See Our Collection of Industry Insights

Traditional leadership programs often overlook the hurdles obstructing women's path to leadership in the construction industry. During this interview, we'll confront these barriers head-on. By identifying the real issues holding women back, we can lay the foundation for genuine transformation.

One of the challenges is the double bind - Women are told to be more assertive and confident if they want to advance to leadership roles. Then they’re reprimanded for being too bossy or called aggressive.

We often hear from well-intentioned men who want to contribute but are unsure how. During this interview, we'll talk about how to shift the burden of change off of women’s shoulders and create a shared responsibility for change across your entire organization. We'll also share evidence-based strategies that you can use to accelerate the path to leadership for the women in your company.

Countless women in construction have been sacrificing comfort and jeopardizing their safety for years by adopting PPE designed for male bodies. Dave Rosenbluth National Sales Manager for Utility Pro Wear will join us to discuss a manufacturer’s perspective on Equity and Access to Safety Apparel for women. This episode contains a discount code for apparel, so be sure to tune in!

Guest: Nicole Coates

Guest: Heather Groves

Guest: Catherine Schoenenberger

Guest: Doreen Bartoldus, Jacobs

Guest: Heather Groves

Guest: Catherine Schoenenberger

The Morning Huddle gets a jump start on Women in Construction Week with this episode featuring three successful women working in construction. Each of our guests has their own unique story to share. Through their stories, we’ll explore what can be done to draw more women to the industry and inspire women in construction everywhere to follow their passion.

We also hope to hear inspirational stories from our live audience during the show!

Transcript:

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00:12
Speaker 1
All right, it's morning huddle time. Good morning. I'm not saying it works. I wish you nodding. Godspeed with all of that. I think that's really nice. I'm not sure what kind of success you're going to have with that today because the world, my friend, has changed. Right? A lot of American construction workers, they have completely different.

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00:33
Speaker 2
These awards have a huge, like, criteria that you have to fill out and they usually have a community service or community relations portion, you know, the most.

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00:44
Speaker 3
Productive with a high performance value. And, you know, sometimes it's 11 o' clock at night.

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00:52
Speaker 1
Funny, isn't? Yeah, not for me.

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00:55
Speaker 3
Not for me.

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00:55
Speaker 1
At 11 o', clock, I am guaranteed to be snoring. So foreign. It is morning huddle time. I'm Chad Prinky here as always with co host and producer Stacy Holzinger. Stacy, how are you today?

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01:14
Speaker 2
I'm doing great. I'm very excited for this episode. I got my new red toe boots that I posted yesterday about and looking forward to learning more about space to feel, build and, you know, Morgan's company with her woman work gear. So it'll be a fun episode.

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01:32
Speaker 1
It sure will. I'm excited as well to get into this. I'm gonna work really hard today to be a listener. We have three guests. We've got Catherine Hart, we've got Emily Sulaby, and we've got Morgan Dawson. The three ladies joining us today are Women in construction. We're getting a jump on Women in Construction Week, which is next week. We're first to market. We're first to market on that. But no. So I'm really excited to hear some awesome stories about these women and you know, I, I think put the audience in a position where, you know, they might be inspired, they might be, they might find interesting connections and ways to work with and support the people who we have on the show. So I'm psyched as always, Stacy. You put together a really cool list of guests.

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02:29
Speaker 1
So with that, why don't we go around the horn a little bit and just have each person introduce yourself just who you are and what you do. And I'm gonna want to get into your stories, but let's just orient ourselves, briefly with like a, a, whatever 10 second intro and then we'll go deeper. Why don't we start with Catherine Katherine Hart.

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02:48
Speaker 3
Hi. So my name is Kathryn Hart, Tennis. I recently got married. I am the owner and podcast host over at Space2Build and I also work in business development for D2 LLC out of Rockville, Maryland.

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03:01
Speaker 1
Awesome lot going on. Look at you. You're similarly all over the damn place. Like Stacy and I. I love it.

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03:09
Speaker 2
Good.

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03:10
Speaker 1
And a fellow podcaster. I want to talk more about that. That's great. All right, Emily, why don't you introduce yourself?

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03:15
Speaker 4
Yep. I'm Emily Salaby, founder of Juno Jones. We make stylish safety boots that are made especially for women's feet. I'm also the host of the Hazard Girls podcast, which is a podcast all about women in the construction industry and other industries that are male populated.

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03:32
Speaker 1
I love it. Awesome. All right, cool. I know Stacy talks about your podcast. I feel like I've got a, you know, get invited to join a ladies podcast, maybe. I will definitely check that out, but Stacy has mentioned. All right, and then we have Morgan.

