Guest: Marissa Bankert

Topic: Attracting Women to the Trades

Transcript:
Speaker 1: 00:00

It's morning huddle time. 2022. I'm excited to see you guys. So we were just talking a little bit about 2022 goals. Stacy, what are you trying to accomplish in 22? You got any New Year's resolutions? Any goals?

Speaker 2: 00:15

Yeah, I just want to read more books. So I just joined a book club with three of my girlfriends that I grew up with. One does it with friends and has for quite a while. So we decided we're going to do our own and meet, like, you know, once a month. So that's awesome. I need accountability for that. I'm so busy and I just never have the time. So this will help.

Speaker 1: 00:39

I love it. What about you, Marissa? What kind of goals for you?

Speaker 3: 00:42

Well, so I've decided to reframe the kind of resolution something and call them lifestyle enhancements in the hopes that that's right, like, because that's really what you're trying to do. You're trying to, like, make your life a little bit better. So one of my, like, minor lifestyle enhancements, I would say, is so I work out every morning, but on TikTok, they have, you know, like, I'm on the fitness side of TikTok, and so they'll have these kind of, like, workout challenges. So I'm trying to do every day a workout challenge in addition to my workout, just for fun. Like three to five minutes, something fun, easy, like all of that kind of stuff. So, so far so good. And that's like a. On commercials, as I'm doing laundry, anything like that, you know, kind of addition to that.

Speaker 1: 01:19

I love that. Lifestyle enhancements.

Speaker 3: 01:21

Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1: 01:22

It's good stuff. Have you. Have either of you ever read the book Atomic Habits?

Speaker 3: 01:27

They haven't. Is that a good one?

Speaker 1: 01:29

So, Stacy, in terms of goals of reading books and then things that relate to what you're talking about, Marissa, Atomic habits. One of my favorite concepts from that book is this idea of habit stacking, which is to take these good habits that you already have and attach other good habits around it, which, you know, make them easier and more logical to do. So the fact that you already have a morning workout routine makes it really easy for you to tack on three to five minutes of an exercise challenge kind of thing that'll enhance your existing workouts. So, like, you know, if you, if you're, you know, if you like getting together socially, Stacy, with your girlfriends and talking about, you know, you know, getting together socially with your girlfriends once a week or whatever, doing a book discussion when you're doing that, is A really good way of, you know, positive habit stacking. So anyway, it's atomic habits. Great books, really fun. There you go.

Speaker 3: 02:24

Add that to your book club.

Speaker 1: 02:28

I am not. I don't think I qualify to be in Stacy's book club. A little too intense. Not nearly nice enough. I've got. All right, so. Good morning. Welcome to the morning huddle. It's our first huddle of 2022. I'm Chad Franke alongside my co host and partner Stacy Holzinger. Stacey, how are you doing this morning?

Speaker 2: 02:48

I'm doing great.

Speaker 1: 02:50

She loves it. I asked the question every time she's like, I'm fine, dude. Just a little much. All right, all right. This morning we have Marissa Bankert on with us and I'm really excited to kick off the new year talking to Marissa about attracting more women to the trade. So Marissa is the executive director of the Central Pennsylvania Independent Electrical Contractors. She's also the president of her local NAWIC chapter, the North American Women in Construction Chapter 386 in South Central Pennsylvania. And as Marissa and I have gotten to know each other leading up to this, you know, she's also an absolute pleasure to be around. So Marissa, can you tell us a little bit about your story, give us a little background?

Speaker 3: 03:37

Yeah, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. So as Chad mentioned, I'm the executive director of the Central Pennsylvania Independent Electrical Contractor. So that like my pleasure to have to say my name and that super long title every time I introduce myself. And in general that is we're an association of Merit Shop electrical contractors and we run an apprenticeship program. So that's a big piece of what I do every single day. In addition to providing resources for all of the electricians that we cover here within 20 counties in the state of Pennsylvania. In addition to that, as you mentioned, I'm on a lot of workforce development stuff. I really work within that space pretty heavily to kind of make sure that people understand the viability of construction careers and especially people of col women, which is why I'm the president of the, you know, South Central PA chapter of, of NAWIC and really kind of engaging women in construction, letting them know the options that are there for them and, and really providing resources for people as they move through their construction careers kind of no matter where they are coming from. I am not in construction myself in the sense of like coming from the field or anything like that. I'm really from association management. That's my background. But I have a real passion for it now that I'm in Here. And Chad and I were talking the other day kind of about the wonderful nature of the construction industry and how it really is kind of a great space for people to be in. And I think that that's why I'm so interested in making sure that women know that that's a big part of that as well.

