NAWIC Bright Ideas individual grant winner Samantha Grant discusses her program Crib Shift and what needs to happen in construction to make it more welcoming and supportive for women who have children
This year’s National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) Bright Ideas Individual Grant was awarded to Samantha Grant for her pilot program Crib Shift: Building a Better Way Back.
Focusing on women in construction navigating the process of having a child, from the point of informing their employer of pregnancy through to them returning to the workforce after maternity leave, Crib Shift is a multi-pronged approach to addressing shortcomings within the construction industry around supporting those planning on becoming parents and those looking to rejoin the industry after time away.
Speaking with Earthmovers & Excavators, Grant says her interest in addressing the lack of support for women around family planning and returning to work grew from both her own experiences as a mother returning to the workforce and her work in advocating for women in construction more broadly.
“My background is journalism, but I fell into women’s strategy and gender equity,” she explains.
“I was working at one of the residential colleges at the University of Sydney when they were going through a cultural review into the university’s response into sexual assault disclosures, and that highlighted to me how important that work is.
“I looked into what the most masculine industry was that I can work in to try and advocate for change, which is why I focused on mining and construction.”
Running Downer’s Women’s Leadership Program and then working on the Western Harbour Tunnel Project with ACCIONA, Grant says this gave her the opportunity to speak with women across Australia who were working in construction about their experiences and what the barriers were for them in both entering and staying in the industry.
“I’ve never met more passionate women who love their work and want to contribute to the legacy that construction can bring,” Grant says.
“Therefore, it’s really important that we look after the women that we have. To that we need to understand the lived experience of women in construction and do whatever we can to address the inequities that they might face.”
For the past year she has been working on a federal government grant under the Building Women’s Careers program to support the retention of women in trades, specifically in construction, advanced manufacturing and clean energy.
“This involves looking at the current state of play, why the completion rates are as low as they are, and really trying to engage industry, government and unions to work together in partnership,” she says.
“It’s a consortium partnership where we develop gender equality action plans with recommendations that can be embedded across host employers to make sure that women are receiving equitable treatment from whichever host employer they have, whether that’s a small mum-and-dad business or one of the Tier ones.”
Challenges
When it comes to pinpointing what the common issues are, Grant says major concerns for many women working in construction are planning when to have children so it doesn’t negatively impact their career, variability around receiving clarity and support from their employer, and the potential negative associations that their manager or employer may have with a working mother once they return.
“A lot of the feedback I have heard, and my own lived experience, has been quite similar,” Grant says.
“Often there is very little to no conversation with managers or leaders, from the point of disclosure of a pregnancy, which leaves people feeling very unsupported, and that they were an afterthought.
“With the experience of being on parental leave what I’m hearing is that there’s a feeling of being out of sight, out of mind, and that, on return, women will be overlooked for opportunities. There’s an assumption that they don’t want to be considered for promotions, or they don’t want roles that include travel, because they now have caring responsibilities. This may be the case for some mothers, but definitely not the case for others, and the conversations are just not being had.
“This is referred to as the maternal wall that women experience – yet another gendered barrier because they have chosen to have a have a child.”
Grant also points out that, due to this perceived bias against working mothers, some women choose to defer having a child to minimise the impact on their career.
“I’ve heard from women that waited sometimes up to 10 years to have a child because they were worried of the stigma,” she says.
“One woman said that in engineering there’s this arbitrary 10-year mark where, once you’ve done 10 years then it’s okay, you can go on parental leave, and you won’t be judged because you’ve earnt your stripes. So, she did that – she waited for the 10 years – but by the time that 10-year mark had had passed she was then unable to have a child.
“I’m hearing stories like that all the time. These women want to stay in construction, they’ve worked hard to get there, they’re really smart and capable, they love the work, but they feel like the system doesn’t know how to support them. My sense is that it’s very difficult to currently be a mum and work in construction – you have to make sacrifices. It’s a real crisis.”
NAWIC-commissioned research cites a construction industry study by Galea et al. (2018)*, which found that in several large Australian construction firms, women were largely left to manage their departure, return and career survival unaided, with around 50 per cent not returning to work after parental leave.
“In an industry where, by this time next year, we need 300,000 more workers, the fact that we haven’t got this right yet is very concerning,” Grant says.
“I think the flexibility angle is currently a major focus in construction. There are some amazing companies out there who are doing pilots. For example, there was one project in Sydney that did a late start, which allowed caregivers to be able to be on site at quarter past eight for their pre starts, which opened up those roles for people who drop their kids off at school or childcare.
