Resilience in a hostile workplace: the experience of women onsite in construction

Abstract

Women working onsite in construction contend with multiple work hazards arising from the masculine-based work culture. Resilience has been proposed as an important asset for trades and semi-skilled women to manage work hazards and retain work focus. An explanatory sequential research design incorporating survey and interview data was used to explore the resilience of women. One hundred and sixty-eight Australian trades and semi-skilled women completed the Employee Resilience Scale and forty-three of these participants were interviewed. Survey results indicate that participants had a high level of employee resilience, suggesting a strong ability to adapt and succeed in a challenging work environment. Thematic analysis of the interview data identified that resilience is considered as a mandatory capability by women working onsite to manage gendered workplace hazards and attain career success. The findings indicate that these women had high levels of resilience despite little to no support from their workplace. Given its importance, it is recommended that resilience development be included in apprenticeship programs to support retention and career success for tradeswomen. Developing the resilience of semi-skilled women requires more consideration from the industry given their precarious employment status and career pathway. More broadly, the results reiterate that more needs to be done to provide a safe working environment for women working onsite. Rather than relying on women to navigate hostile workplaces, construction employers must protect the safety and health of all workers irrespective of gender.

Keywords:

• Construction
• gender
• resilience
• retention
• semi-skilled women
• tradeswomen
• well-being
• work hazards

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Victorian Government as part of the Victorian Women in Construction Strategy 2019–2022 Building Gender Equality program.