Speaker 1: 05:00

And today we're going to really get into some of the, you know, the meat of how we make that happen and why that hasn't happened and those different types of things. So I'm really excited to do it. Audience, you know, if you're joining us here live on LinkedIn live this morning, please type in your questions, engage with Stacy. Stacy's always trying to create and engage in the conversation throughout the course of the show. With about 10 minutes left, Stacy is going to pose your questions to Marissa. And so please take advantage of that opportunity that's posed here for our live audience. I'd love to really get your specific, unique questions on the table. And, Stacy, we will see you with 10 minutes to go. All right, thank you. All right, so, Marissa, let's get into this. As soon as we talked, as soon as we got the opportunity to have you this morning, I started immediately asking myself, why, why aren't there more women in the trades in the first place? And, of course, that led to me naturally putting together my, you know, straight white male approach to the world and telling the story, at least in my own mind, of. Of why there aren't more women in the trades to begin with. That. That, you know. You know, for starters, if we go back, you know, over a century, women weren't generally in the workforce much. And then if we fast forward a half century later, they're in the workforce, but they're kind of over in this. In this women's occupations category, doing jobs that are supposed to be, you know, sort of earmarked for women, whether that's, you know, school teacher or secretary or whatever else. And. And here we are today. And those barriers, societally at least, again, from my perspective, seem to be knocked down. And I do see more women in more roles across the economy. Obviously, we see female CEOs, we see females in leadership positions, and that's fast growing, and it's continuing to happen. Why is construction lagging? That's the question that I have. And I think that you're kind of uniquely positioned to talk about why is construction behind?

Speaker 3: 07:28

Yeah. So I think that one reason that construction is behind is because we don't do an effective job of promoting it as a really Viable career for women. Right. Like, and, and one of the things that, what I mean by that is that we're not out there specifically targeting women for these positions. And so I kind of have this, you know, like, list of ways that we can engage women a little bit more in that. And like, one of them is you're probably not making a good ad. You're probably, when you're, you're looking for people to fill those spaces for you, and you maybe want women to be a part of that space with you. But the ad that you're creating is really driven towards men. And I know that people are like, well, what do you mean? I'm just using these words and that they're non, you know, they're non gender related and all of those things. But the truth is that we speak in languages a lot that are directed towards men or towards women. And so I say that because I am guilty of it too, right? Like I say all the time, like, oh, my guys. Well, what I mean is the collective group of my people, but what I've just done is gone towards a gender, which is men. And so a lot of times what you'll see in ads, especially kind of within the construction space and kind of like this is this hip language, right, where we're saying things like, hey, we're looking for a rock star. We're looking for someone to dominate the industry. We're looking for things like that. And when you're using those types of words, you don't know it, but you might be excluding people, women specifically, because they're not maybe attracted to those words. There may be. Look, when they read that, they're thinking, oh, you're looking for a man. Got it. I've read the subtext. I understand. So there's great resources all over the Internet to kind of help you create an ad that does not have a gender bias, you know, towards it. And the other thing is, like, make sure that in the ads that you're saying that you're, you're interested in equity and diversity, that you want to have, you know, these types of roles filled by people. And there's nothing wrong with saying that in your ad. If that's true, then you should be saying all of that kind of stuff. And the final thing that I would say when you're thinking about creating a better ad is target your ad, right? So nawic, the national association of Women in Construction, literally has a job board. So you can just. It gets sent out to all the members. Why would you, why wouldn't you do that? Why wouldn't you put your ad on a job board targeted towards women?

Speaker 1: 09:44

Right, right. So much of. So when I asked this question, and like, and I know that there's probably more depth to it than just this answer as well, but when you. When your answer comes back and it's like, because you're not even advertising to them, and I'm kind of like, ah, ah, okay. So we're just dumb. Okay, understood. Whoops, we made that mistake. No, but I. But I think there's. That's obviously words and images matter, and like it or not, there's. There are subtexts to. To those things. And so you have to do that intentionally rather than just the way you would normally do it. Because the way you would normally do it maybe accidentally reinforces some gender bias.

