NEWS EXTRA
BMF DRIVES FORWARD WITH INCLUSION
THE CONSTRUCTION INCLUSION Coalition (CIC) has been established by CEOs at leading organisations including the Builders Merchants Federation and the National Merchant Buying Society, merchant groups such as Bradfords, Highbourne Group Travis Perkins PLC and Wolseley, as well as suppliers including Aliaxis, Baxi, Ibstock PLC, Knauf and Wavin. Its aim is to raise sector standards on equity, diversity and inclusion, with an immediate focus on gender representation in its first year. The Coalition was launched at the BMF Annual Conference by CIC Chairperson and Toolstation managing director, Angela Rushforth, and representatives of two CIC founder members, Sam Grierson, customer proposition director & EDI chair for Wolseley Group, and James Saunders, chief people officer of City Plumbing part of the Highbourne Group. Rushforth said: “There is no doubt that the future of our industry is at risk if we don’t create an environment where all our colleagues feel safe, empowered and confident. I want all young women to see the construction sector as I do - full of opportunity.” “We aren’t attracting and retaining from a diverse pool of talent, because many think the construction sector is not for them. These are industry-wide challenges that require industry-wide solutions. We are calling on businesses across the sector – no matter how big or small - to join our Coalition and commit to taking action in their organisations.
“We have a skills gap in our industry. Almost a third of the UK construction workforce will retire within the next 10 years; we need to do something now as an industry to future proof it. This is an
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industry wide issue, we are failing to attract diverse talent into all of our businesses. We recently conducted a survey which said that only 2% of women would choose construction as an industry that they would feel welcome in and in the same survey only 36% of people would feel confident that female friends or family members would feel safe and respected if they joined our industry. I don’t know about you, but I am pretty ashamed of those statistics.
“Importantly, the vision of the Coalition is to have a construction industry that reflects the community it builds for. The Built On Better pledge, sets out the guiding principles that all members will commit too. So together as the Construction Inclusion Coalition, we pledge to: inspire, listen, share, support, educate, measure and report. “We might be making some progress as indivdual businesses, but, with only 15% of the workforce in the construction industry in the UK being women, and only 6% being from an ethical minority background, we are missing out on a high proportion of high calibre individuals. We are not going far enough, or fast enough to make the changes that are needed.”
Rushforth said: “Working together to inspire the next generation of leaders in our industry, developing and sharing resources and committing to sharing data.
“Importantly we plan to create an annual report which will demonstrate the progress we have made as individual organisations.” Members of the Coalition will commit to: l Recruitment, training, retention, and progression of under represented groups in the industry. lFostering an environment that encourages feedback, and higher satisfaction of the under represented groups. lTransforming internal processes for concerns and complaints, to be raised by any and all colleagues. lMeasuring and reporting on progress, year on year. BMJ
SEVEN THINGS WE LEARNED ABOUT THE ECONOMY
James Sproule, Chief Economist of Handelsbanken UK, spoke to the BMF Annual Conference, offering his views on the state of the economy.
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Things aren’t that bad. Has this last year been the worst time for the UK economy there has ever been? No it hasn’t. It’s certainly not great, but it’s not the 1970s, it is not something close to the end of the 1980s. I do think people in the UK are being too negative.
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Confidence is higher than you think. Business is looking a bit subdued because of higher interest rates, but in general confidence is a little bit better than it has been.
Inflation isn’t really that high. Real inflation actually went negative in 2021 and has recently gone positive. I think having it been negative for a period of time is something that isn’t the end of the world. It could lead to consumer confidence recovery.
4
Unemployment is at a manageable level. Back in the early 1980s there was a lot of unemployment, because of the big industrial restructuring, which put unemployment at about 12%. In the early 1990s, we had another recession, and unemployment peaked at 10%. During the financial crisis, the biggest financial crisis since the Second World War, unemployment peaked at just
over 8%. Now, we are looking at unemployment of a peak at 5.5%, and this is showing that something is going very right here.
5
Online sales are up, but retail is fighting back. Before the pandemic, 20% of retail sales were online, and during the pandemic this went up to 35%. Because people were buying as much as they possibly could online. We are seeing more online shopping than ever before, but it has dropped down to 25%. Retailers are beginning to catch up to this trend.
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High inflation isn’t always a really bad thing because it acts as a buffer.
We are going to see inflation fall as the energy crisis
improves, but we aren’t going to see it fall quite as quickly as we would expect because salary levels are unlikely to come down.
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net October
2023www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net August 2021
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