Lisa Ra­moutar

Some­thing im­por­tant hap­pened in Trinidad’s con­struc­tion in­dus­try this April and it was a long time com­ing. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA) host­ed its very first Women in Con­struc­tion Lead­er­ship and Net­work­ing Event, mark­ing a wa­ter­shed mo­ment not just for the As­so­ci­a­tion, but for the in­dus­try in Trinidad and To­ba­go as a whole. It was an af­ter­noon of can­did con­ver­sa­tion, shared ex­pe­ri­ence and the kind of hon­est reck­on­ing that sets the stage for re­al, last­ing change.

The event brought to­geth­er an im­pres­sive all-fe­male pan­el who brought decades of com­bined ex­pe­ri­ence and an au­then­tic­i­ty that filled the room. The event was mod­er­at­ed with pre­ci­sion and warmth by Lara Quen­trall-Thomas, chair of Re­gency Re­cruit­ment and Re­sources and the pan­elists in­clud­ed Mar­gari­ta Leonard, gen­er­al man­ag­er of Lau­ris­ton Lewis As­so­ciates Ltd.; Ju­lia Warn­er, pro­gramme man­ag­er and en­vi­ron­men­tal en­gi­neer; Sh­eryl-Anne Haynes, con­sul­tant, plan­ner and for­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary; Can­dice Welch, char­tered quan­ti­ty sur­vey­or and Pa­tries Ramkaran, project man­ag­er and di­rec­tor of Ramkaran Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Ltd. At­ten­dees heard not just pro­fes­sion­al wis­dom but per­son­al sto­ries: what drew these women to con­struc­tion, what kept them there through the hard years and how they each carved their own path to lead­er­ship.

The pro­gramme al­so fea­tured ad­dress­es from Ian Ram­dahin, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, TTCA pres­i­dent Mr. Ra­jiv Coos­al, and plat­inum spon­sor Ramkaran Con­tract­ing Ser­vices all of whom lent in­sti­tu­tion­al weight to what was a deeply per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al con­ver­sa­tion.

It should be not­ed that glob­al­ly, con­struc­tion re­mains one of the most male-dom­i­nat­ed in­dus­tries, with women typ­i­cal­ly mak­ing up on­ly about one in ten work­ers and an even small­er share in on-site and lead­er­ship roles. Ac­cord­ing to ilo.org, in some ma­jor mar­kets, women hold on­ly about 2 per cent of se­nior con­struc­tion man­age­ment roles.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ac­cord­ing to blog.blue­beam.com ap­prox­i­mate­ly 65 to70 per cent of women in con­struc­tion are con­cen­trat­ed in of­fice and ad­min­is­tra­tive roles rather than field-based po­si­tions and a shift is need­ed to ad­dress that im­bal­ance.

The con­ver­sa­tion that need to hap­pen

“It takes a vil­lage to raise a child — and it takes a com­mu­ni­ty to raise a leader.”

What emerged at the ses­sion was the breadth and depth of what sur­faced once women in the in­dus­try were giv­en a ded­i­cat­ed space to speak freely. The dis­cus­sion ranged from the con­tri­bu­tions women bring to con­struc­tion lead­er­ship such as mul­ti­task­ing, holis­tic think­ing and peo­ple man­age­ment to the struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers that too of­ten go un­ad­dressed.

A re­cur­ring theme was the per­sis­tent ex­pec­ta­tion that women de­liv­er at the high­est lev­el while be­ing af­ford­ed the least sup­port. Child-rear­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for in­stance, are of­ten framed as a woman’s chal­lenge alone, yet the con­ver­sa­tion made clear that the sys­tem fails fa­thers too when ad­e­quate child­care and day­care in­fra­struc­ture is ab­sent. This is a so­ci­etal short­com­ing, not a per­son­al one.

The pan­el al­so tack­led ques­tions that rarely make it in­to for­mal in­dus­try fo­rums: Are con­struc­tion sites gen­uine­ly safe spaces for women? Does heck­ling still oc­cur? Do ex­ist­ing work­place poli­cies ac­tu­al­ly pro­tect women or are they the­o­ret­i­cal ex­er­cis­es? And crit­i­cal­ly, how many women have qui­et­ly switched dis­ci­plines or left the in­dus­try al­to­geth­er, not be­cause they lacked abil­i­ty, but be­cause the en­vi­ron­ment lacked sup­port? Health was al­so dis­cussed, high­light­ing gaps in work­place sup­port for women’s health is­sues like per­i­menopause and menopause, sig­nal­ing a need for cul­tur­al change.