Speaker 3: 10:26

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, if you like what you're getting, then keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Right. Okay. Okay. So now that leads actually to an interesting sidebar, you know, here, which is we don't have time to go into it as much depth as I'd like, but which is, you know, sort of, why should we want women in construction? Obviously, I do. Okay, but. But I'm just asking, like, so why should we be in pursuit of that?

Speaker 3: 10:50

Why is it so much? Because it's statistically shown that organizations that are more diverse with women and with people of color make more money. Do you like money? Because I do. So, like, that's the, that really should be the only reason that should be your driver. We live in a capital society, and if you want to make more money, you should want more women and people of color in your organizations. Period. The end.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Right. So there's empirical data that say, do this and you have better financial outcomes.

Speaker 3: 11:19

That's right.

Speaker 1: 11:20

And, and so, you know, again, we could get into why that is, but I have found the same. And I'll tell you just a couple of quick things that I've noticed on teams with good diversity. When I say good diversity, I. Same. Same as you, you know, good combination of, you know, gender representation, you know, ethnic and racial backgrounds. I find that teams with high levels of diversity, they don't get trapped into groupthink. They don't get trapped into doing things the way they've always been done. They challenge each other. And there's a little bit of an environment where it's kind of, you know, you're asking for people from different, with different perspectives to chime in. And that what that does, it creates a better, more Thoroughly discussed and better thought out outcome. That's what I see.

Speaker 3: 12:17

Yeah, that's exactly right. So one of my very favorite expressions, and anyone who truly knows me knows this, is that I say like, well, you don't know what you don't know, right? So when you have other people that have had more experience or different experiences, come from a different background, can come from a different perspective, that only helps you and your organization because then you, you don't get into that group think mentality. And what you're also doing is you're really kind of going into that. Huh. I never would have thought of that. I have that all the time when I'm in meetings, you know, and I love that moment where I go, man, I would have never even thought of that, let alone understood kind of like how to move forward with it or to do something like that. And it's all based on someone else's experience and you know, where they're coming from when they're suggesting those types of things. So, yeah, so that's why people should definitely want to have, you know, some diversity within their organization.

Speaker 1: 13:08

The bottom line is it turns into money on the bottom line. If you want to write, if you want to figure out how. I think a part of the reason that how is that diversity of thought and challenging actually does create better decisions. Right.

Speaker 3: 13:19

Well, and imagine if you didn't have to go out and like hire a consultant for every single thing because you kept coming back with the same ideas. I mean, I get, but I'm more saying organizationally if you, if you have some of those things within and then maybe you hire the consultant to make sure that you're, you know, doing those things, but you're kind of coming up with those inside of that, you know, that that's really, really powerful to be like, oh wait, yeah, let's challenge what we've been doing because we're ready to move on to something else. And I think that the construction industry, one of the things that I often say about COVID so like, I'm not a huge, huge fan of how it's, you know, impacted our society and our economy, but one of the best things that happened out of COVID specifically to the construction industry was we had to adopt technology at a certain super high rate. Right? Like that was just. That happened. And so having said that, now you can have new people with new ideas who have these kind of like technology backgrounds as a part of the construction industry. And a lot of those people maybe are coming from different perspectives, different roles and different Genders and racial, you know, racial ethnicities as well.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Yep. Makes sense.

Speaker 3: 14:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:27

All right, so we talked about five different tips or five different thoughts for how. How we ultimately change the. The current situation and how we attract more women to the trades. Walk us through those and. And, you know, hit on the ones that you think you know.

