Construction's contradictions
To the outsider, construction is a mature and respected industry. To those within, however, it is a sector wrought with contradictions.
I spend virtually every waking hour thinking about, talking about, writing about or broadcasting about demolition and construction. And I am OK with that. The industry has afforded me a living for more than 30 years and I love the business. I love the people, the equipment, the innovation and - of course - the way in which the sector changes the very landscape of our world.
But I am often struck by the fact that the industry is characterised by contradictions. What do I mean? Allow me to explain.
It is an industry with a leadership council yet lacks leadership.
It greets a skills shortage by making it more difficult and more expensive for experienced workers to stay within the industry.
There are 300,000 construction SMEs and between them they employ 2.7 million people and are responsible for nine percent of the UK's GDP, some £117 billion per annum. Yet they are dictated to by a handful of main contractors that are allowed to set the industry agenda.
Is generally the first into a recession but is always expected to lead the nation out again.
Had a construction minister that recently told a Construction Leadership Council that she would be in post for the remainder of the year…hours before being moved to a new governmental role.
It strives for efficiency whilst constantly adding burdensome bureaucracy.
It consistently fails to heed calls for drug and alcohol testing because it knows precisely what such testing might find.
It speaks loudly about gender equality while operating sites that remain stubbornly and mindlessly misogynistic.
It has a lower than average level of literacy yet requires workers to sit exams, read operator manuals, heed warning signs, and to interact increasingly with text-based computer systems.
Favours classrooms and cards over actual competence.
It bemoans the ongoing skills shortage while trained and experienced operators and operatives are sat at home praying for work purely because they have the wrong piece of plastic.
Shouts about its mental health awareness even while having having a suicide rate that is almost four times the national average.
And it has trade federations that actively exclude more of that trade than they claim to represent.
See what I mean?
Once again you've hit the nail on it's head, it begs the question where do we go from here, forward should be the answer but i feel backwards is the most likely direction, like most things in life it's the few telling the majority how they want it done, you must conform, as I get older I feel not all changes are for the better but where to start any reform you have to start at the beginning & work your way through & build a solid foundation not start at the top & work your way down, the way to educate is to inspire not to enforce, rules are rules I hear you cry but there must be some flexibility or dare i say it common sense ( that's been bred out of the younger generation ) , I'm not talking revaluation but something has got to change