Newsletter

CICT Newsletter
June 2024

Hello all,

The work of the Construction Industry Culture Taskforce (CICT) has truly gathered momentum over this year.

More committed than ever, the conversation is ongoing with the industry, governments, unions and other key industry participants. We love it when things are moving to drive positive outcomes with everyone’s input. We see the jigsaw puzzle coming together — slowly, but methodically and surely.

So much is happening as we recently launched the findings of our research with trainees and pilot projects. In parallel, we continue to consult, collaborate and engage with decision-makers around the country while paving the way for the Culture Standard 2.0, and its implementation.

This is a short version of our newsletter as I wanted to share our latest findings of two important reports led by RMIT University.

The Culture in Construction Pilot Projects: Interim Report unveiled the findings from five pilot infrastructure projects trialling a draft Culture Standard. It studied the integrated strategies used by pilot projects to improve three pillars – Time for Life, Diversity and Inclusion and Wellbeing – to determine how they contribute to positive cultural shifts in the industry.

It dived into the heart of the construction industry’s culture, spotlighting the problem of excessive work hours.

A key finding of the report was the overwhelming support for a five-day work week, with 84% of salaried respondents and 61% of waged respondents preferring this schedule.

I have recently presented a summary of the findings – click on the video below.

 

The report, Intention to Pursue a Career in Construction/Infrastructure demonstrates the gap between what trainees want in a career and what they think the industry has to offer. It tracks the experiences of 136 NSW trainees who spent two years in the infrastructure construction industry during their Certificate IV through TAFE NSW / NSW Government’s Infrastructure Traineeship Program.

The trainees aged between 17 and 23 – both male and female – observed the long hours worked in construction.

“Young people are deterred from joining the construction industry because they don’t believe the working hours can deliver them work/life balance.”

Not new to some but a wake-up call for all – reminding us to undertake the right change sooner rather than later.

We know a multiplicity of factors create an industry culture. Though the findings of this two-year investigation confirm that the three pillars of the Culture Standard is where change needs to occur – and the next-gen construction workers pinpointed the excessive working hours, in particular.

Key statistics from the findings are below. We cannot act as if we do not know.

Change is unavoidable.


This is why the CICT is so inspired to pursue its mission.

We firmly believe in changing the industry from the inside by engaging the wider construction industry to ensure implementation is happening in a way that governments, contractors, unions and associations feel comfortable with.

We value the collaboration with the RMIT researchers’ community to enable us to back up our words with existing data and an evidence-based approach.

All our research says that the three interrelated pillars need to be tackled together to truly make a difference and that’s exactly what the Standard does.

Let’s ‘do the time’ now to drive the right change and prove that we heard that ‘Doing the time’ is not an option for next-gen construction workers.

For more information:

For the next edition of the newsletter (very soon), we’ll share an update from our pilot projects and an update on our future focus – implementation.

In the meantime, follow us on LinkedIn to stay up to date.

#CultureStandard #cultureconvo

Kind regards,

Gabrielle Trainor, AO
CICT Chair