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03:53
Speaker 5
Hi, everyone. My name is Morgan Dawson. I am the founder of Dawson Workwear, and during the day, I am a development associate for Orchestra Partners. So.

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04:01
Speaker 1
Awesome.

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04:03
Speaker 5
No podcast yet, though.

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04:05
Speaker 1
Well, you know, not everybody has to have a podcast, but. But I will tell you, they are extremely stressful if you're interested.

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04:14
Speaker 5
I might have to leave that to you all.

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04:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, thanks. Yeah. All right, well, good. So. So I'd like to, you know, hear your stories. And I think the, the thing that we're interested in this episode and kind of building on is our understanding of the experience of women in construction. How you got involved, how you found your current niche, the space that you like to operate, and what you're doing today, you know, in some more detail. We certainly got the highlights, but I think it would be good for our audience to understand how you got where you are and exactly where you are today. So let's go in reverse order. We started with. We'll start with Morgan.

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05:00
Speaker 5
I got into the construction industry in college. Actually, I went in undecided, and I really didn't know what I wanted to major in. And I met a friend who introduced me to a professor at Kent State University in Ohio. And then I joined the construction management program and it's kind of history. From there, I got an internship with Hensel Phelps, a general contractor in the D.C. area. And as I'm getting into, the construction industry is kind of where Dawson Workwear was slowly born. Along the way, I didn't know what to wear to the job site, so I went just wearing jeans and, you know, whatever boots I could find. And then I got a full time job offer at the end of my internship, which was amazing.

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05:41
Speaker 5
So I went Back to Ohio, finished school, came back to D.C. and the whole thing kind of started again. What do I wear? I tried a couple different options, including little boys pants. And when those still didn't fit, I was like, okay, I'm going to take things into my own hands. And Dawson Workwear was born. So I couldn't really manage the, you know, 12, 13 hour work days and Dawson Workwear. So I started to look around for a new job, which brought me to Birmingham, Alabama. I worked for Orchestra Partners and I'm on site kind of managing the construction, managing the contractors, making sure everything's going smoothly. And then in my spare time, I'm running Dawson Workwear.

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06:22
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh, that's awesome. What a hustle. I love it. And so, and so why construction management? That professor was just something clicked or you know, what happened that made you go from undecided to decided?

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06:36
Speaker 5
I had a little bit of background in construction. My dad's a mason, so I kind of grew up on the job site with him. And then talking to my professor, I knew I didn't want to do something that I'm sitting at a desk every day, same thing over and over. So when he was talking about the problem solving and what goes on at Construction site, I was sold right then and there. And I joined like the next week.

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07:00
Speaker 3
Nice.

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07:01
Speaker 1
That is awesome. So having the story there is having personal experience of being in the field and specifically having this realization that like, I can't find pants, which is something I can't even wrap my head around. But I get, I can only imagine. Yeah. As I think about it, right, there's not a lot of work wear that's particularly, you know, that I think is intended for women. So, so you find that and you become passionate about it. And so you're. How, how long has Dawson Workwear been around?

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07:41
Speaker 5
So it, the idea was born, I believe in May 2021, and then in December I kind of had started production and all of that. And I just launched this July. So I've only been, you know, functional for eight months now or so. And it's been amazing. I love what I'm doing and I can't wait to take it even further and do more than just one pair of pants.

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08:05
Speaker 1
I love it. I love it. That's so cool. All right, good. And one last little question about your day job. Is this, is this a construction management company that you're working for or a third party?

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08:20
Speaker 5
It's a development company. So I Kind of stepped back from the field so much. Like when I was working for Hansel Phelps, I was in the field every day managing the trades directly and then managing our self perform work as well, which I loved so much and I do miss it. But with orchestra partners, I'm kind of more of the ownership role instead of the contractor.

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08:40
Speaker 1
Got it. So you're out there as a representative representing the owner's interests on staff, saying, you know, this looks good, what about this?

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08:50
Speaker 5
That, inspections and stuff like that, reporting progress, all that good stuff.

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08:55
Speaker 1
Awesome. Very good. All right, cool. That's a really interesting background and I totally understand how you got to where you are. It's so exciting to have such a brand new business and I can only imagine the pride and fear that you're experiencing every day at the same time.

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09:12
Speaker 5
Yep.

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09:14
Speaker 1
Well, that's great. So let's hear from Emily. Emily, what's your story? How did you get to where you are?

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09:20
Speaker 4
Yes, very similar to Morgan's story where I needed something that didn't exist on the market. But my background is actually in law. I was a domestic violence victim advocate. I was a lawyer. And so I did that for a while and then ended up switching careers. My husband and I took over a family business in the truck driving industry where we do truck driver and heavy equipment training. So that's triple a school of trucking. But we built that company and shoot from a mom and pop into a larger business with national reach. And so I'd be running from the office to the job site and meeting with clients, traveling, doing all of these different things, being around heavy equipment. And the only boots that I could find that would actually protect my feet were these ugly, clunky, you know what boots that you've seen.

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10:16
Speaker 4
And the problem was twofold. It was they weren't fitting me right, they were too loose and I just didn't feel safe. But also they just didn't look good with what I was wearing. And I, yes, I like fashion and I like to present myself in a certain professional way. And so it just wasn't cutting it. I began to speak to women in trucking, in the Women in Trucking organization and then other industries and people were like, yes, this is a problem. We can never find enough different. Enough different options. So the excitement was there. I have a background in shoemaking and just in shoe loving in general. I've studied shoemaking over the years as a hobby. So everything came together and we decided to launch Juno Jones.

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11:02
Speaker 1
That is amazing. And how long has Juno Jones been around.

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11:05
Speaker 4
Okay, so we launched February 11, 2020 on Kickstarter. And so if anybody doesn't know what Kickstarter is, it's a platform where you can go in and you can sort of pre order things that may never get made, but you just hope they get made one day. So went. But we knew were going to make the boots. So, yeah, we launched on Kickstart 2020. Covid hit. It was right in the middle of our campaign. But we did fund our campaign actually in the first 29 hours.

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11:36
Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh. Is the. The demand, right? Like, what an incredible unmet demand that the moment you brought something to market, it was a matter of hours by the time you were ready to roll.

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11:51
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah.

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11:53
Speaker 1
That's unbelievable. So. So what I'm hearing, first off, you know, you. You know, sometimes you get a sense that somebody is just way smarter than you. I've had that vibe from you the whole time. Now it. So that you got that lawyer thing. Like I was. Aha, there it is. That that makes.

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12:12
Speaker 2
Right.

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12:14
Speaker 1
But. But, you know, the. Such a varied background and again, so many different things that you're passionate about. Talk a little bit about your podcast.

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12:24
Speaker 4
Oh, sure. The Hazard Girls podcast came about actually during COVID because we had this amazing community that was backing us and wanting to support Juno Jones and get their boots. But because of COVID we had, you know, of course, major delays, supply chain shut down, factories shut down. So, you know, we found ourselves with some time on our hands and people were reaching out to me, asking to be connected to each other. And I knew that there had to be, you know, better. A better way to connect everybody together. And so we formed the Facebook group Hazard Girls. And from there, the podcast grew.

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13:00
Speaker 1
Awesome. And. And what. How, like how many. How often do you do a show and what's the format?

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13:07
Speaker 4
Yeah, we do a show once a week. I work with Jacket Media Co. And they also do the Women in Manufacturing podcast. And yeah, we interview a different woman each week. And the industries vary from, you know, winemaking to finance. It's anything male. It's all about, you know, being a woman in a male populated field. So that's what we talk about.

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13:29
Speaker 1
That I can only imagine the insights that you've gotten from your guests through that experience and the common threads that, like, it really doesn't matter if it's trucking or construction or winemaking. Right. There are some really similar experiences. I want to hear more about those in a minute. Okay, so let's hear from Catherine. Catherine what's your story? How did you end up where you are?

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13:54
Speaker 3
So I did not have any background in construction, and neither did my parents. My mom's an acupuncturist, my dad's a professor. But I really got into HGTV with my mom. So we binged the crap out of it. And looking back, it wasn't healthy. But it did heavily influence how I grew up and what I wanted to pursue career wise. So between HGTV and my parents buying their first and second houses, I really got into just the built environment overall. And I thought that meant I wanted to be a designer or an architect, because that's what you saw all the women doing. But then I did an internship with an architecture firm the summer before my senior year of high school and learned very quickly that I had zero interest in being an architect.

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14:46
Speaker 3
And I already knew that engineer was just not even remotely close to an option. So I went into my senior year a little worried, But I just applied to a bunch of architecture programs and I was like, screw it, you know, it'll all unfold the way it needs to. As long as I'm getting close to that built environment, I will figure it out. So I applied all these schools and ultimately went to community college instead. And I had a friend who mentioned that Virginia Tech had a construction program. And once I started doing some digging and reaching out to an advisor, I realized, like, this is where I was meant to be, and this makes so much more sense for my personality. So then I went to tech. I pursued a degree in building construction and a degree in psychology.

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15:33
Speaker 3
And I did both those things because I have a passion for helping people figure out what they want to do with their careers and just training and mentorship and things that you naturally do in construction anyways. Which saved me from having to go get a master's degree, which is perfect.