Speaker 3: 14:46

Yes. So the first one there is like, creating that better ad, right? Like, you got to get people to even be interested in the role, to know that it exists to do all of that kind of thing. And that, again, goes to kind of think about where you're placing ads. Think about how it is that you're attract. Like, find out where women are reading ads and go and place ads there. That's what makes sense to do that. The second thing is start aligning yourself with organizations that women are invested in, or even better than that younger girls are invested in. Because then you're starting to create something, a seed that is planted that says, oh, well, when I go to college, I want to major in construction management. Because I remember that, you know, these types of things, I was aligned with this or, you know, great construction company when I was in middle school kind of or something. So obviously, nawake, national association of Women in Construction. But your workforce development groups, trust me, there is a ton of money coming into your workforce development boards and workforce development groups specifically targeted towards diversity. You should be aligned with them. You should be sitting on their boards, you should be going to meetings and to those types of presentations and things like that to get your name out there so that when they're thinking, hey, like, I have this great candidate, how can I, you know, connect them with something they start thinking about? You think about groups like Girls on the Run, Strong Women, Strong Girls, STEM groups that are geared towards girls and women. Those are the types of organizations that you want to start aligning yourself with so that that way you can start to grow your, you know, your crop of potential employees from a female perspective at the very beginning. Girl Scouts. Why are we not talking about Girl Scouts? Right? Like, Girl Scouts is a great nationwide organization that has STEM camps and really focuses on things like that. And the construction industry is missing out on that because what they're doing is they're focusing on things like coding and on things like, you know, computer analytics and things like that, which are great. But STEM is also construction. Right. Like, I have this argument all the time.

Speaker 1: 16:52

So I've got better ads, I've got getting involved in organizations where women, and better yet, girls.

Speaker 3: 17:00

Yes.

Speaker 1: 17:00

Are going to get visibility into you know, to your brand, to the building industry in general. Not everything's got to be a commercial.

Speaker 3: 17:09

That's.

Speaker 1: 17:10

It's. Right. Sometimes it's just, you know, constant awareness of the familiarity of the normalizing of the industry. Right. That could make it seem more accessible, more normal of things. Good. Others, what are some other things we should be doing?

Speaker 3: 17:30

Yes. So one of the main things that you should do. So now let's say you've got. You've made a great ad, and now people are starting to come in, and women are starting to come in. You should be including women in your hiring process. So I know that part of this is like, you might be like, well, I don't have any women in my organization, so how can I include them? But I challenge you to think about organization wide. Do you have women that could be included in the hiring process? Right. So. So statistically, we know that women make up about 10% of the construction market. And out of that, probably only about 4% are in the field. So that other 6% are in administrative roles. So when you're thinking about that and you're thinking about the hiring process, reach out to the people that are a part of, you know, your administrative team that are working in accounting or they're in, you know, a CEO position and they're a woman, they should be a part of the hiring process. And the reason that that is, is so that the women coming in see that other women actually work there. Right. So, I mean, I don't know about you, but, like, it's very. It's challenging sometimes to walk into a room where you are the only. Right. So to sit at a table where you are the only. So if you walk into a room, Chad, and it's a room full of women, you're kind of like, okay, like, not like you can't deal with it, but you're like, oh, I'm the only. Like, what?

Speaker 1: 18:47

Certainly isn't a normal state of affairs for.

Speaker 3: 18:50

Right, yeah, yeah, totally. So. So include women in the hiring process. So that, that way the women that you that are coming in and applying for these jobs know that women are a part of your organization. If you literally have no women in your organization, reach out to some of those other groups that we were talking about and see if they will just come and sit in. See if they will come in and listen and hear all of that kind of stuff, if for nothing else to provide you feedback. So that, that way you can kind of start to learn about, well, why aren't we. Why aren't we having, you know, we're getting past the ad, we're getting to the interview. Why are we not getting to the close of actually hiring them?

Speaker 1: 19:26

I love it. Good. What else? So I got. I got better ads reaching out to organizations, including women in the hiring process. What's number four?

Speaker 3: 19:34

So one of the things that women specifically really like, but it also goes generationally, is to show them that advancement exists. Right. So when you show that there's training, when you show that there's the opportunity to move forward in their career, things like apprenticeship, things like, you know, professional development, when you show that they can go and network with other women and that that's important to your organization, they will be attracted to that. So when you're talking about, you know, benefits packages and things like that, that should be part of your spiel. Part of your spiel should be, hey, we believe in allowing people to be, you know, excel through our organization based off of the work that they do. And here are some of the ways that we show that and that that should be from conversation number one.

