Improving equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in construction (and other industries) has gained momentum with the Black Lives Matter movement. At the same time, major infrastructure clients, such as Highways England and National Rail, are pushing their supply chains to take action and also to evidence the impact of that action.
Public sector clients must report on their EDI progress by law (Equality Act 2010). The Act was added to in 2017 to include gender pay gap reporting for all companies with over 250 employees, with the private sector now looking to measure and report on wider EDI issues.
Highways England has had a Supplier Diversity Forum since 2010 but is now ramping up its demands on its supply chain, with contractors Balfour Beatty and Skanska among those mentioned as leaders. It now assesses its tier 1 suppliers using its Strategic Alignment Review Tool (StART) which covers all the agency’s strategic principles, including EDI. Part of that assessment looks at how tier 1 companies are increasing diversity among their own supply chain.
HS2 is also making big efforts to champion this theme among its supply chain. The project’s latest EDI report includes for the first time a section reporting on the diversity of its supply chain.
Investor Legal & General made clear its appetite for change when it issued an ‘early warning’ to blue-chip companies at the beginning of last October. It wrote to all FTSE 100 companies to say that any of them that don’t have a BAME director by January 1st 2022 can expect Legal & General to vote against re-electing the board member responsible for board appointments.
It’s only a matter of time before suppliers are asked about their EDI strategy. It’s also likely that the makeup of companies’ boards – and HR teams – will come under scrutiny.
Five major issues are driving the post-Covid market, of which EDI is one. We share our insights into these in our latest eBook Construction Themes Post-Pandemic. You can download it here.