More than a mo­ment, amove­ment

There was a pal­pa­ble en­er­gy in the room, re­flect­ing a shared sense that mean­ing­ful change is fi­nal­ly un­der­way with a clear call to col­lec­tive ac­tion; Women in con­struc­tion need net­works, peer sup­port and in­sti­tu­tion­al back­ing, not just mo­ti­va­tion. The im­por­tance of men­tor­ship, spon­sor­ship and ally­ship at every lev­el of the in­dus­try was re­peat­ed­ly em­pha­sized and one pan­elist high­light­ed that per­sis­tence and learn­ing with­out im­me­di­ate re­ward are part of the jour­ney, but no one should have to walk that path alone. The ‘vil­lage’ metaphor res­onat­ed strong­ly in­di­cat­ing that build­ing lead­ers re­quires a com­mu­ni­ty.

Where do we go from here

Good con­ver­sa­tion must trans­late in­to good pol­i­cy. The TTCA and its mem­ber­ship are well-po­si­tioned to lead on sev­er­al fronts and the mo­men­tum from this event should not be lost. The fol­low­ing ar­eas rep­re­sent clear and ur­gent op­por­tu­ni­ties for ac­tion:

Da­ta, Mea­sure­ment and Ac­count­abil­i­ty: What gets mea­sured gets man­aged. The in­dus­try needs to start track­ing and re­port­ing da­ta on women and men across roles, pay, site work and lead­er­ship. With­out clear tar­gets and da­ta, progress is hard to prove. Mem­ber or­gan­i­sa­tions should be en­cour­aged to set tar­gets, track re­ten­tion and ad­vance­ment of women and re­port on out­comes an­nu­al­ly. Trans­paren­cy will not on­ly dri­ve ac­count­abil­i­ty but al­so sig­nal se­ri­ous­ness of in­tent. Change must be vis­i­ble, mea­sur­able and sus­tained if it is to be cred­i­ble.

Site Safe­ty and Stan­dards of Con­duct: Mem­ber com­pa­nies should be en­cour­aged and even­tu­al­ly re­quired to adopt and pub­lish clear Codes of Con­duct for con­struc­tion sites, in­clud­ing pro­tec­tions against ha­rass­ment, mech­a­nisms for re­port­ing and con­se­quences for non-com­pli­ance. Women’s par­tic­i­pa­tion on con­struc­tion sites is lim­it­ed by work­place cul­ture and in­ad­e­quate fa­cil­i­ties. Many ul­ti­mate­ly leave due to lack of sup­port and in­clu­sive work­ing con­di­tions, not abil­i­ty. Safe sites are pro­duc­tive sites.

Child­care and Fam­i­ly Sup­port Lob­by­ing: Our voic­es should be added to na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions around ac­ces­si­ble, af­ford­able child­care. This is not just a women’s is­sue; it is a work­force is­sue. Com­pa­nies that sup­port work­ing par­ents re­tain tal­ent and gov­ern­ments that in­vest in child­care in­fra­struc­ture grow economies.

Women’s Health in the Work­place: Mem­ber or­ga­ni­za­tions should be guid­ed to­ward de­vel­op­ing health and well­ness poli­cies that ac­knowl­edge the spe­cif­ic needs of women at all ca­reer stages from ma­ter­ni­ty pro­vi­sions to menopause sup­port.

A foun­da­tion has been laid

The foun­da­tion has been laid. What comes next is ac­tion, con­ti­nu­ity and com­mit­ment. The women of T&T’s con­struc­tion in­dus­try have long demon­strat­ed their val­ue, re­silience and lead­er­ship and have wait­ed long enough. Now, with the spot­light fi­nal­ly where it be­longs, the in­dus­try is ready to lis­ten. The path for­ward is clear: to build an in­dus­try that not on­ly in­cludes women, but ac­tive­ly sup­ports and ad­vances them.

Lisa Ra­moutar is a di­rec­tor of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion