Luke Busette is building bridges at Skanska with conversations about race

Created by VERCIDA for Skanska

 

For Black History Month, Luke Busette is building bridges at Skanska with conversations about race, as well as helping build some of the UK’s major construction projects.

 

Luke Busette, Senior Project Manager at Skanska

 

I never really wanted to go to university. The large amounts of debt didn’t really make any sense to me, so I always wanted to take the vocational route. To do this, I joined Skanska’s school leavers’ programme as an apprentice electrical engineer.

My dad was an auto-electrician, so I was always into cars, but he guided me away from the automotive industry – the pay isn’t always great and it’s hard on your knees. Straight out of Year 11, I started with Skanska. That was 16 years ago and I’ve been with them ever since.

 

When I started, we were beginning to look at renewable technologies and sustainability and I spent six months putting research papers together that Skanska could use for bids. Then I started working on a series of major projects. Heron Tower in London was my first. It’s one of the tallest buildings in London and it was a very prestigious project to be involved with. When I started, it was just a hole in the ground, so it was very satisfying to see it through to the end.

As part of the apprenticeship, I did two years of college and then a year as a junior engineer before qualifying. I found college study really easy so, after saying when I was younger that I didn’t want to go to university, I applied to do a four-year degree and Skanska agreed to sponsor me. It was great to be able to do that without ending up in debt.

 

My next major construction project was Brent Civic Centre, just opposite Wembley Arena. It’s a mixed use building and another interesting project because it was built to such stringent environmental standards. There is a lot of interesting technology within that building. It was another satisfying project and I felt I was really getting into the groove with my career.

After another six months in the office working on bids, such as a place on the £1.3 billion framework for Anglian Water’s infrastructure maintenance, I spent seven years on the Crossrail project at Paddington Station, another amazing project. A year after we finished, I went through the station and it was an emotional experience.

Since then, I’ve worked on 20 Ropemaker in Moorgate – my first step back into the commercial market – and then the Blossom Street project, which I am currently working on. Coming into projects that have already started has been an interesting learning curve.

 

 

As well as continuing with major projects, I have become involved in Skanska’s Origins (nationalities and ethnicity) network. It started when a colleague, Jackie, led sessions at work called Let’s Talk About Race. In particular, it was interesting to learn about microaggressions, the kind of things many people might not even realise they are doing. 

I’d never really talked about race at work before. Soon, I was Jackie’s vice chair of the network and took over from her as chair when she left the company earlier this year. 

There were always procedures and policies at work about equality and treating people fairly, but the network takes it to the next level. I really enjoyed the conversations I was now having with people and Courageous Conversations is one of the ongoing projects that will be introduced to the whole company in Black History Month. We’ve already done a pilot session within the network.

Basically, it’s about stopping conversations about race from being taboo and keeping the conversations going, making people more comfortable talking about race, their feelings and how it affects people. Courageous Conversations is geared towards helping people understand each other. I’m so excited about that.

 

At the start of November, we are doing a joint event that combines Black History Month with Diwali. There will be foods from Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, and a little quiz to get people talking about different topics and learning about each other. That’s our main event for next year.

It’s always good to work with other networks, to share budgets and resources, so one of the projects I am looking forward to in the new year is to do something with the Women’s Network. We have Race Equality Week at the end of February and International Women’s Day at the start of March, so we are now planning that one. The Origins network takes up a lot of my time, but it’s definitely a labour of love.

 

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