Construction Industry Culture Taskforce (CICT): Work hour cultures for health, wellbeing and gender equality in construction (2022-2024)

Summary

The Construction Industry Culture Task Force (CICT) was established in 2018 to address the cultural challenges impacting the Australian construction industry, including excessive work hours, poor mental health, and low levels of gender diversity and inclusion. The Task Force comprised Australian Constructors Association, the Governments of New South Wales and Victoria and Australia’s leading workplace researchers.

A Culture Standard was developed to address the construction industry’s culture in relation to:

• time for life
• gender diversity, and
• health and wellbeing.

The Culture Standard was piloted in five infrastructure construction projects in New South Wales and Victoria. Data was collected over a two-year period to evaluate the effect of the Culture Standard across the lifecycle of these pilot projects.

More information on the Culture in Construction initiative.

Key decision-makers in the construction industry were also interviewed to understand their opinions about the impact, costs and benefits associated with the Culture Standard. A team from Frontier Economics also undertook a cost benefit analysis of the impact of the Culture Standard at participating projects.

Team

• Helen Lingard
• Michelle Turner
• Sara Charlesworth
• Payam Pirzadeh
• Chenjunyan Sun
• Natalie Galea (The University of Sydney)
• Lyndall Strazdins (Australian National University)
• Christine LaBond (Australian National University)
• Anna Wilson (Frontier Economics) 

Partners

• Australian Constructors Association
• New South Wales Government
• Victoria State Government

Publications

• Intention to Pursue a Career in Construction/Infrastructure: Perceptions of NSW Trainees - Report 1 (PDF 788 KB)
• Intention to Pursue a Career in Construction/Infrastructure: Perceptions of NSW Trainees - Report 2 (PDF 956 KB)
• Intention to Pursue a Career in Construction/Infrastructure: Perceptions of NSW Trainees - Report 3 (PDF 917 KB)
• Trainee Study Research-to-Practice Report (PDF 634 KB)
• Pilot Project Interim Report (PDF 900 KB)
• Pilot Project Interim Report Summary (PDF 327 KB)
• Pilot Project Final Report (PDF 7.2 MB)
• Pilot Project Final Report Summary (PDF 9.5 MB)

Peer-reviewed papers/outputs

• LINGARD, H. & TURNER, M. (2022). Making time for life: A whole-of-industry initiative to reducing work hours and promoting health and gender inclusion in project-based construction work, Project Leadership and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plas.2022.100065
• TURNER, M., LINGARD, H. & PIRZADEH, P. (2025). How does the five-day work week impact labour productivity? Exploring the perceptions of Australian construction workers, Buildings, 15, 787. https://doi.org/10.3390/ buildings15050787
• LINGARD, H., TURNER, M. & PIRZADEH, P. (2025). Is construction my industry of choice? Examining the factors affecting career choice decision-making of young workers, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-08-2024-1125