“But they are few and far between. It’s not consistent across the industry, and that’s similar for managers.
“Managers want to do the right thing, they want to have supportive conversations, but they just don’t know how. The result of that, often, is that there’s either no conversation or the experience of women is very inconsistent. One woman might have a great manager, but the next 10 women might have managers who are scared to have a conversation for whatever reason, and their experience is totally different. We need to get the consistency right across the industry.”
Crib Shift
This is the gap that Grant is looking to fill with her pilot program Crib Shift. With the $30,000 grant awarded from NAWIC, she is looking to approach the issue through providing practical support to mothers, employers and the partners of new mothers to effect change in how parenthood is addressed and incorporated into the industry.
“The way that I’m framing it is that it’s a primary prevention program in maternal retention, so we’re addressing this crisis before it’s too late,” she says.
“It’s not mental health support – it’s a retention program that works in partnership with the whole maternal ecosystem.
“The first stream is for mothers, covering the point of disclosure of pregnancy to 24 months post-birth. In maternal terms, that’s the first 1,000 days and research tells us that the first 1,000 days is critical to a mother’s wellbeing, which is why I focused on that window.
“For the pilot program, we’re thinking of bringing together 20 women who meet monthly. Every month there’s a different topic with a facilitated discussion alongside micro learning that’s delivered in ways that’s going to be accessible and manageable for women who are juggling being a new parent.”
Grant says the idea isn’t to ‘fix women’ but instead have practical information and frameworks that they can apply to their workplaces.
“That works hand in hand with the employers stream, because we need to upskill employers,” she adds.
“What I’m hearing is that employers really want to learn and do the right thing. So, we will be talking to employers about how having a mum on the team can be a wonderful asset. Parents are learning these great new skills that are crucial to sites, for example risk management and negotiating with stakeholders. Women who are going through this life transition are upskilling.
“We can also show that the cost of doing nothing is dire. Working off a salary of a woman who’s on $150,000 – to replace that woman, conservatively, figures suggest that it’s $225,000 to replace her. The return on investment financially makes sense.
“But, more importantly than that, if employers support women and do the right thing, that is also going to flow onto dads as well, because what’s good for mums is going to be good for dads.
“If we can keep parents in the workforce, that shows the next layer of people coming through that they can have families and have a successful career in this industry. I think it’s really important that we work very supportively and transparently with employers.”
The third stream is working with the dads and partners of new mums around how to share the mental load and increase support for both parties.
“There’s obviously a lot of focus on mums in this program, but I think it’s really important for dads and partners to be to be supported as well,” Grant says.
Kick start
Grant says that without NAWIC’s support, she wouldn’t have had the resources to launch the program, so the Bright Ideas Grant has made her idea possible. With conversations currently underway with a number of employers, the plan is to run the pilot this year and then hopefully expand with more clients as interest grows.
“It’s incredible to have been awarded the grant,” she says.
“I’m so grateful to the team, to NAWIC and Cathryn [Greville – NAWIC CEO].
“I’ve had this on in my mind for years now. The whole idea started because I had a really bumpy return to work after I gave birth in a in a rural hospital, and that was quite traumatic. I ended up being quite unwell after the birth of my son and I realised how important community is, which is why a core focus of Crib Shift is to bring women together.
“This grant has given me the freedom to focus all my time on the development of the content and building relationships with potential clients.”
As to what changes she would like to start see happening in the industry, Grant says she would love to see parenting become a lot more visible and for companies to adjust their attitudes towards work/home balance to make the industry more flexible for those with children or carer responsibilities.
“I’d love to see a real focus on parenting out loud in construction,” she says.
“At the moment, if parents need to leave early for pick up or want to take the afternoon off to go and cheer their kid on at the swimming carnival, I think that’s done in a very hush, hush way. Family is left at the door when you go on site, and I would love for families to become more normalised and celebrated. With that will come more flexibility, which is obviously a huge hurdle to overcome in construction.
“I want employers to start feeling confident in the conversations that they’re having in supporting parents. And I want new women coming into the industry to think that they don’t have to decide between working or being a mother, that they can do both. That’s not to say that it will be easy, but that it’s at least an option if that’s what they want to do.”
If you are an individual who would like to share their story or an employer interested in getting involved with the Crib Shift program, reach out to Samantha Grant at samantha@cribshift.com.
* Galea, N. R. (2018) Built for men: Institutional privilege in the Australian construction industry, A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, UNSW Sydney.
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