Speaker 1: 20:24

Why this might be particularly because I'm sitting here, I'm kind of going, well, yeah, I would. I would have that exact same conversation with a male candidate as I would with a female candidate. But I think one of the things that may be so important about doing that with a female candidate is that you are explicitly addressing one of the implicit concerns that women have in the building industry, which is that they're kind of can, you know, confined to menial roles. You know, and so you're. You're explicitly saying, here's your path for advancement. We believe in this path for advancement, and you will qualify for that path for advancement, which, you know, kind of removes that implicit fear. Is that right?

Speaker 3: 21:07

Yeah, that's exactly right. Right. So what we don't want to do is we don't want to bring women in and then kind of give them the, don't worry, it'll be fine. You know, kind of a. Something we want to say directly, hey, we. We hire based off of, you know, quality of candidate. And here is the exact pathway that we have mapped out in order to facilitate the getting the most out of each one of our employees. And we want you to know about it the same way that we want Andrew to know about it. Right. Like both of those things. I think that that's a really, really important point is to. It's true, you probably do it for all employees, but as a part of the hiring process, when you're saying, here it is here's what we believe. Here are the organizations that we are allies with, so that. That way you can understand that this is something important to us from the. From moment one, I think, goes a long way in actually hiring women into the. Into your organization.

Speaker 1: 21:59

I agree. I agree. Okay, so let's hit on number five, and then I'm sure we have some questions from the audience.

Speaker 3: 22:04

Yes. So the fifth thing is one of those things where I can't believe I have to say it, but it's 100% true, which is, can you please make sure that you have equipment and facilities that are appropriate for women on the job sites? So PPE is typically designed for men, but it's unsafe to have it be designed for men. Right. Like, I can't wear a man's small because it's too big for me. So I need something that appropriately fits me in order to be safe on the job site. So if you're not investing in things like PPE for women, that's a problem. You have to have those types of things. In addition to that, please have bathrooms on the job site that are appropriate for women. Like, that is. It's different, and we have to acknowledge that it's different. But you need to make sure that whatever restrooms and facilities and rest areas that you have are either completely gender neutral or that they are applicable to women. And I think that that's, like, one of those things that people kind of go, oh, it's fine. Don't worry about it. It's like, no, it's not fine. We need to make sure that it's 100%, you know, open for everyone, so that whomever is using any type of facilities or whomever is using, you know, this ppe, that it fits them appropriately.

Speaker 1: 23:21

Yeah, yeah. And. And. And this. Okay. You know, there's. There's the facilities, and there's equipment, but then I think, if we're being totally honest, there's also culture of creating an environment that is welcoming, you know, and comfortable, you know, for women, that feels truly inclusive. And, man, I would love to talk about that for a pile of time. I really would. But I also want to make sure that we have some time for our questions from the audience, and if we have any additional time. Marisa, I'm gonna circle back.

Speaker 3: 23:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:01

Okay. We have a couple questions in from Blake Radcliffe. So what about what happens once women are on the job? How do you create a fair environment for women at the job site?

Speaker 3: 24:14

Man, I love it, Blake. It's so great. You. You lined it so so, well, so I think that that goes back to what Chad was just saying, which is you really have to have a culture that actually supports wanting to have women on the job site. So I think that this is actually probably the number one reason why people are, why women are not in construction. They do not want to be in an environment that is toxic and is unsafe for them in any way, like emotionally unsafe or physically unsafe. They don't want to be involved in that type of environment. So really that is a kind of a bigger question in the sense of saying that you need to make sure that your culture supports having women and, you know, people of color and diversity overall before you even go to hire women. That's what you have to do. It cannot be like, well, we're going to hire all of these women, but then we're going to put them in this super toxic work environment where people can just say and do whatever they want and we're just, they're just supposed to be happy with their job. That is just like not reality. And it's not something that you would want to do. So why would you have the expectation that women would want to do it either?

Speaker 1: 25:21

Yeah, so, so, so what? It's the, I think the thing that is the most challenging. Again, so here I come from my straight white male perspective again, you know, but, but I think one of the things that is most challenging for employers in accomplishing that is maybe it's. I know this sounds ridiculous, but not knowing what creates a toxic culture and being accidentally toxic as a culture. Right. Creating this environment that like, so, so that, so that I guess, you know, they need to know what, what the, what the do's and don'ts are. And then, and then I guess lastly on this point from, for me is that there is a perspective that they, that because there are so very few women in construction that we're not seeing or hearing enough to normalize, you know, that is not okay. Or that. Right, that that's the way things should, should be or shouldn't be. So anyway, expand on that.

