) and Faulkner

(2005) study, men as a group receive greater access and support than women.

Contrary to the findings of Franzway et al. (2009) though, I did not find all women agreeing that merit in construction is gender neutral. I found for women that their time in construction shapes the way they perceive how merit is rewarded and progression is determined. There are young women new to the industry who believe

266 that Can-do offers a level playing field, one perhaps even slightly slanted in their favour. Experienced women however, do not share this sentiment. As with Dainty et al. (2000a), I found that women’s ambitions shift over time with their exposure to the industry. Men’s career ambitions at Can-do do not shift like women’s, there are nonetheless signs that young men starting a family are tempted to shift to roles within the sector with more ‘family friendly’ hours.

6.6.1 PROGRESSION ‘RULES-IN-USE’

My research extends the findings in existing literature by establishing that the career advancement process in construction can involve a complex interaction of several

‘rules-in-use’ that are framed by gendered norms. Most central is the practice of sponsorship and the forming of strategic alliances, most often among men. While the literature characterises this process as an informal function of ‘who you know’ (Mills et al., 2008, Dainty, 1998, Watts, 2009, Raiden and Sempik, 2012), I argue on closer examination that career advancement in construction is more nuanced than that. I suggest that it operates on a ‘sponsor-mobility’ principle whereby selected individuals receive higher levels of guidance, access to opportunities and advocacy from their managers. Rosenbaum (1984) reminds us that the ‘sponsor-mobility system’ is different to a ‘contest-mobility system’ that sees career advancement as a fair and open contest, with each advancement being essentially the result of hard work, talent, education and individual qualities.

I also observed how at Can-do the ‘sponsor-mobility’ system is gendered. That is not to say that all men benefit from sponsorship. What is true however, is that women are largely deprived of sponsorship by their managers. I also found that sponsorship is not limited to the confines of the company. When the sponsor moves companies,

267 the protégé often moves in tandem, thus benefiting from horizontal and vertical experience across the sector. Therefore, while I agree with the Dainty et al. (2000a) study that finds men gain career advancement by being loyal to a company, I also find that men gain advancement by being loyal to a sponsor. Sometimes company and sponsor loyalty travel hand in hand. Sponsorship is closely determined by gender, but not always. Some women were able to nudge against this gendered practice and counter masculine advantage. Despite this, I found that those few women I identifed who secured sponsorship were still unable to advance at the same pace as men.

In existing literature, career advancement raises an expectation of employee fit and adherence to traditional male career cycles (Dainty et al., 2000a, Watts, 2007a, Raiden and Sempik, 2012). While my research supports this finding, I note that it overlooks the effects of the most critical ‘rule-in-use’ of all, namely,the anticipation of employee progression against a timeframe. I observed that to be considered ‘management material’ at Can-do, employees must keep to a career path focused on project delivery within a timeline that holds no consideration for parental leave gaps.

6.6.2 PROGRESSION: GENDERED ‘RULES-IN-USE’

My research shows that the ‘rules-in-use’ governing promotion and progression such as meeting the career timeframe and securing sponsorship have a gendered dynamic

(Gains and Lowndes, 2014). I draw from the work of Elin Bjarnegård (2013, p. 180) and Charlotte Holgersson (2013) in suggesting that progression is a product of homosociality. It is through such practices of homosociality that hegemonic codes of masculinity are maintained. Homosociality in relation to progression at Can-do operates in two ways: instrumentally and expressively (Bjarnegård, 2013, see also

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Ibarra, 1992, 1997, 2010). Instrumentally, employees are required to form strategic alliances with male managers and demonstrate their dependability by adhering to the industry’s rigid work practices and career path norms. Expressively, employees need to perform (and be complicit in the performance of) accepted forms dominance, authority and control. This form of control Clara Greed (2000, p. 14) describes as the

‘John Wayne approach to site management’. In other words, employees must satisfy

‘a gendered logic of appropriateness’ to be considered for management positions

(Chappell, 2006, p. 229). Male managers, as gendered actors, uphold and enforce homosociality in return for employee loyalty and predictability (Kanter, 1977,

Bjarnegård, 2013). I found that progression at Can-do operates through a gendered

‘sponsor-mobility system’ that grants some men chosen by other more powerful men access to upward mobility (Rosenbaum, 1984, Ng et al., 2005). As Flood and Pease

(2005) remind us, sustained collective social relations between men serve to privilege men and reproduce male dominance, leaving women as a group excluded and subordinated. For the few women who do rise to the top, they do so by embracing a culture that requires them to assume male norms that are actively working to exclude them and resist their progression. My research fills a gap in literature by highlighting how men maintain their power and overrepresentation through the application of gendered rules.

6.6.3 ACTS OF PRIVILEGE IN PROGRESSION

The exclusion of the ‘rules-in-use’ by Can-do managers and policy authors in the problematisation of women’s progression is the result of masculine privilege that

269 sustains itself through a culture of denial, neutrality, legitimacy and objectivity and, to a lesser extent, backlash and resistance.

A culture of denial is what allows managers and HR policy authors to problematise the issue of gender imbalance purely as one of women and of their powerlessness. Denial perpetuates a notion amongst managers and policy authors that career advancement at Can-do operates through a ‘contest-mobility’ system where the most talented employees rise to the top. This is most obvious in their gender diversity policies focused on women and ‘fixing women’ - their leadership skills and resilience. The premise behind this approach is that the existing system of progression is fair and gender neutral and that women are deficient and not up to male standards. A ‘fixing women’ approach does little to challenge women’s legitimacy as construction professionals; instead it places the onus on women’s individual agency. Denial protects Can-do’s promotion and progression processes (there is no promotion policy), performance reviews and succession planning (which have little bearing on career advancement) from any form of challenge or analysis.

Pursuing this logic, the strongest symbol of a culture of denial is the presentation of

Can-do’s promotion and progression practices as meritocratic. This would mean that progression in the company is governed by gender neutral rules, properly respected and executed objectively. Thomas and Ely (1996) remind us that privilege is what sets the terms of legitimacy within a social group. It is evident that the ‘rules-in-use’ associated with progression at Can-do are not gender neutral, but are modelled on a

‘gendered logic of appropriateness’ associated with hegemonic codes of masculinity, homosociality and male work norms. They are expressed instrumentally and expressively. In their application therefore, the ‘rules-in-use’ code management and leadership as intrinsically male that confirm the perception of who is ‘right for the 270 job’. They normalise man’s place and competency in construction management

(Flood and Pease, 2005, Franzway et al., 1989, Gherardi and Poggio, 2001). The effect of this is to bestow significant advantage to men and perpetuate male dominance in leadership. For women, adherence to the rules forces them into a double bind. They are judged against conflicting criteria: (1) their normative social role as women and (2) their professional role in construction adopting the masculine behaviour associated with leadership and management (Eagly and Carli, 2007).

Unable to ‘fit’, women also find themselves excluded from the homosocial sponsorships and strategic alliance relationships so essential to advancement and so helpful to men. In this way, privilege appropriates the cultural authority to define the reality associated with career progression as meritocratic and gender neutral, and determine who will be accepted at face value, respected and promoted without challenge (Johnson, 2001, Thomas and Ely, 1996).

With no promotion policy and a performance review and succession planning process that has little bearing on employee promotion and career advancement, I suggest that Can-do does not currently have a legitimate and appropriate progression policy in place. Because of the informality and the gendered nature of the existing system, I would argue that employees do not all have equal access to all the ‘rules-in- use’ such as the timeframe for progression and that the ‘rules-in-use’ are not known to all employees, most notably not to women. What is more, it appears that the lack of transparency around the actual progression and promotion processes makes it imperative for employees to form strategic alliances with senior managers. To summarise, predominantly male employees by virtue of their gender have access to a system of homosocial sponsorship that is denied to women. This advances men’s careers and sustains masculine privilege in the workplace.

