Building equality was the message from our Murphy and Laing O'Rourke (LM) joint venture team, when members took part in Birmingham Pride at the end of May.
The team set up a colourful stall at the LGBTQ+ event, which was Birmingham's biggest to date, attended by more than 55,000 people. The stall was manned by Murphy EDI representative Naheem Ahmed (pictured below, right) and Laing O'Rourke sustainability manager Paul Di Mambro (left).
Murphy is committed to promoting equality and diversity and within the company and the wider industry. The scale of this challenge was illustrated by a survey in August 2015 by the Architects Journal, New Civil Engineer and Construction News, which found homophobia was exceptionally rife in the construction industry compared to others.
The survey highlighted that more than 80% of gay men and women in some parts of the industry had encountered homophobic comments in the workplace, and just 14% of gay employees said they would be open about their sexuality on site.
Less than half of all gay employees said they would trust their line managers to handle sexual orientation issues and only one in ten would recommend the construction industry as a great place to work for gay men and women.
Murphy will be attending similar LBGTQ+ events in the future to promote diversity and openness in our industry, as well as working on a full programme of training within the company.