MCA/SLCCC Teach Future Foremen Cultural Competence
Date Posted: October 27, 2017
Posted In: People, Workforce,
by Tom Finan, Executive Director, Construction Forum STL
Three decades ago, as a young project manager, Deborah Henry was introduced by a superintendent to a supplier as “our token woman”. As McCarthy’s first woman project engineer at Washington University she was taken around the site by another super, who told sub foremen that she would be respected or they wouldn’t be on the project.
Last week Professor Deborah Henry of St. Louis Community College, shared the “token woman” story with students in the Mechanical Contractors Association of Eastern Missouri pipefitter/plumber foreman class. Dr. Henry, who wrote her dissertation on African Americans in the St. Louis trades, told what she described as a very diverse group that it does the construction industry no good to try to attract the diverse people it desperately needs if they are then driven away by being made to feel unwelcome.
Steve Faust
Dr. Deborah Henry
Henry taught the class at the invitation of Steve Faust, business development/diversity coordinator of iCon Mechanical. Faust had been asked by Kristy Stephens, executive director of MCA to teach a session on business development as part of the multi-week program. He agreed on the condition that Henry could take part of the time to speak on cultural competency, diversity, and inclusion Faust has served for the last couple of years on a Cultural Competency Subcommittee that is a subset of the Diversity Committee of the St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers.
Cultural competency, per Dr. Henry, is comprised of four components: awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills. “It is the ability to think, feel, and act in ways that acknowledge, respect, and build upon ethnic, socio-cultural, and linguistic diversity.”
The long and the short, Henry said, is that everyone, regardless of their race, sex, ethnicity or background. has bias. “Once we identify and examine the biases we hold, it is important to know that this does not mean we are inherently bad people. It simply means we are human.
“The time is long overdue to rethink our approach to workplace diversity and inclusion with a focus on cultural competency in the construction industry workplace. Doing so will yield greater measures of safety, productivity, and workforce readiness, along with the elusive achievement of diversity and inclusion.
“We need to recognize and applaud the leadership of MCA’s Foreman Training Program for their progressive thinking and action when it comes to shifting the construction industry workforce diversity and inclusion conversation,” Henry said.