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Furthermore, promotions and talent identification at Can-do seem be left to the discretion of the managers and heavily influenced by personal relationships. The suggestion is that the handling of promotions by managers lacks objectivity and that their assessments are framed by a ‘gendered logic of appropriateness’. This gendered logic aligns hegemonic profiles of masculinity with hegemonic profiles of management, thus normalising maleness and powerfulness (Chappell, 2006, Flood and Pease, 2005). Additionally, policy authors assume that managers act as impartial referees in this process, ignoring the fact that managers themselves have ‘skin in the game’. Indeed, they benefit from the loyalty of reliable employees and in most cases they themselves were once a product of homosociality (Bjarnegård, 2013).

Management fails to see the process of advancement through homosocial loyalty is a social test, not an intellectual one. Besides which, managers themselves are unlikely to be concerned about impartiality, instead seeing their judgement and the resulting visible inequalities in leadership ranks as perfectly legitimate (Acker, 2006).

Finally, in terms of backlash and resistance, Can-do is avoiding structural reform.

Despite being aware of the problem of gender equity in leadership and management roles, its only response is to install policies focused on the leadership skills and resilience of women, not on the power monopoly of men. As discussed in Chapter 4,

Can-do’s other approach is to introduce and set targets on women, not men in senior leadership. This approach without sanctions to back it, is unconvincing. It also fails to provide an adequate analysis of female turnover (see Chapter 5) or a defined strategy to reverse the trend. For the Building Division, avoiding targets and any strategy for gender parity in key construction management roles such as construction manager and project director is a sign of resistance. It certainly shields the existing system of promotions and progression from any form of scrutiny. This attitude of

272 considering gender imbalance in management as a ‘women’s problem’ suggests a form of institutional resistance. Resistance is all about avoiding change. It leaves notions of ‘merit’ unchallenged and the ‘rules-in-use’ in place. Resistance consolidates the gender status quo to keep it firmly in place. Gherardi and Poggio

(2007) and Murray (2014) remind us that the gendered effect of leaving the existing progression rules unchecked is that men as the privileged group have neither to prove their capability nor give up their grip on management roles.

At individual level, backlash and resistance is evident in the push back received by women trying for positions of power and the reaction to women who, like their male colleagues, demand authority and control. If women sidestep the codes of masculinity, they are rejected as being unable to satisfy one of the prerequisites for construction managers, the ability to command authority and control men. I suggest that the continued questioning and undermining of women’s capabilities by giving them ‘office housework’ to do (Kanter, 1977, Heilman and Chen, 2005, Hampson,

2017) and steering them into lesser valued construction roles is evidence of a resistance towards women as construction professionals. These are examples of backlash working to keep women subordinated and masculine privilege preserved (Johnson,

2001, Thomas and Plaut, 2008)

In summary, the problem of women’s recruitment and retention is draining the pool of women available to enter management roles. As the literature has shown, the other aspects that impede women’s rise to power are the informality of promotions in construction, the need to satisfy male career path norms and the denial of access to project delivery skills. While these all have their effect, I would add to this that the existing ‘rules-in-use’ that guide progression are gendered and serve to maintain codes of hegemonic masculinity that favour men. I have also demonstrated that, 273 through men’s overrepresentation in positions of power, the ‘rules-in-use’ are kept in place through a culture of denial, a belief that the rules are neutral, legitimate and objective and by acts of backlash and resistance.

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7 COMPARATIVE CONCLUSION

7.1 INTRODUCTION

In this dissertation, I set out to examine the role masculine privilege plays in maintaining men’s over-representation in the construction industry. I consider how acts of privilege operate across the career landscape in a construction company. My intention is to gain a better understanding of the way the formal and informal ‘rules- in-use’ reinforce hegemonic masculinity and male over-representation in construction at the expense of women professionals. I have considered the response offered by existing construction management literature where the tendency has been to opt for the ‘fix the women’ response. I apply a feminist institutionalist, hegemonic masculinity and privilege lens to the persistent problem of gender inequality in the construction sector. This research has been conducted using a unique rapid- ethnographic methodology that enabled me to study acts of privilege, the ‘rules-in- use’ and gender in the construction sector. This dissertation has revealed key findings on the way masculine privilege operates through acts of denial, neutrality and backlash and the ‘rules-in-use’ to inhibit women’s inclusion, retention and advancement in the construction industry. This dissertation has also introduced the concepts of gendered institutions, homosociality and privilege to the research on the problem of gender parity in the construction sector.

In this chapter I revisit the research question and the dissertation objectives to determine what role masculine privilege plays in maintaining men’s overrepresentation in the construction industry. I also assemble the findings from the

275 three substantive chapters that each map out a career stage in the construction profession: recruitment, retention and progression.

This chapter is split into five sections:

 Section 7.2 revisits the problem of gender parity in the construction sector

with existing literature on the subject. It focuses namely on women’s under-

representation, disadvantage and powerlessness. My argument is that the

problem of women’s under-representation in construction needs to be

inverted to analyse instead how power is held and maintained by men in

construction. Addressing a gap in the literature, my research provides analysis

of how the ‘rules-in-use’ and masculine privilege operate to maintain men’s

over-representation and power in the construction professions.

 Section 7.3 of this chapter addresses my research question of identifying the

role masculine privilege plays in maintaining men’s over-representation and

advantage in construction by presenting a response to each of my research

objectives. I begin by outlining the specific acts of masculine privilege that

operate in construction. I reveal and compare how acts of privilege operate

across and throughout the career landscape so as to highlight how systems of

privilege operate to advantage men in construction. Finally, I examine three

additional factors - power, gendered actors and gendered informal

institutions - that work together to keep masculine privilege in place in

construction companies.

 In Section 7.4, I apply a transformative lens and propose a number of

recommendations based on the findings that might work to ‘undo’ privilege

and alter men’s over-representation in construction.

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 Section 7.5 highlights this dissertation’s contribution to literature. While the

existing literature goes some way to understanding the issue of women’s

under-representation in the construction industry, this section suggests that

academic literature could be strengthened by focusing on gendered

institutions and privilege.

 Section 7.6 discusses the limitations of this research and proposes future

research directions. I conclude this dissertation with an Epilogue.

7.2 REFRAMING THE PROBLEM OF WOMEN IN CONSTRUCTION

At the outset, this dissertation suggested that the answer to the central question – why are women under-represented in construction? - cannot be reached by focusing entirely on women, their experiences and the barriers they face in construction. As

Chapter 1 outlined, most of the existing literature has viewed the problem as being the result of cultural and structural barriers in the industry that work together to

‘other’ women and undermine their inclusion in construction. The literature points to gender bias, discrimination and sexual harassment as the cultural barriers that women face, positioning them as outsiders within the construction profession. It details their responses to these barriers, including their efforts to ‘do’ and ‘undo’ their gender by adjusting their performance and behaviour. The literature also identifies work practices such as long work hours, expectations of presenteeism, total availability, resistance to flexible work arrangements and informality in human resources practices as some of the structural barriers acting against women’s participation and advancement. As examples of response to these barriers, the literature points to

277 government and businesses policies addressing women’s under-representation.

Almost all take the ‘fix the women’ approach.

With women’s participation rate in construction still in decline, this dissertation suggests that the central problem of women’s position in the industry is in urgent need of a fresh approach. This thesis provides a novel approach to understanding the reason for the lack of gender equality in construction by inverting the usual lens aimed at women’s disadvantage and powerlessness to focus on the role of masculine dominance and institutional privilege. The thesis brings for the first time a feminist institutionalist understanding of how the ‘rules-in-use’ resulting from historic masculine privilege systematically act to privilege males and forms of masculinity at each stage of the construction career path. Specifically, it considers what role of masculine privilege plays in maintaining men’s over-representation and advantage in the construction industry.

