This week I attended the Mental Health Summit run by Get Construction Talking.

The stats are stark; we lose two people to suicide every day in construction. The industry is, when at its best, an amazing place to work, but not for everyone and not all the time.  We all know that relentless programmes, poor payment practices, the race to the bottom, erratic work patterns, location dependence, and travel all contribute.  It doesn’t help that we are a male dominated workforce that tends to the “just keep going” mindset.  But it isn’t just a construction problem – industry specific challenges blend with societal issues, neural diversity, addiction, the cost-of-living crisis and the pressure that social media puts on people to feel like they are failing if life isn’t Insta perfect.  We can’t always change the world, we can’t solve every problem, but we can be more alert.

As I sat there, I was thinking back to the presentation from Liam Colebrook at our Northern Regional Event the week prior and reminded of the consistency in the message.  In a brave and challenging presentation, Liam opened up about his addictions and  struggles with mental health and suicide.  During the presentation you could have heard a pin drop, after there were some really powerful questions and discussion, but my mind was mostly turning to a moment when we were packing up.  A former colleague of Liam’s, someone who worked with him at the time, came forward as we were unplugging the laptop and said … “mate I’m so sorry… I didn’t know”.   I regularly caught up with Liam at events, throughout his darkest days and I didn’t see the signs either.  Liam was one of our own, he went through hell, alone.  Thankfully he is still here, staying strong and sharing so that we can all learn from our failures.  But others aren’t and sadly some won’t be in the future – we do need to do more.

Get Construction Talking wasn’t just another conversation and a load of virtue signalling, it was an opportunity to share ideas, interrogate the causes, find out what others are doing and vitally to reflect.  Collaboration is critical – as well as a “just crack on culture”, construction tends to foster a solutions mindset.  We put ourselves on the hook to “fix it” rather than find the right help.   As a result we get initiative overload – we are not the sum of our parts.  This issue is one where we absolutely have to work on together.   To this end it was encouraging to hear from Mark Reynolds, Chair of Mace and Chair of the Construction Leadership Council on the work they are doing to step up and lead a more collaborative effort.  CLC has established a Mental Health Steering Group. You can find out more and support their research by sharing your insights here.

I’ve certainly come away thinking about how we can better join the dots to support individuals and businesses in our community more effectively.  This starts with promoting the excellent and very practical Action Plan that B1M and Procore have developed through the Get Construction Talking Campaign (which is now uploaded on the Mental Health Toolkit on our website).  The plan looks at the impact that individuals and Team Leaders can have and actions that they can take.   I also want to do more to emphasise the links between mental  health and other work we are doing.  We can’t talk about mental health without talking about risk dumping in contracts and poor contractual management.  FIS is encouraging all members to support the Conflict Avoidance Coalition which is doing great work to change this.  Details available through our Responsible No campaign which is all about changing the culture in construction.   We also can’t ignore unfair payment practices and retention and how they are a cancer at the core of our market, so again I encourage all to feed in to the Government consultation on late payment and retention that closes towards the end of August.  We need to make sure Government have no excuse not to regulate better.

Perhaps the most important reminder on the day was that it isn’t just about getting construction talking, but making sure I am listening.  To this end, please do bring always feel free to call FIS and unload – we can’t solve every problem, but perhaps we can help you appreciate that you aren’t the only one facing it and direct you to someone who can.  Our office number is 0121 707 0077, but my mobile is 07792 959 481 and it is always on.

FIS CEO, Iain McIlwee