It's Women in Construction Week!
For us at Lehman Daman, Women in Construction Week is a reminder of a few important things that go beyond the typical forced content we often see:
- Women still must overcome a bit more than their male counterparts to earn respect on a jobsite. And they often have to do it repeatedly, with each new site, team, and project. It's not right and it isn’t fair. And of course, it has nothing to do with different performance standards than those applied to men. While things have improved over the years, the reality is that women must still put up with a few more headaches than men do, particularly on the operational side of the business. It's important this week to acknowledge it and be grateful for the women that do overcome these additional challenges each day. It’s also a good time to recommit ourselves to the responsibility our company has to improve that dynamic during the other 51 weeks of the year.
- Strong support systems are critical. It is so encouraging to see examples of women supporting each other - whether celebrating each other publicly, helping behind the scenes, organizing committees or initiatives or simply getting together for a lunch or an activity. Those networks make a difference, this week and throughout the year.
- Construction offers far more career paths than most people realize. When people think about construction, they often picture tradespeople, superintendents, and project managers. Women crush it in these roles everyday. But our industry also depends on professionals in marketing, owner’s representation, accounting, human resources, information systems, legal, estimating, administration, management, recruiting, virtual design, coaching, strategy development, continuous improvement and executive roles. As an industry, we must do a better job of introducing these opportunities to women who may not have historically considered construction as a career.
Construction is an unbelievably rewarding industry to work in. Among many other attributes, it is fun, challenging and it produces something tangible that impacts communities and the people who live and work in them.
It's also an industry undergoing monumental changes, driven by generational developments in technology, rapidly evolving customer expectations, a shifting workforce, and changing public policies. All of this is really going to shake up our industry. And while certain aspects of construction may always be male-dominated, most of the jobs within this industry aren't going to look like what construction looked like just a few years ago. We embrace these changes!
The men and women at Lehman Daman are grateful for the chance to pause and reflect during Women in Construction Week. We recognize the unique challenges women face in construction and understand our responsibility as a company to remove unnecessary barriers. We strongly encourage robust support systems and initiatives led by women. And as construction continues to evolve, we know the people in this industry – women and men alike – will be the ones shaping what comes next. Pretty exciting stuff, if you ask us!
So, with that, happy Women in Construction Week!
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