7.3 WHAT SPECIFIC ACTS OF MASCULINE PRIVILEGE OPERATE IN THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR?

This dissertation presents three central arguments. First is that the ‘rules-in-use’ in construction companies are gendered and complex and have different implications for women than for men in their careers as construction professionals. Second is the finding that many of the ‘rules-in-use’ in construction prescribe and enforce a

‘gendered logic of appropriateness’. This logic defends a contextually specific, culturally dominant hegemonic form of masculinity. The by-product of this form of masculinity is masculine privilege. The third argument is that masculine privilege operates in three ways to maintain men’s advantage and dominance in construction. 278

This is through a culture of denial, a perception that the rules are neutral, objective and legitimate, and through backlash and resistance to potential and actual reform.

The argument further suggests that, with all acts of privilege found to be operating in the construction sector as a whole, different acts of privilege surface at each career stage working cumulatively to maintain men’s over-representation in construction.

The overall effect of these acts of privilege is to thwart women’s entry, participation and advancement in the construction industry.

7.3.1 HOW DO ACTS OF MASCULINE PRIVILEGE OPERATE ACROSS WOMEN’S CAREER LIFE CYCLE?

I found in this dissertation that the acts of privilege that are denial, neutrality and backlash can be traced across an entire career lifecycle, namely the recruitment, retention and progression of construction professionals.

Recruitment

In relation to recruitment, I found that a culture of denial operates among senior executive managers, project leaders and HR policy authors, working to keep the problem and solutions firmly focused on women. This avoids having to pay any attention to how the ‘rules-in-use’ that shape recruitment act to facilitate men’s entry into the company and then onto construction projects through informal male networks. Backlash and resistance take on the form of institutional and individual opposition. In the recruitment phase, institutional resistance by HR policy authors and senior executive managers is demonstrated by the absence of any enforcement, transparency and codification of the formal recruitment policies that are supposed to bring about gender parity. Individual resistance is evident in the tightly held narrative

279 from HR, senior executive managers, operational managers, project leaders and mostly male construction professionals that recruitment is a gender neutral process and that shifts to introduce quotas would provide women with an ‘unfair advantage’.

Retention

A culture of denial also operates in relation to retention. I found that denial operates among senior executive managers and the HR policy authors in relation to women’s high attrition at the time of parental leave. Denial too is evident in senior manager’s disregard of work practices gendered consequences. Senior managers and project leaders disregard for formal policies (such as flexibility, parental leave) aimed at retaining women and enforcement of work practices on construction sites in line with hegemonic codes of masculinity reflect a culture of denial. They also overlook how the persistent gendering of women is being enforced through sexism, by constantly questioning women’s capabilities and by overstating the improvements achieved in gender equality in construction. Backlash is a product of denial. In relation to retention, backlash is demonstrated by the institutional and individual resistance from project leaders to formal policies such as flexibility and parental leave in ways that act to reaffirm men’s legitimacy as construction professionals and primary breadwinners to the exclusion of women.

Progression

Denial too is evident in the understanding senior executive managers, operations managers, project leaders and HR managers have that the existing policies and practices relating to promotion and career progression are meritocratic: transparent, executed objectively and gender neutral. They hold this belief despite the fact that no

280 promotion policy exists, that formal performance reviews and succession planning are commonly ignored and that promotions are left instead to the discretion of senior executive managers and operation managers. Almost all of these are men who, as I demonstrate, assess employees against a criterion of ‘fit’ that is intrinsically masculine. I found that the determination of merit is far from legitimate, objective or gender neutral. A culture of denial in progression mirrors the denial seen in recruitment by senior executive managers, operation managers and HR policy authors who fail to understand how the ‘rules-in-use’ that determine promotion and career advancement are largely devoid of formal policy. They are shaped instrumentally through homosociality and expressively by informal gendered rules that promote hegemonic masculinity. Instead of addressing these ‘rules-in-use’, HR policy authors and senior executive management hold their gaze firmly on women and offer initiatives to improve their leadership style. Finally, acts of backlash are demonstrated through institutional resistance to gender targets. Senior executive management and HR policy authors undermine women’s advancement by the watering down of initiatives directly aimed at adjusting the leadership gender balance.

Resistance is also evident in managers push back on women when they attempt to

‘fit’ with the masculine leadership model.

A culture of denial

My research has shown that all three acts of masculine privilege, denial, neutrality and backlash operate in the construction sector. Yet denial followed by backlash seems to be most entrenched, operating across all three career stages. A culture of denial appears to be the precursor for backlash and its passive form, resistance. The denial results in leaving apparently fair and equitable rules in place whilst ignoring the

281 oppression and exploitation of others and the identity of those responsible. For those who are accustomed to privilege, equity can seem like discrimination

(Franzway et al., 2009, p. 100). In construction therefore, the introduction of new formal rules aimed at levelling the gender imbalance (maternity leave and setting gender targets) are seen by many of the privileged as providing women with an unfair advantage in an already competitive environment. The backlash and resistance documented in this thesis come as a logical reaction from male construction professionals and project leaders to this perceived unfairness.

Ignorance about gender equity among senior executive management, operations managers, project leaders, construction professionals and HR policy authors appears to be strongest in the area of women’s retention. It is a form of denial for managers to remain ignorant of the need to entwine flexible work roles into project planning and delivery if they are to address the problem of employee retention. Also, ‘newer’ rules including the Code of Conduct, Corporate Value Statements and formal gender diversity policies are discarded as unnecessary in favour of the ‘older’ work rules that celebrate heroic masculinity. These older rules shape expectations around how work is done and who does the work. Layered upon these rules are informal gender rules that constantly act to treat women as the ‘other’, exclude them and challenge their participation.

One of the strongest symbols of denial is the tolerance of blatant sexism in the form of sexist and sexualised graffiti on site walls and the sexist comments made to women along the lines of their primary role being housekeeper rather than construction manager. While sexist language and sexist humour may not be the defining reasons for women’s departure from construction, they certainly work to undermine a woman’s fulfilment in the workplace and reaffirm men’s legitimacy in 282 the construction profession. In addition, there appears to be little understanding by senior executive managers, operations managers and HR policy authors of the reason for women abandoning their construction careers. There is for example, little understanding by managers of how parental leave policies influence women’s retention. Nor is there an appreciation of the difficulties women face strategising their career departure, return and survival. As mentioned earlier, denying the problem women face in retention has implications on women’s progression, with women dropping out of the race to senior management. If women leave construction, there will be no change to the leadership mix. This harms not only those already in the industry but also the perception young women, their parents and teachers have of construction as a viable career option.

Backlash and resistance

Acts of backlash and resistance are found across the three career stages and operate almost identically across recruitment, retention and progression to keep current privilege systems in place. While backlash is usually blatant in the form of hostility, harassment and ridicule, resistance is more subtle. It operates through inaction, avoidance and silence. It is demonstrated by HR policy authors and senior executive managers avoiding any move to question or reform existing policy and practice. My research demonstrates how management has consistently failed to address ubiquitous sexism on site as expressed through sexist graffiti, language and behaviour. It is also demonstrated through the resistance by project leaders to accept, implement and enforce flexible work practices on site.

Passive resistance also acts to ‘lock out’ reforms through non-enforcement, with no sanction for non-compliance. Watering down the targets for women in leadership,

283 and not attaching any strategy or penalty to gender target failure are both examples of this. Backlash also operates subversively through the tolerance of discourse and joking that questions the legitimacy of reform initiatives and of women themselves.

For example, humour is routinely accompanied by judgements about women’s ability and competency. Humour, which can be used as a vehicle of backlash, is difficult for individuals to challenge or counter.

At institutional level, backlash can operate as a form of sanction that holds holding people to the ‘rules-in-use’. Across the stages, backlash, as witnessed through complaints about the unfair advantage gained by women, was strongest when measures such as gender targets affecting men’s entitlement to work were introduced. These measures were identified as directly undermining men’s access, participation and power in the work force. In other words, acts of backlash work in conjunction with hegemonic masculinity to keep men’s social dominance in place.

