Construction industry is said to be highly masculinised & to have work practices that are detrimental to wellbeing. By use of ethnography, this study explored the wellbeing of female & male construction professionals. 21 leaders & 61 project staff were interviewed, people were observed at 14 company events & 44 people were shadowed at work.
This post is larger than usual to do the topic some justice.
Results:
Findings revealed significant symptoms of poor mental health (eg stress, panic attacks, insomnia, anxiety) as well as strains on family life among men & women. Many people were said to endure these experiences in silence, “adhering to unspoken masculine workplace norms of long hours, total availability, and presenteeism” (p321).
Employees regularly worked double their contracted hours & “discussed the need to ‘prove their worth’, leaving little time for work-life balance” (p321).
Workers were said to be expected to tolerate adverse work conditions without complaints or sacrifice. Other research indicated that in competitive male-dominated industries workers place productivity over safety to achieve “preferred worker status”, and these “competitive battlefields” limit help-seeking behaviour.
Masculinity is said to lead to expectations that risks are accepted and pain is to be endured without complaint.
Yet, the continuously demanding & stressful conditions impact employee mental health. Job demands & work life balance were significant issues for most employees – male & female. Widespread acceptance of long house and a culture of presenteeism made it difficult to balance family & social life.
This was most pronounced with fulltime workers with children, where long hours away from home put strain on relationships. For men, these practices “cut to the core of their health, wellbeing and personal relationships” (p325). Stories of divorce were prevalent & referred to as battle scars.
Data indicated the prevalence of mental health issues, yet “the high rate of suicide did not feature in the companies’ safety narratives” (325).
3 instances of subcontractor suicide was reported by participants. Men& women were both expected to endure in silence about working hours without variation. For women with families, this “left them to individually negotiate and execute a balance between the rules in place and attending to their family” (p325).
The sheer workload of paid & unpaid work that women reported doing led some to reconsider whether construction was a sustainable career for them; females spoke of career survival. Men meanwhile, simply assumed that women could have both a construction career & family.
Symptoms of poor mental health emerged for men & women – where alcohol was used to deal with the issues. For men, rigid workplace practices, high workload & expectations led to anxiety & depression.
For women, “the exclusionary nature of the industry, the masculine nature of construction environments, and constant questions of female capability can contribute to feelings of isolation, exhaustion and a lack of confidence” (p326).
In one example, a company introduced an initiative called wellbeing leave, where employees get 3 additional days paid leave per year for mental & physical wellbeing. This was mocked by some “for its emphasis on “yoga and shit like that” (p326). Nevertheless, some were unsure whether their workload would actually permit it.
Positively in some workplaces, the wellbeing leave was operationalised via a roster system which appeared to be used by employees. Work life balance was led from the front, where attitudes of project managers & leaders towards wellness was significantly related to the success of the programs.
Workplace wellbeing programs focusing on individuals & individual lifestyle changes (educating people about accessing gyms or healthy food) were found to “merely address short-term risks rather than the underlying causes and drivers of poor wellbeing such as hyper masculine norms and practices (e.g. long work hours, presenteeism and total availability” (p327).
Authors conclude that “Commitment throughout the organization (including management at the highest level) to a culture that is not tied to masculinity is therefore a critical factor” (p327). Higher factors include management structure, staff communications & interactions as well as flexible work options, and finally employees’ perceptions of feeling valued.
Finally, authors state that in construction “the prevalence of norms of masculinity means that notions of ‘doing gender’ need to be closely examined when investigating workplace wellbeing” (p327).
SafetyInsights.org 