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15:51
Speaker 1
Saved. Saved by the bell from having to go get a master's. I love it. So that journey, really, as you're experiencing all these different options in college, you know, you're just trying to get toward the built environment. Really? Why? What was it about the built environment that you were trying to move toward?

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16:15
Speaker 3
I loved, like, taking something from drawings and watching it physically come together. And it might be weird, but I loved, like, the smell of wood studs. I love just seeing, like, the skeleton of a house and then watching it change over time and get to those really nice, pretty finishes. I don't know, it just seemed fun, right? And it was constant activity. It was different day to day. And I just knew that I didn't want to be in an office setting, which is ironic now, but I just wanted to get out there and explore something that involved building the community. And I think construction is the perfect way to do that.

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17:00
Speaker 1
So talk about what you're doing Today, talk about D2 site work and talk about space to build.

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17:08
Speaker 3
All right, so I guess I need to give you a little bit more backstory. So once I left college, I went to go work for a general contractor and so I ended up working my way up to a superintendent under gc and then I moved over into subcontracting for a year and was a project manager. So I have always been very big on wanting to get a good perspective on the industry overall because we all have these different pain points, we don't understand one another. So I had the opportunity to transition out of operations and move into business development and at the same time balance a new company. So I was able to work with D2 or am able to work with D2 as a business development manager. They do site work out of Rockville, Maryland.

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17:56
Speaker 3
So I got to utilize a lot of my on site knowledge and my network that I had to just continue to help build their network and continue to be a part of that construction industry while I was building up the space to build brand and building up the podcast, which is very stressful, like you mentioned.

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18:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Podcasts are a lot of fun except for, you know, they're a constant panic attack.

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18:21
Speaker 3
A lot of fun. You learn a lot.

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18:24
Speaker 1
I love it, I love it. I really do. And, and talk a little bit about space to build in general. Like, what, what's the. What's the. How long have you been doing it and what's the mission?

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18:37
Speaker 3
So much like what Emily and Morgan have done, they've found a spot where they weren't finding what they needed and they created it. So I was in a similar situation where I felt burnt out, I felt alone, and it was really weird and I was just like, you know what? I think I need an online community of women in the industry. So this all sat in the back of my head for years and I didn't feel confident enough to pursue it. And then about the end of 2019, I was like, screw it, I'm going to do it. I'm going to make this happen. Launched a website Covid hit. And all of a sudden people just felt so frantic and disconnected from one another.

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19:12
Speaker 3
And I realized that it just made so much more sense for people in this industry to have a podcast to listen to. So what I started doing is inviting different women from the industry into the podcast to talk about their career paths so we can talk about the opportunities that are available in the industry. We talked about their challenges, we talked about the trades that they were tackling. And at the end of the day, it's to create these takeaway items that blend together a sense of representation, relevant information, and just a way to introduce different people to the industry and talk about the jobs that no one else talks about to that extent. So I've had plumbers, electricians, lawyers. I've actually had Stacy on the podcast and her episode actually airs in April. And we talk specifically about marketing in the construction space.

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20:02
Speaker 3
So the idea is to share with emerging construction professionals that there are all these opportunities to be incredibly successful in the industry and you don't have to follow what school tells you is the common path. There's so many cool opportunities. And then outside the podcast, I'm creating different resources, building community, hosting events. You name it, I'm working towards it.

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20:25
Speaker 1
Awesome. Awesome. All right, so I've got some specific questions that I want to ask to each of you, given your different backgrounds that, you know, really will speak to the experience of women in construction, women in this environment. And the first question I'll ask is to Morgan. When you came through and you know, obviously leaving company names aside, all that type of stuff, just when you came through, your experience entering the construction industry out of college, spending time in the field, actually hands on, when it was at its best, what, you know, what was the experience for a woman in construction that made you feel included, welcome, things like that. And, and maybe what were some of the moments when it wasn't at its best? You know, how did that experience kind of show up?

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21:20
Speaker 5
That's a great question for inclusion. My team, like my project management team, was so supportive, which was honestly what made me feel so comfortable in the industry. If I had any issues, they were like, come to me, we can talk this out. I had a female mentor in the construction industry, which really helped as well. So I would just go to my team, you know, talk about any issues. It doesn't have to be women related or not. And they were just a constant support system to me, which was amazing. Also, the trades out there were so supportive as well. I mean, as long as you're willing to learn and respectful out there, they will have your back, which I learned right away and I took advantage of.