Neutrality, legitimacy and objectivity

In terms of maintaining masculine advantage in construction, the belief that the operational structure and its supporting rules are neutral, legitimate and objectively executed plays a lesser role compared to that of a culture of denial and backlash. The act of neutrality, legitimacy and objectivity is particularly strong in the area of career advancement, where the notion of merit is most hotly debated and where men have the most to lose in terms of positions of power. In relation to progression, participants and management perceive that the ‘rules-in-use’ that determine promotion and leadership potential are gender neutral, legitimate and objectively administered. I found that progression in construction is not neutral, legitimate or objective but informed instead by the manager’s interpretation of the formal

284 company rules. Chances of progression are also influenced by the manager’s interpretation of the informal rules that prescribe a ‘gendered logic of appropriateness’. Using this logic, candidate promotions are assessed according to the candidate’s ability to conduct homosocial relationships with men in power and adopt hegemonic masculine behaviour such as control, aggression, and authority.

These are all practices from which women were consistently excluded. In regards to progression, it is evident that one of the advantages of being a member of the privileged group is gaining knowledge of the informal rules, for example the promotion timing and skill level expectations associated with career progression. In this sense, privilege begets privilege.

Cumulative effect

In practice, careers do not progress in isolated stages. I found that across the course of a woman’s career, acts of privilege in one stage feed and alter subsequent stages.

In other words, there is a cascade effect. For instance, the ‘locking out’ of flexibility practices impacts on women’s retention in construction immediately following parental leave, and also on their career progression. When considering the different career stages as a whole, acts of privilege can be seen to have a cumulative effect that works to men’s advantage. The most notable example I found is denying the practice of homosociality, which operates instrumentally through strategic male alliances and sponsorships and expressively by reinforcing a masculine ‘fit’. Such practices assist men from their recruitment into the industry right through to their appointment into positions of leadership. This practice is largely denied to women. While a man’s standing usually travels with him and finds support in homosocial relationships, a culture of denial accompanies women throughout their construction career,

285 continually questioning their ability and capacity to perform and lead construction work. Ultimately, this denial acts to undermine a woman’s fulfilment, participation and eventual career progression. Additionally, I found that the denial by construction leaders of the onerous demands placed on construction professionals’ time keeps men bound to a hegemonic expectation that they retain their position of primary breadwinner while women are left in a gender bind. Females are torn between adhering to male breadwinner work practices and upholding their role as social care givers against the demands of participation and career advancement (Anxo et al.,

2017).

Dismantling masculine privilege

Masculine advantage has not been left completely unchallenged at Can-do. ‘Small wins’ towards equality have been made both formally and informally. The introduction of a five day work roster by Can-do pushes back on masculine work practices including presenteeism, total availability and long work hours. So too does the introduction of gender lens on performance reviews. The informal practice of female sponsorship, while not the norm, also demonstrates a challenge to male advantage and privilege. These shifts in rules and practices, while seemingly small and subtle, are important actions in the movement to dismantle masculine privilege in construction (Chappell, 2015).

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7.3.2 WHAT ADDITIONAL FACTORS KEEP MASCULINE PRIVILEGE IN CONSTRUCTION IN PLACE?

Acts of privilege do not operate alone to maintain men’s advantage and power status in construction. Rather, I found there were three factors (power, gendered actors and gendered informal institutions) working together to keep masculine privilege in place.

As acknowledged in Chapters One and Six, power in construction is overwhelmingly held by a particular set of gendered actors: men. As Vivien Lowndes (2013, 2014) reminds us, rules distribute power. In the case of construction, those in power have control over the rules. This is not to say that construction companies are able to sidestep rules handed down by the government or by clients. Nevertheless, I found that any urgency for change to the gender balance in construction is driven mostly by women themselves, not by those in power who are best able to drive change.

Currently, in the Australian construction sector there are no external forces such as clients or government bodies driving for substantial change in the area of gender diversity. The issue of gender equality (unlike safety, sustainability and quality) remains absent from construction tenders. The push for gender equality from within construction companies appears to be coming from HR personnel and they remain largely focused on women. New policies are greeted with uneven responses and foster individualised approaches rather than systematic change. These responses could be categorised as ‘poor management’ practices but there is no denying these responses continue to entrench and reinforce the existing gender power relations.

The gendered executive management and project leaders in construction companies seem still unconvinced by moves to make gender equality as high a priority as other operational issues, such as safety.

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As I assessed each of the three career stages, I have noted the role played by senior executive managers and project leaders as gendered actors in perpetuating a culture of denial as well as emulating and enforcing the ‘rules-in-use’ that contribute to men’s over-representation in construction. In terms of denial, it appears that senior executive managers, operations managers and project leaders most of whom are men and are responsible for recruiting, managing and promoting employees, openly question the benefits of gender equality. Many consider that the solution is out of their hands, seeing it as a ‘pipeline’ problem. Others view construction’s rigid work practices that undermine women’s retention and progression – long hours, presenteeism and total availability – as immutable, with any changes to work practices by their company regarded as commercially unsound. I would argue that few managers understand how gender is implicated in the ‘rules-in-use’ or how they themselves have benefitted by the rules. This way in their ignorance, managers as gendered actors are complicit in the maintenance and perpetuation of masculine privilege, with most appearing reluctant to abandon a system that has given them power.

My research shows that throughout the three career stages, hegemonic masculinity imbrues the ‘rules-in-use’ both instrumentally and expressively. From recruitment to progression, employees are assessed against a gendered ‘fit’. Homosocial loyalty shapes recruitment and promotion, while the work practices expected of construction professionals working on site emulate the hegemonic values of reliability, authority, strength and dominance. As Mahoney and Thelen (2010, p. 28) remind us, the ‘rules-in-use’ influence the particular type of actor who will emerge and thrive within a context. In construction, the gendered nature of the ‘rules-in-use’ value masculinity and mark men as the norm and potential leaders.

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In each career stage, I have shown that informal gendered rules form part of the

‘rules-in-use’ that often underpin masculine privilege, but also conceal gender bias and discrimination against women. For example, in each career stage informal rules, buttressed by hegemonic masculinity, act to reinforce male advantage in construction. In company recruitment, despite the existence of a formal policy, informal rules determine the gendered ‘fit’ of candidates. In retention, company codes of conduct and values are trumped by informal rules that demand long work hours, presenteeism and total availability. In progression, homosociality in the absence of formal promotion policies underpins progression. These rules leave those who are unable to comply sidelined. In short, it seems that construction companies have policies targeted on particular issues such as women’s recruitment or women’s progression, but these policies do little to shift the complex and gendered nature of informal rules that act to advantage men. Change to informal rules is unlikely to come from those in power, as themselves are beneficiaries of the ‘rules-in-use’.

7.4 WHAT IS TO BE DONE? OVERCOMING MASCULINE PRIVILEGE

Before the rules are analysed, it is important to shift away from the binary notions of gender as meaning man and woman to a focus on the variety of masculinities that are in operation in the construction context. Unpinning this focus should be recognition that masculinities are performed by men, are socially constructed through institutions and have different effects on different groups of men and women. Awareness raising, via training programmes for men, could be used to inform them about masculinity and men’s complicit behaviour in association with hegemonic masculinity. It could

289 also teach them about the costs on individual men’s lives, their health and relationships of their compliance with particular hegemonic masculine ideals

(Morgan, 1992, Flood and Pease, 2005). In other words, men need to explore their position of privilege and take an active role in transforming construction culture.

Men also must not be viewed as a homogenous category. Some important differences among men - race, sexuality, physical ability and class – impact on their work experience and positions of privilege (Murray, 2014). These deserve attention.

Male dominated environments can be intimidating for men as well as for women, yet men feel compelled to conform to a certain type of masculinity even if it is foreign to their nature (Collinson and Hearn, 2005, Murray, 2014). Quite apart from gender equality, this point is all about talent attraction and retention in construction. It highlights the importance of a diverse workforce in attracting a diversity of thinking and talent.

