The career advancement of the professional women in the UK construction industry

Abstract

The issue regarding the lack of women in the UK construction industry has become more prominent for some time, attracting government and industry wide attention due to this potential skill shortage facing the industry. In order to meet these future demands the industry cannot rely on recruiting only from the male workforce. Therefore women's participation for the construction industry especially for professional level is important. This paper explores the importance of career success factors among professional women in the UK construction industry to achieve their career advancement. E-questionnaires were designed and data was collected from 31 professional women, consist of 10 women in idealism career phase (early career phase),10 in endurance career phase (mid career phase) and 11 from reinventive career phase (advanced career phase). Using relative important index technique, the level of importance of career success factors were group in to three categories. The critical career success factors, moderately important career success factors and the least important career success factors were categorised among women in each career phase. The results indicated that the age and gender didn't have impact on professional women's career advancement. Ability to work with people have been identified as one of the critical career success factors both in early and mid career with the highest overall index of 1.00, while strategic vision has became the one of the critical career success factor in advanced career with the highest index of 0.95. The finding of this study will have input towards the identification of different training and development activities to advance women's career in the construction industry.

Challenges, success factors and strategies for women’s career development in the Australian construction industry

“…Success factors for women in construction are shown in Table 2. Findings by Moore (2006) and Fernando, Amaratunga and Haigh (2014) show that the ability to work with people, dedication, adaptability, leadership, and integrity/honesty are positively influencing women's career success. These findings confirm that soft skills are very important for career success while hard skills are essential thereafter.…”

“…Role models, mentors or significant others have been identified in research as the most valuable resource in a women's career development and profession (Moore, 2006;Fernando, Amaratunga and Haigh, 2014;Ericksen and Schultheiss, 2009). Role models are beneficial for individuals to learn from by being present and assist with emotional support and verbal encouragement.…”

“…Furthermore, emphasising to adolescence the creative and problem-solving aspects of the industry and acknowledging that the industry does not consist of mathematics and science or fieldwork only could be investigated. Fernando, Amaratunga, and Haigh (2014) suggested that it is important to provide training programs such as team building, workshops and seminars working with project team members, communication skills development programs. Moore (2006) Fernando , Attracting female students to undertake studies in a construction position is just half the battle.…”

“…Retaining them through studies and then into a career is equally important to the future of the construction industry. All studies suggested that developing a formal mentoring program would be beneficial (Fernando, Amaratunga and Haigh 2014;NAWIC, 2013;Moore, 2006). This would encourage senior members to mentor junior members upon entry and assist them to navigate company policies and communicate on more of a personal level regarding challenges they are facing.…”

The Role of High-Performance Work System on Career Success: Evidence from Jordan

“…Validated these construct and demonstrated their importance in influencing work and individual outcomes. : Fernando et al (2014) regard communication skills, networking, ability to work with people, and seizing opportunities as critical factors of career success for professional women in the U.K. construction industry. Judge et al (1995) believe that employees with a high level of involvement with their job, and who regard their work as a central part of their lives, achieve greater success in careers.…”