Flexible working and construction aren’t natural stablemates. Job-sharing or part-time professionals are by and large an anathema, and paid leave for new fathers and mothers is often no more than the statutory minimum.

But for how much longer can an industry struggling for talented people of either sex be outpaced in terms of family-friendly working policies?

The climate across all industry is changing fast. Just this week, in response to a government consultation paper proposing to extend maternity pay to 12 months and improve flexible working for carers, the CBI struck up a bargaining position instead of rejecting the plans outright.

There is some evidence, too, to show that construction is making tentative steps to move with the times. Bovis’ introduction of six months paid maternity leave and one month paternity pay (see pages 28-31), designed to improve retention and save money long term, puts it in the same league as the most progressive employers. Meanwhile contractor George & Harding is tapping into a growing pool of qualified women who want to work part-time.

One can certainly see how the prospect of being loaded up with costly employee benefits is scary to an industry where margins are low and nine out of 10 firms employ fewer than seven people. And there has to be a limit on what employees are able to demand – the last thing we need is employers shying away from taking on more women for fear of what may be in store.

Resolving these issues is certainly not going to easy. But to ignore the demands of the working population is not a feasible option either. The days of the itinerant project manager happy to live away from home and knock off in time for last orders is on the wane. Employers must adapt to a new generation of employees of both sexes who want to take time off to travel – or put their kids to bed.

Denise Chevin, editor

An architectural remedy

Sadly, the Golden Age of magnificent architect-designed lottery projects is largely behind us. Now British architects must knuckle down to the hard graft of churning out schools and hospitals, and in doing so engage fully with contractors, facilities managers and PFI providers. Yet there is probably no building that calls for more architectural flair than a hospital. As modern society’s last resort for treating life-threatening diseases, hospitals are being stuffed with ever more advanced medical equipment and procedures. This turns the hospital into a bristling battleship that terrifies its patients – just when they are most in need of peace and reassurance.

In this week’s issue we present two of the precious few healthcare buildings that reconcile this dilemma. The first is a tiny cancer counselling centre in Inverness that is welcoming, sculptural and supremely life-enhancing (page 18). The second is a much larger hospital for children in London (pages 40-46), which has a glowing heart in the form of a huge, sun-drenched conservatory. But this architectural balancing act is not the only lesson to be learned. The next, as the RIBA fully recognises, is how to incorporate it into PFI procedures (page 21). Now there’s a challenge.

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