Overcoming masculine privilege in construction poses a big challenge. This is particularly the case given the operation of denial and backlash. To paraphrase Flood and Pease (2005, p. 13), why would men who enjoy privilege bother to challenge the status quo? I argue that a multifaceted response is needed, one which directly addresses masculinity, the ‘rules-in-use’ in construction and their broader cost to the sector, its employees and talent retention. As explained by Murray (2014), to solve the problem of unfair advantage, it must first be acknowledged. To discover how privilege systems operate, the ‘rules-in-use’ – those that are followed and enforced, not just the formal rules and their gendered implications – must be exposed then challenged. A gendered lens needs to be applied to project establishment, resource planning and project cost allocations to understand the gendered effects, whether they are intended or not. For instance as I have mentioned, how parental leave is

290 costed against a project, whether or not project leaders are incentivised for early project completion and whether flexibility is incorporated or not into resource planning are all issues with potentially unintended gendered consequences.

In practical terms, I argue that there needs to be greater transparency around recruitment, promotions and gender pay equity. If there is no formal rule and procedure in place to ensure this, then one needs to be introduced and most importantly, it must be enforced. Formal rules are important as they help demonstrate a commitment to gender equality but compliance is essential.

Enforcement of formal rules could be managed through a system of clearly defined sanctions and rewards linked to key performance indicators and bonus structures.

Formal rules also need to be analysed and measured for their effectiveness and revised accordingly (Lowndes and Wilson, 2003).

More attention also needs to be paid by the construction sector to women’s retention and progression. Indeed, if the construction sector cannot retain them, it is wasting women’s time recruiting them. Introducing and enforcing zero tolerance to sexism and giving greater attention to flexible work practices on site may go some way to addressing women’s retention. Beyond greater transparency in recruitment and promotion, the introduction of a sponsorship program linking senior managers with mid-level women may help address the denial and resistance to women’s progression.

Finally, exogenous forces such as clients and governments making gender balance a criterion against which construction jobs are awarded, setting limits on work hours and encouraging the introduction of flexible work practices may also serve to improve gender parity in the sector. Bergqvist et al. (2016) make a valid point: as long as reforms fail to challenge men’s normative role in construction and in construction leadership, the responsibility for gender equity reforms will rest with women. 291

7.5 ADVANCING THE STUDY OF GENDER AND OF CONSTRUCTION

This dissertation has made a significant contribution to knowledge in six ways. The first is to the construction literature. Through its thorough investigation into the way acts of masculine privilege operate to maintain men’s advantage and power status in construction, my research brings a fresh perspective to understanding women’s under-representation in the industry. It builds on existing research in this area which was focused entirely on women’s disadvantage and powerlessness. It provides a new path of rapid ethnography investigation that reveals how power is gained, maintained and wielded.

The privilege framework devised in my research also contributes to existing gender and masculinity theory. My research builds on the limited masculinities literature in construction. It contextualises gender theory and applies a hegemonic masculine lens to a specific construction context: construction professionals employed by large

Australian construction companies. As a result, my research adds texture to the study of gender and masculinities as well as how they operate and are performed in construction. Existing research is grounded in empirical insights derived from outside Australia with little attention to the unique aspects of the Australian context.

It routinely draws from experiences in engineering, rather than the construction industry specifically. My privilege framework separates and distils the effects of privilege to provide a lens that can be applied outside the construction sector to any social institution where one group dominates the others. Furthermore, from a

292 practical perspective, the privilege framework provides a tool from which policy responses may be developed.

My research also contributes to feminist institutionalist (FI) literature by combining for the first time two theoretical frameworks: FI and privilege. It shows how privilege works through institutions to hold and replicate gender power and importantly, it shows where resistance lies. Recognising that informal rules do not apply to everyone in the same way, or rather that different informal rules apply to different groups and subsets (Hackman 1992). My research shows that privilege provides those in privileged groups, in this case men, with greater access to and knowledge of the informal rules in ways that enhance their power and advantage. For example without a transparent formal promotions policy, only privileged groups in construction are acquainted with the informal rules that guide promotion and advancement in construction. Conversely, my research also shows how acts of privilege, such as backlash and resistance, act to deny ‘out’ groups access to valuable institutional knowledge and resources.

My research methodology also contributes to FI where there is a call for more ethnographic research(Chappell and Waylen, 2013). This research study is the first of its kind to combine ethnographic methodology with feminist research ethic to the study of privilege, gender and institutions. It shows how rapid ethnography with twinned researches is able to reveal informal rules, their gendered dimensions and their role in the production of privilege and dominance.

My research adds to gender equality in construction literature. By applying an FI lens, my research adds a systematic analysis of the formal and informal rules that inform construction work in Australia. It demonstrates how the rules and practices in

293 construction have different gendered relationships. Unlike other construction literature, mine demonstrates the complex hierarchical nature of the rules. It shows how the barriers to gender equity are tied to the ‘rules-in-use’, their gendered nature and the gendered actors who apply the rules.

Additionally, I show how existing gender diversity policies largely fail to counter the

‘rules-in-use’ or indeed, the way the rules work to the advantage of males and particular forms of masculinity by replicating a dominant gender order. Unlike other gender equality research in construction that focuses largely on the negative experience of women construction professionals, my research also takes into consideration the role of managers as brokers of power. It demonstrates how power is held, how construction’s gendered management encodes, enforces and emulates the rules to its advantage and the effect male dominance has in maintaining the existing gender order in construction. In other words, unlike much of the existing literature, my research questions why men’s over-representation is tolerated, by whom, and how this level of dominance is maintained. Finally, my research also sheds new light onto the complex nature of the obstacles to women’s recruitment, retention and progression in ways that support the development of new policy and practices in these areas.

Independently from the literature, my research demonstrates the complexity of recruitment practices in construction. It reviews the various types of recruitment operating in construction – graduate, company and project recruitment – and the intricate array of formal and informal rules, all with gendered undertones, that shapes recruitment practices. It shows that male sponsorship and strategic alliances that function to advance men’s careers begin at recruitment and accompany them throughout. This gives men an unfair advantage over women. In relation to 294 retention, this is the first study to assess the effectiveness of paid parental leave policies in construction. My research demonstrates how parental leave operates in practice and the effect it has on the gender pay gap and on women’s retention and progression. My research differs from the literature that characterises progression in terms of informality. It introduces to the construction research and connects the concepts of mobility theory and homosociality. It finds that male sponsorship - a gendered practice usually denied to women - underpins most career progression in construction.

7.6 FUTURE RESEARCH AND LIMITATIONS

My research has made some important contributions to knowledge but also has its limitations. Firstly, this research is an empirical study of the way masculine privilege operates through the ‘rules-in-use’ of one Australian particular construction company. The extent to which the findings can be generalised is limited, particularly because any study of gender and institutions is by nature socially fluid and not fixed in terms of time and place. Although the rapid ethnographic approach used here results in rich, high quality data, the focus on a single large Tier 1 company means that the results are not necessarily reflective of the construction industry as a whole, largely composed as it is of smaller and medium size firms. That said, there are notable similarities between this study and other research, meaning that the findings may also find applications in other large construction companies, if not in all male dominated sectors.

This raises future research opportunities into the possibility that the findings from this research study could be relevant to women and men’s experiences in other male- dominated industries such as construction trades, small and medium size 295 construction companies and company boards. Future research might trace masculine privilege within employment legislation. It might also examine how masculine privilege operates in the rules and practices of small and medium size construction firms. What’s more, future research might also investigate whether changes to construction contracts and to project planning, resourcing and establishment decision-making would affect the way work is conducted and perhaps even have gendered implications. Future research might also compare construction with other male dominated professions to understand what factors they have in common.