Speaker 3: 26:40

So, Chad, I think your first point is really valid, which is that sometimes we don't know that what we've created is toxic. Like, I don't have the belief that like men in construction wake up and go, well, I am just going to create a toxic work site today because that's going to be super productive and make me a lot of money. So like, I get that that is not what's happening every day. But what has happened is, you know, like we get These kind of cultural anomalies that happen within niche cultures and construction industry is, is not immune from this, where it's like, well, we've always done it that way. We've always kind of joked around in this way and that that's been an acceptable something. But then when you introduce a new, you know, kind of group into that, that means you probably maybe need to examine your behaviors, right? Like, it might have actually not been appropriate even amongst the group that is all men. Like, you don't. You might not realize it, but you probably have a couple of people on your job site who are like, they're eye rolling every single day because they already don't like it. So then let alone having a woman be a part of it, it creates this new dynamic. So that's why I'm a huge, huge, huge proponent of just doing some unconscious bias training ahead of any of this kind of stuff. And if you already have women within your organization, just go ahead and still do it. Because a lot of times you don't know what. You don't realize what's happening. You don't know that you're doing that. Like, I am originally from the south, so I am a big, like, honey, sweetie, like all of that kind of stuff naturally, as a part of my language. So I don't find that to be offensive, but I understand how other people do, and it is something that I do unconsciously. And so again, when you have that kind of training where you can look and say, like, oh, I didn't realize it, but every time I see sue carrying a box, I say, hey, can I help you with that box? And it's an. You just don't realize that you're doing it. And. But you're not asking Chad the same thing. You're not asking Chad, hey, can I help you with that box? And there's nothing wrong with helping people. I'm more just saying you don't realize that you're only always doing it for this person and not doing it for other people. So those are the types of things that really get uncovered through, you know, an unconscious bias training. So I'm a big, big fan of that.

Speaker 1: 28:49

There is a book called Blind Spot. And not having thought about the fact that I would mention this book, I don't know who the author is, but there's a book called Blind Spot that I read on this about, I don't know, a year and a half or two years ago. That is a fantastic way to learn about your unconscious bias. And we all have them. It's not just a problem that. Right. It's not just a problem that, you know, way. So. But, but, you know, to your point, and I, and I, and I really do think this is something that we have to confront and be honest with ourselves about, is that we can't be so dug in to the idea that I shouldn't have to change.

Speaker 3: 29:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:40

That you create this unconscious or that you create this toxic environment for others. And, and you said something yesterday to me that I wrote down, you know, when you said it, which is, you know, it was, if you like what you've got, then, you know, keep doing exactly what you're doing. And that's, that's, you know, but if you'd like to attract more women to the trades, I'm giving you the freaking template.

Speaker 3: 30:01

That's right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I think that there. I really like what you just said, which is like that, you know, I think that we get to this point where it's like, it's okay to not know. It's okay to have ignorance. It is a hundred percent okay. But it is also your due diligence to examine those ignorances. And once you know, then you need to start making change. Right. Like, it's okay to be in that position. I'm, I'm not a perfect person. I don't have the expectation that other people are perfect people. But I think it's really important that if you want to invest in attracting women into the construction trades, you have to do that first word, which is investing. And that means doing things like bias training. That means changing the culture of your organization. That means making those types of shifts once you know that they might be problematic to ensure the success of your organization moving forward to make more money. Because now you have more diversity because you're attracting more women and people of color into your organization.

Speaker 1: 30:58

I love it.

Speaker 3: 30:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:59

Yeah. Makes total sense. And, and, and, and, you know, I think what I'm also picking up from what you're saying is your. Is, is that we, if we can allow some grace with the idea that people aren't doing bad things on purpose, then we eliminate kind of the gotcha culture that can, you know, really, frankly polarize people. Right. When people feel like they're under attack, you know, even if they were the ones doing something wrong in the first place, if you attack them for it and they weren't doing it on purpose, think of how they react when you do that. So you have to allow that space for a little bit of grace for people to be just ignorant. But then you got to meet each other more than halfway, which is that you have to have. You have to realize that it's your personal responsibility as a leader, as a business owner to explore your blind spots and to seek, eliminate ignorance. And once you don't have that blind spot, now it's on you. Now you got to behave like, you know, you've just learned. You have to.

