Why ED&I is important to Costain
At Costain, inclusion is a critical enabler for our success in ensuring that firstly we have a diverse team, as diverse teams deliver better results, and secondly that every member of our valued team is able to achieve their potential.
Why we became signatories to Change the Race Ratio
We are Change the Race Ratio campaign members because we recognise that without proactive and visible leadership on this topic, progress will be too slow. At Costain we are committed to developing a team that is genuinely reflective of society, with a culture of equity and inclusion at the heart.
Actions that Costain are taking against our Change the Race Ratio commitments
On Inclusion Impact Day, April 2022, our 3,500 people, site teams, clients and suppliers stood down to have a conversation about inclusion. Everyone got involved, sharing experiences about active allyship and psychological safety. The day deliberately didn’t focus on diversity as the overarching theme, instead seeking to address the cultural and behavioural aspects that our people can control. The Impact Day proved a huge success and received extremely positive feedback from our clients, one of whom mentioned that the day was totally different to anything they had seen across their projects.
As part of the Impact Day, our employee networks produced a physical and digital version of “Our Little Book of Respect”, a booklet outlining the different characteristics represented by our employee networks, their challenges, and small actions that people can take to be an ally to these communities. These books were delivered to every Costain office and site and are available to download from our intranet.
Costain have scheduled resources to undertake our ethnicity pay gap analysis this summer (2022), alongside gender pay gap reporting. In preparation we have sought to increase the number of employees sharing diversity data formally in our HR system. A review in 2019 established that 50% of our workforce had not disclosed ethnicity on their personnel record, which suggested a possible lack of psychological safety around personal data sharing. With the help of our REACH (religion, ethnicity, and cultural heritage) employee network, we contacted employees to understand the barriers to sharing this data, communicated how data was used, protected and demonstrated to employees how they could update their details on the system. We have since reduced our unknown ethnicity percentage to 9% in 2021.
As part of our 2021 inclusion strategy, we pledged to train 50 senior leaders to be visible allies across the business. We have achieved double our target and established active allies among our employees and our supply chain to create a safe space to challenge non-inclusive behaviour.