It is important to recognise that men do not share uniformly in the benefits of gender inequality or that inequality is experienced correspondingly by women. One of the limitations of this research therefore, is that its focus on the problem of the lack of women’s representation in the industry vis-à-vis men has glossed over differences that exist between groups of men and between groups of women. The task for future researchers is to untangle the way privilege and gender operate intersectionally within and between gendered groups in conjunction with sexuality, race, class and ability. Further research might investigate how men within non- privileged groups find themselves potentially marginalised in construction companies and what other factors are driving women and men’s resistance to gender equality.

Taking the inverse perspective, research might also focus on the people, practices and policies that are building inclusion and gender parity within construction companies and reveal how transformation can take place.

To conclude, this dissertation has examined the role that masculine privilege plays in men’s over-representation in construction. It has shown how masculinity is embedded in the pattern of rules that operate within construction companies, the by- product of which is privilege. It has been revealed that privilege acts in three ways - 296 by denial, neutrality and backlash - to maintain men’s advantage and power in construction across the career stages. Despite the existence of formal gender equality policies introduced by construction companies to address construction’s gender imbalance, this research shows that they do not address all the ‘rules-in-use’ that produce gendered outcomes. Looking across the three career stages, women construction professionals are disadvantaged by the ‘rules-in-use’, which are firmly held in place by acts of privilege to maintain the gender status quo.

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EPILOGUE

July 2016

Yesterday I won the NSW National Association of Women in Construction

(NAWIC) Student scholarship for my PhD research. After my name was announced

I made my way from the furthest corner of the room to the stage. As I reached the front of the stage, I was met by two men. One was an older man whose company was sponsoring the scholarship and the other man was the award night compère; a former topless dancing celebrity landscaper. Before being handed the trophy - an engraved silver hammer - the older man asked me whether I knew what the round end of the hammer was for. The former topless dancing celebrity landscaper heard the question and handed him the microphone so he could repeat his question to me and 1000 others in the room. I was not expecting any quiz questions. 'You tell me!’ I replied. Speaking into the microphone but facing me, the old man schooled me in the round end of a hammer. I smiled, thanked him for the lesson and commenced my short thank you speech.

After my speech, we were ushered outside to have our photo taken again. I asked the older man if he was a carpenter, given his interest in swinging a hammer. He wasn’t.

He had managed construction sites just like me. I told him we had something in common.

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We stood facing a large bar and a photographer. It was then that the older man went to pains to tell me how he didn't initially hire, nor want women in construction.

Certainly, not in his company anyway. As the owner of a building business, he operated a ‘well-oiled boys club’ [his words]. That was until the construction boom when they couldn't find any men to hire. His HR man came to him with a female candidate. Shocked, he said, ‘I don't want to hire a woman’. The HR man told him she was the best candidate they had found. She didn't last long, he said. ‘She was manlier than the men’, he said. ‘She swore worse than any of them’. Ready to give up on women, the HR man came back to him. He had found the perfect female candidate. ‘Interview her, but don't stare at her boobs,’ he warned the older man. I clarified with him whether her boobs were big. ‘Huge’, he said. They hired her and in his words, ‘she was hopeless.’ At this point, I couldn't quite believe that my awards moment for a scholarship in gender equality in the construction sector was being hijacked in this way. I continued to smile for the camera and then a rush of shiny young women in their early 20s flocked to us. The old man turned to me with pride and gushed, ‘These are my girls. Aren't they great?’

I never got to the end of the story as to how the man found a woman who was ‘just right’, but he was eager to tell me he was a changed man. He now believes in gender equality and lives happily ever after as a CEO.

I wondered what happened to the two women he tossed out along the way. Did they live happily ever after too?

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX A. COMPANY POLICY DOCUMENTS

ID Document Name Authored by Career Published Issued to Location No. stage date researcher by

1 Australian Diversity Strategy FY 12-14 Human Resources All No date Human Resources Copy on file with author

2 Bullying in the Workplace Human Resources Retention Jan-14 Human Resources Copy on file with author

3 Cash Childcare Rebate Human Resources Retention No date Human Resources Copy on file with author

4 Code of Conduct Company Board Retention Jan-12 Human Resources Copy on file with author

5 Emergency Leave Policy Human Resources Retention Nov-12 Human Resources Copy on file with author

6 Equal Opportunities Human Resources Recruitment Apr-13 Human Resources Copy on file with author

7 Building gender equity at Can-do Human Resources All No date Human Resources Copy on file with author Constructions

8 Flexible Work Policy Human Resources Retention Nov-12 Human Resources Copy on file with author

9 Leadership Framework Human Resources Progression No date Human Resources Copy on file with author

316

ID Document Name Authored by Career Published Issued to Location No. stage date researcher by

10 Parental Leave Policy Human Resources Retention Sep-13 Human Resources Copy on file with author

11 Performance Reviews Human Resources Progression No date Human Resources Copy on file with author

12 Personal (Sick) and Carer's Leave Human Resources Retention Nov-12 Human Resources Copy on file with author Policy

13 Diversity and Inclusion Human Resources Retention Aug-13 Human Resources Copy on file with author

14 Harassment and Bullying Human Resources Retention Aug-13 Human Resources Copy on file with author

15 Learning and Development Human Resources Progression Mar-13 Human Resources Copy on file with author

16 Recruitment Policy Human Resources Recruitment Nov-13 Human Resources Copy on file with author

17 Sick Dependent Care Rebate Human Resources Retention No date Human Resources Copy on file with author

18 Talent & Succession Review Human Resources Progression No date Human Resources Copy on file with author

19 Flexible Work Practices in Australia Human Resources Retention No date Human Resources Copy on file with author

20 Transitioning in the Workplace Policy Human Resources Retention Dec-12 Human Resources Copy on file with author

21 Supporting Healthier Minds: Mental Can-do Employee Retention No date Research participant Copy on file with author Health Guidebook Association

22 2011 Annual Report Company Board All No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

23 2012 Annual Report Company Board All No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

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ID Document Name Authored by Career Published Issued to Location No. stage date researcher by

24 2013 Annual Report Company Board All No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

25 2014 Annual Report Company Board All No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

26 2015 Annual Report Company Board All No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

27 2016 Annual Report Company Board All No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

28 2011 Sustainability Report Company Board All No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

29 2015 Global Minimum Requirements Company Board All Feb-16 Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

30 Employee Referral Program Human Resources Recruitment Mar-14 Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

31 Company Principles Company Board Retention No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

32 Reconciliation Action Plan 2016-2018 Can-do RAP Team All No date Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

33 Diversity and Inclusion (May 2015) Human Resources All May-15 Sourced via internet Copy on file with author

34 Employee Contract (sample) Human Resources All Sep-14 Research participant Copy on file with author

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APPENDIX B. EVENTS/SITES OBSERVED

B1. EVENTS ATTENDED

Event / Site Observation type Location

Event 1 International Women's Day Event Head Office

Event 2 Graduate Induction Head Office

Event 3 Management Training Head Office

Event 4 Company Announcement Head Office

Event 5 Construction Training Head Office

Event 6 Gender Diversity Strategy Day Offsite

B2. SITES ATTENDED

Site Observation type Location

Site 1 Metropolitan Site (large) NSW

Site 2 Regional project (medium) Victoria

Site 3 Metropolitan Site (medium) NSW

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B3. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION TEMPLATE FOR EVENTS

Objective Purpose

A. Description of event To outlined the event, date, location and number of people in attendance. To plot out who was positioned where in the event. To provide details of attendees and presenters at events, including occupation, position in the company, gender, race etc. To understand which cohort the event is positioned for and which cohort is not invited/included in the event.

To contextualise the relationship between actors and the contextual space. To observe any notable ‘rules-in-use’ that act to privilege some social groups over other social groups.

B. Observation prompts To observe and record patterns of interactions between actors. Such as who has voice at the event, who is heard, who is silent, who is distracted, who takes notes, what is the tone of the conversation at the event (conciliatory, aggressive, light and friendly serious etc.). Additionally to note how participants voice agreement and disapproval, vocally or with silence and/or dismissal. To record which actors perform different tasks, for instance who takes the minutes, organises refreshments, presents and leads off the presentation. To note who is excluded, who takes up space physically and

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influentially and which people group together. To observe how decisions are made and by whom. To record, if noted by participants, the impact of the researcher on the field.

