I write this while waiting for a phone call from my son with his GCSE results. The last couple of weeks have been a bit tense with thoughts about what his future holds and where his career will take him.

Construction is not an option, however well he does. He has had plenty of opportunities to see the breadth of the industry and along the way has met a variety of interesting people, too. Maybe familiarity has bred some contempt. Whatever the reason, construction has no appeal whatsoever.

I’ve come across this before. At a lunch with some members and their wives, the wives made it very clear that they did not want their children to go into construction. The commonest complaint was that family life was disrupted too much. Ironically, the husbands worked for a company regarded as one of the best to work for. Since then I know that company has tried to become an even better employer.

So if that’s the story of the best, the long tail of the industry still leaves a lot to be desired. It never changes. The lack of trust between the various parties reinforces the cynicism that surrounds any initiative to improve matters. The adversarial approach is endemic, with partnering being a veneer about as thick as the average skim coat in a new house.

Will winning the 2012 Olympics make any difference? Will it be the catalyst for that needed change in working practices? If you judge the future based on the past then it’s pretty unlikely anything will change.

Clients will still be pushing for the lowest price, Clients and designers will still conspire to produce “signature” buildings that become white elephants, and people will still get killed or seriously injured while building them.

Still no phone call, still no idea of the results, and I am getting really grumpy.

Oh well, so much for being supportive and taking a partnering approach. It looks like my wife is going to be a mediator again tonight.

Source

Construction Manager

Postscript

Chris Blythe is chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Building