Speaker 3: 32:11

Yep.

Speaker 1: 32:12

And. And we see stories about it every day, you know, in the news where, you know, people are learning this lesson the hard way rather than being proactive and right and preventing the. You're learning the right way to do things.

Speaker 3: 32:27

Yep, that's right. And I, I love the concept of grace. I'm a big, big fan of it. I think we should give ourselves more grace. And I love the idea of giving grace when there's ignorance because I think that that's one of those things that we, we don't do a good job of kind of as you, you know, you know, alluded to kind of across society. Like, again, if you don't know what you don't know, you. You can't be better. And so when you know, then you can be better. And you have to make steps to do that. Yep.

Speaker 1: 32:53

Agreed. Awesome. My gosh. We're going to have to continue this conversation in a future show, but we are already at and slightly over time, which is on me. Stacy, is there anything that we didn't catch on from the audience that really we want to call to the front here before we jump?

Speaker 2: 33:15

We got everything from the audience, but I just wanted to ask Marisa real quick, can you direct our audience to where they should learn about more. More about NAWIC and what resources. Like, is there resources just for women or is there, you know, courses or anything like that that men can, you know, jump on with?

Speaker 3: 33:33

So I would say with NAWIC, I mean, it's really geared towards women. NAWIC.org so N A W I C.org is the national website and they can definitely help with, you know, kind of helping women with resources. They provide a lot of professional development and things like that. And your local chapters will do the same thing. So that's what I kind of in regards to that as far as helping organizations to, to grow into this. There's a ton of resources online in regards to that kind of like unconscious bias training or look at your other organizations. So I'm going to give an association plug in the sense of, like, associations are probably going to be like one of your best resources within the construction industry. So look at the associations that are around you and they're going to be able to provide you a ton of resources. Classes, local, online, all of that kind of stuff. And in regards to helping you navigate some of this kind of stuff. And please feel free to message me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to kind of connect further on all of that as well.

Speaker 2: 34:27

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 3: 34:29

Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1: 34:30

That's awesome. Thank you both so much. You know, Stacy for being always there to keep an eye on, keep an eye on, communicate with our audience, and Marissa for bringing what you specialize in, what doing, you're passionate about today's program. I certainly, you know, felt like it's an important topic and something that, you know, perhaps our follow up could be. Now that we've talked about attracting women to the workplace, how do we make sure that they stay in the building industry, which is a different, you know, which, which I do think organizations like nawic, you know, particularly specialize in.

Speaker 3: 35:14

Right.

Speaker 1: 35:14

Which is like, how do I surround the women who are in this industry with support and with that kind of, you know, environment, like, hey, we're in this. We're all going through similar stuff. We're all trying to create positive change and. Yeah. So at any rate, thank you so much. Marissa, any parting words for you?

Speaker 3: 35:31

No, I mean, I just want to encourage people to really start to think about, you know, what they're doing. And again, if you want to be the change, then start looking at the organizations that are around you and how you can partner with them to think about adding more women and more girls into the construction trades. Because, let's face it, we got a massive workforce gap and these are some of the populations that can help to fill that.

Speaker 1: 35:53

Love it. Love it. Wonderful. Okay, so real quick. Next week we're going to be on same normal time. That's January 11, 8am Eastern. We're going to be having Eric Teavey, who is vice president of the Mid Atlantic region for Sorenson Gross. He's going to be on to talk with us about account management best practices and strategies for making sure that we keep our clients over the long haul. So I'm really looking forward to that conversation. And obviously, if anybody's joined late, you can get the recordings. And if anybody wants to get a weekly email rather than relying on LinkedIn to tell you when this is happening, shoot me or Stacy your email address and we'll get you on a weekly mailing list that we have. That makes it easier for something to hit your inbox and you click to register for for this. Thank you again so much, Stacey, Marissa, have a great day, audience. We'll see you soon.

Speaker 2: 36:47

You too. See ya.

Speaker 3: 36:48

Bye.