These observations record group dynamics, behaviours, reoccurring narratives to assist men in depicting the ‘rules-in-use’. Special attention is also paid to how these ‘rules-in-use’ reflect hegemonic masculine codes. To observe how the rules are gendered, have a gendered effect or are reinforced by gender actors.

C. Conversation prompts with To provide a guide for interacting with participants participants at company events. Prompts focused on the nature of the event, normative behavioural patterns and ‘rules-in-use’ at Can-do. Questions focused on whether the event was typically for Can-do. Questions also covered why this type of event is held, whether it is important for participants to attend the event, why the participant attended the event and the implications for not attending this event. Questions also sought to identify who organised the event and why it was their responsibility to organise it?

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B4. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION TEMPLATE FOR SITE

Objective Purpose

A. Description of site (and To describe the site environment (site office and events held during site visit meetings), date, location, size and number of including meetings) people in the construction team and their respective details – roles, position, gender, race, sexuality etc.

To plot out participant’s physical positions in the site office and in meetings.

To help contextualise the relationship between actors, place and the ‘rules-in-use’.

B. Observation prompts To observe aspects of the participants work environment. To capture participants behaviour within the context of the construction site. To observe how the participants interacted with one another on site and in different context such as in meetings or with senior company management. To observe, in meetings, which actors have voice, who is heard, who is silent, who is distracted, and who takes notes.

To record the tone of the conversations on site and in meetings. For example, conciliatory, aggressive, light and friendly serious etc. To observe how participants voice agreement and disapproval, whether it is done vocally, with

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silence or through acts of dismissal. To record which participants undertook different tasks and whether these were tasks aligned to their role. For instance in meetings, who took the minutes, organised refreshments, presented, led/followed the proceedings.

During the shadowing, to observe notable group power dynamics within the team. For instance, how decisions are made and by whom, who sits close to the project leader, who is invited to participate in conversations and meetings with the project leader or construction manager. To observe who is excluded from site team interactions. To note which people take up space (physically and influentially), how people grouped together, and who socialises outside of work.

Similarly, observations allowed me to see how codes of hegemonic masculinity may be performed in practice and privileged. To follow patters of denial, neutrality or backlash that may be used to hold privilege in place.

C. Conversation prompts with To prompt participants being shadowed to reveal shadowed participants their experiences in construction. To unveil the normative expectations (rules-in-use) placed on

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participants.

Questions focused on seven areas:

1. Demographic information. These questions aim to build rapport and trust with participants. They including: details of the participant position at Can-do (who they report to, responsibilities, requirements including attendance on site or in different locations), tenure in the company and in the construction sector, and why they chose Can- do. Participant project history and whether they have worked on similar project. How this project compares to previous projects, i.e. are the rules the same.

2. A typical day for participants. These questions provide insight into work place expectations and work practices. They include questions about the structure of the participants day, flexibility in organising their day, whether there is management resistance to flexibility. Whether participants complete their work load each day, how their day compares to others on site and to those working in head office.

3. Participant’s career history. These questions provided an insight into the informal rules and the ‘rules-in-use’ that shape career pathways Questions include why the participant chose to work at Can-do, how long they had been in their current role, how they were recruited to work at Can-do. Questions also focus on whether the participant has been promoted and how this took place, their career progression and career plans. What has helped and hindered there progression

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and career plans.

4. The nature of events and meetings on site and whether they were represented institutional practice.

5. The nature of participant’s work, what aspects were enjoyable and challenging. These questions provided insight into actor’s retention and turnover.

6. The influence of formal policies and adherence to them. Special attention is paid to the application and enforcement of HR and diversity policies in practice.

7. Which behaviours are revered and celebrated at Can-do and which behaviours are not. The response is considered in relation to hegemonic masculine codes of behaviour.

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APPENDIX C. INTERVIEWS AND OBSERVATIONS

C1. PARTICIPANT DETAILS

Person Work Method ID Name Position Status40 Gender location41 stage Methods Site42

1 Tracy Human Resources Manager Senior Management F HO 1 Interview non

2 Tom Human Resources Manager Senior Management M HO 1 Interview non

3 Troy Chief Operating Officer Senior Management M HO 1 Interview non

4 Janette Human Resources Manager Senior Management F HO 1 Interview non

5 Stan Executive General Manager Senior Management M HO 1 Interview non

6 Terry Executive General Manager Senior Management M HO 1 Interview non

40 Const. Professional = Construction Professional 41 HO = Head office 42 Non = does not work on one of the three sites visited

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7 Albert Executive General Manager Senior Management M HO 1 Interview non

8 Paris Executive General Manager Senior Management F HO 1 Interview non

9 Robert Executive General Manager Senior Management M HO 1 Interview non

10 Barbara Executive General Manager Senior Management F HO 1 Interview non

11 Archie Quality Manager Const. Professional M HO 2 Interview non

12 Martha Architect Const. Professional F Site 2 Interview non

13 Poppy Contracts Administrator Const. Professional F Site 2 Interview non

14 Martin Site Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 1

15 Ben Senior Project Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 1

16 Jane and Julie Graduate Site Engineer Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview Site 1

17 Ron Senior Project Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 1

18 Helen Human Resources Manager Const. Professional F HO 3 Interview non

19 Walter Construction Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 1

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20 Harold Project Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 1

21 Keith Senior Project Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 1

22 Roger Contracts Administrator Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 1

23 Debra Project Engineer Const. Professional F Site 3 Participant Observation Site 1

24 Willie Site Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 1

25 Nathan Programmer Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 1

26 Carl Site Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 1

27 Christopher Project Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 1

28 Angus Project Director Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 1

29 Lawrence Project Quality Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 2

30 Phillip Foreman Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 2

31 Grant Project Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 2

32 Bob Site Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 2

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33 Howard Senior Project Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 2

34 Gregory Site Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 2

35 Jane Site Engineer Const. Professional F Site 3 Participant Observation Site 1

36 Bridget Safety Manager Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview Site 2

37 Doug Operations Manager Const. Professional M Site & HO 3 Interview non

38 Dorothy Site Engineer Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview Site 2

39 Phoebe Site Engineer Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview Site 2

40 Gail Commercial Manager Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview non

41 Karen Project Manager Const. Professional F Site & HO 3 Interview non

42 Sinead Project Manager Const. Professional F Site & HO 3 Interview non

43 Alan Site Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview non

44 Raymond Operations Manager Const. Professional M HO 3 Interview non

45 Nicole Estimating Manager Const. Professional F HO 3 Interview non

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46 Evelyn Commercial Manager Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview non

47 Fay Project Design Manager Const. Professional F Site 3 Participant Observation Site 3

48 Dennis Project Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 3

49 Ethan Project Director Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 3

50 Jarred Site Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 3

51 Constantine Site Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 3

52 Simon Services Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Participant Observation Site 3

53 Zac Construction Manager Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 3

54 Ken Site Engineer Const. Professional M Site 3 Interview Site 3

55 Melissa Assistant Design Manager Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview Site 3

56 Carly Project Manager Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview Site 3

57 Angela Site Engineer Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview Site 3

58 Rowena Project Engineer Const. Professional F Site 3 Interview Site 3

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59 Larry Senior Cost Planner Const. Professional M HO 3 Interview non

60 Rachel Executive General Manager Senior Management F HO 3 Interview non

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C2. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS: SENIOR EXECUTIVE MANAGERS

Question Purpose

A. Introduction To introduce the researcher and the research project. To outline the purpose of the

interview and assure the interviewee of anonymity and the right to withdraw from the research. To request permission to record the interview. To offer the interviewee the opportunity to ask questions throughout the interview.

B. Background To collect biographical information including position within the company and Can you tell me briefly about your role at tenure at the company. Can-do Constructions? How long have you been in this role? Have you had similar roles elsewhere?

C. Comprehension and response to To examine the participants understanding the problem of gender equality in the and contextualisation of gender and gender construction sector equality within the company/sector. To document how gender equality is What does gender diversity look like in this problematized within companies and the company? Why/how did gender diversity companies policy response. come onto your radar? How does this fit with your view on gender diversity?

How does diversity fit with your organisational culture and values? Has this changed over time? How? Why do you think this is?

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Where does gender diversity sit alongside the key business objectives? E.g. Turnover, safety etc.

D. Divers behind gender equality at To understand the intent and reasons behind Can-do Constructions policy development and implementation; the role of legislation, key actors and events in What are the drivers behind these gender the policy evolution. To understand whether equality initiatives? Have external drivers the drivers behind reform are linked to the such as government reporting requirements understanding of gender equality in (e.g. WGEA /ASX) acted as a driver of construction or are they a result of external these initiatives? Gender Reporting forces such as legislation. (WGEA/ASX) Who is the key drivers for change in this organisation? Change agents? At what point did gender diversity pop up on the radar in Can-do? Why?

F. Origin and development of gender To understand the path dependencies of equality policies at Can-do policies; how policies were sourced and Construction developed specifically within the context of the construction sector and Can-do. How were these initiatives/policies developed and sourced? When did the company start developing initiatives around Gender Diversity?

The industry is traditionally male dominated, was this considered in the development of the policy? How do you consider gender when developing these policies?

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G. Policy nature and objectives To determine the nature and objectives of policies; what is understood to be the What do you think are the key objectives of problem and how is it addressed through these policies/initiatives? How do you think policy and practice. To understand how the the initiatives are tracking? policies are performing against these objectives.

H. Policy learning and adaption To determine how policy performance is measured and revised over time. Do you (the company) monitor or measure whether policies and initiatives are meeting their objectives? How? If so, how is the feedback used? If not, why is this the case? Or, do you think there would be any value in doing so?

I. Policy implementation To understand how policies are disseminated and communicated in the business, by whom How are initiatives communicated and and the response to policies. To understand disseminated? By whom? How do you see the degree of acceptance and resistance to your role in raising awareness of these gender diversity policies within Can-do. To initiatives? Do people respect them? Do understand the nature of policy performance people understand them? Do people follow analysis. them? How do you know they are being followed? What happens if the initiatives aren’t followed? Is there any carrot or stick?

J. Policy performance To understand which policies met the objectives and which did not? To understand Which initiatives do you think have been if/how policy performance is measured. successful or are working well? Why do you think that is? Do you have a sense that it is

334 working? Why?

K. Challenges To reveal the nature of the barriers and resistance to policy implementation. To Can you identify some challenges around the understand whether/how these barriers are implementation of these initiatives? Can you being responded to and revised. identify things that are harder to deal with? Why do you think that is? Where to from here?

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C3. INTERVEIEW QUESTIONS: CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONALS

Question Purpose

A. Introduction To introduce the researcher and the research project. To outline the purpose of the interview and assure the interviewee of anonymity and the right to withdraw from the research. To request permission to record the interview. To offer the interviewee the opportunity to ask questions throughout the interview.

B. Background Questionnaire To collect biographical information about the participant including their position

within the company and tenure at the company.

C. Career history To understand the overall career pathway stages including how the participant Can you tell me about your career history? became interested in a construction career, How were you recruited? Why this company? how they have been recruited into How does it compare to others? construction and Can-do. To reveal the ‘rules-in-use’ associated with career pathways in construction and whether these have gendered dynamics.

D. Progression To understand whether the participant has been promoted and how it occurred. To Tell me about your career progression? Have understand the practices that took place for you been promoted at Can-do, how did it promotions to occur. To understand how happen? If not - if you want to be promoted at the participant progressed throughout the Can-do, what do you have to do? What has

336 helped your career progression? What has stages of their career. To understand what hindered it? How important are networks to behaviours the participant perceives are advancing your career? Can you tell me about valued. So as to chart out whether these your career aspirations? How will you go behaviours collectively are gendered. To about making this happen? understand the role of homosocial, informal networks play in relation to career progression. This question was asked to understand what informal gendered rules influence career pathways, recruitment, retention and progression. Additionally, how these practices may act to privilege some actors over others. To ascertain how informal rules interaction, overlap or are trumped by company formal rules.

E. Fitting in To determine common behavioural narratives and informal rules operating in What kind of people do well at Can-do? Can-do, their gendered nature and how What does success look like in this company? they might advantage different social groups.

E. Work practices To understand how existing work practices in construction and access to flexible work. What does a typical day look like for you, in To track the gendered dimensions of work your job? practices and whether they act to advantage different social groups.

F. Retention To reveal the factors that influence turnover at Can-do and whether these factors What keeps you in construction? Have you are gendered. It also seeks to understand ever considered leaving the company? Why? If participant’s view of gender equality and you had a daughter, would you suggest to them women’s inclusion in the construction a career in construction? sector.

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G. Policies To understand how formal policies influence shared expectations and To what extent do you think your day-to-day behaviours associated with work practices. work is influenced by company policies? How To understand participant’s perceptions, are policies relevant to you – what place do acceptance and resistance to gender they have in the company? In the work you equality policies to determine acts of do, how relevant are the company’s gender privilege present. diversity policies and initiatives? Why/why not? How relevant are they to you?

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APPENDIX D. ARC RESEARCH PROJECT DETAILS

Part A – Administrative Summary

A1. If this Proposal is successful, which organisation will it be administered by?

The University of New South Wales

A2. Proposal Title

Building gender equity and diversity in the Australian construction industry

A3. Person Participant Summary

CI Professor Martin Loosemore

CI Doctor Abigail Powell

CI Professor Louise Chappell

PI Professor Andrew Dainty

A4. Organisation Participant Summary

The University of New South Wales

Loughborough University

[Construction Company 1]

[Construction Company 2]

The Australian Human Rights Commission

Diversity Council of Australia

A5. Summary of Proposal

Gender equity and diversity among construction sector professionals is a persistent problem which exacerbates skills shortages, reduces economic productivity and

339 constrains innovative capacity. There is little understanding of why formal initiatives to attract, retain and promote more women professionals in the construction industry have failed. This research will investigate the influence of the construction industry’s masculine culture on the intent of formal gender equity and diversity initiatives. By using new institutionalism theories for the first time in construction research, it couples a new conceptualisation of the issue with a major empirical study to devise innovative solutions to this intractable problem.

A6. Summary of Project for Public Release

This project investigates the construction industry’s informal gender rules and their role in inhibiting policy measures to improve gender equity and diversity in its professional ranks, and makes innovative recommendations for shifting the stubborn gender imbalance.

C1. PROJECT TITLE Building gender equity and diversity in the Australian construction industry

C2. AIMS AND BACKGROUND

Considerable advances have been made in achieving gender equity and diversity in many professions, notably law and politics. However, 2012 government figures show the Australian construction industry remains Australia’s most male dominated sector despite many reforms to increase female representation (WGEA, 2012a). The aim of this project is to investigate why existing formal policies and strategies to attract, retain and support the progression of women professionals in large construction companies have failed to achieve gender equity and diversity. Specifically, theories of

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‘new institutionalism’ will be used for the first time in construction industry research, to examine:

i. The intent and nature of ‘formal’ policies and practices to attract, retain and

support the progression of women professionals;

ii. Whether the ‘informal’ rules of the construction industry produce ‘hidden’

gendered cultures and practices which can undermine the intent of formal

policies and practices to build professional gender diversity and equity;

iii. How interactions between formal and hidden informal rules, cultures and

practices result in the uneven distribution of power between men and women

professionals and their relative career experiences.

By exploring, for the first time, the role that informal regimes in large construction companies influence the effectiveness of formal gender diversity policies, this research will provide innovative recommendations for shifting the intransigent gender imbalance in the construction industry.

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APPENDIX E. ETHICS APPROVAL

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