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22:04
Speaker 5
When I have felt a little disrespected as a woman, I noticed it's like typically the older men, you know, the men that are closer to the retirement age, which no offense to anyone that age, but the younger guys were always super supportive and the older men were the ones that were kind of uncomfortable with me in their space. But again, having a support system, having a mentor is definitely something I would recommend to any woman in the construction industry.

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22:30
Speaker 1
What I, what I love about that two big takeaways I have there is, you know, is you just double underlined is having a woman as a mentor, finding a woman as a mentor. So if you're a young person, a young woman in construction, being able to partner up with somebody who's kind of been through it, experienced it, can give you a little bit of the lay of the land. That sounds immensely valuable. And then the second thing that I took away from that was it really is all about how you show up. Like I don't know how to explain it, but you know, you have to be respectful, you have to be willing to learn, you have to be right.

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23:01
Speaker 1
All these types of things, which is the same rule for anybody if they want to be treated well in, you know, in whatever as a new person in whatever industry they're entering into. And so there is that aspect of it that it's a two way street and you have to have personal ownership for how you show up.

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23:16
Speaker 5
Right. The worst thing you can do is go out there and pretend like you're a 22 year old that knows everything. That will very far right though.

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23:24
Speaker 1
Though. My guess is, in all honesty, my guess is that 22 year old guys get away with that easier than 22 year old women. Right. You know what I mean?

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23:33
Speaker 5
Like, because right away, but after, you know, after you gain the respect of these men out there, they will have your back. So they were actually a little more lenient with me than some of the men out there.

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23:45
Speaker 1
Aha.

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23:46
Speaker 5
Well, the young men out there.

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23:47
Speaker 1
Interesting. Interesting. All right, cool. Okay, so that was. I'll shift gears over to Emily and I want to hear from all of the conversations that you've had with all of these women in male dominated fields. What feels to you like the, the most common threads of how these women are thriving and being successful in these male dominated fields.

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24:18
Speaker 4
Yes, I. It's a great question because I've done about 120 episodes now and that's about how many women I've spoken to and who have told me their stories. And I would say that a really interesting common thread is that many of these women have figures in their past, in their childhood or in their upbringing, or in their young part of their career who are men who have supported them to reach their goals, to know that they had these careers as options or even just, it doesn't even have to be about career. A lot of times women tell me about their dads who taught them how to fix bar cars and doing that gave them that confidence to know that there were not limitations on them because of their gender.

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25:08
Speaker 4
So I would say that common thread really is having men in their lives over the years who have supported them and taught them that they could do it too.

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25:22
Speaker 2
Oh, Chad, you're muted because I don't.

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25:25
Speaker 1
Want everybody to hear me while I'm going like, oh, that's cool.

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25:27
Speaker 2
Yeah.

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25:31
Speaker 1
So, so than you. That was, that was a really interesting thought. And as a, I think, you know, we have this sense in general as humans, regardless of, you know, who you are, that you're, the interactions that you have with people, particularly young people leave a mark, they make an imprint, you know, and so my big takeaway from that is like be really conscientious about leaving good imprints and you know, make sure that I'm not in any way passing along self limiting beliefs or negativity to people. And, and it is, you know, there, the only rules are the ones that we've made up in our own cultures and our own heads. And, and if we pass along stupid rules, they'll continue to be there. Right. So anyway, lots of thoughts going on in my mind on that. So Catherine, question for you on this.

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26:25
Speaker 1
When it comes to doing business development in the construction industry, do you feel that there's any specific advantage or disadvantage to being a female in that role?

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26:39
Speaker 3
You know what, I've never really thought about it that way. I see a good mix of both men and women, but I do think business development falls typically more. You find more women in these roles. And I think that comes down to relationship building skills and communication skills, which women statistically have a better hold of and bring into the industry. Which I think actually if you think about those two skills alone and see how it trickles across all the different fields within construction, you really see where that growth starts to happen. So I think those two would be the biggest benefits to being a woman in the business development space.

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27:21
Speaker 1
Such a good lead in to a question that I want to have each of you answer in your own way. You know, one by one, obviously. But, but that I and I tend to agree with you that there are some distinct advantages that statistically. Right. Not as, not as a law, but statistically you find across the, you know, versus men in terms of skill sets. Why should we want. What would you say to somebody who's asking the question, why should we want more women in construction? What's the benefit? Why. Why is this something that we should be striving for? And I'll toss that over to Emily first.

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28:09
Speaker 4
Yeah. So I think there are a lot of answers to this question. I'm just going to take one answer because there's other people answering. But for me, I mean, I'm going to let the others talk about the bottom line and diversity. But in general, it is a great career. Okay. So there are so many opportunities in construction. There are. It's a lucrative career. It's an empowering career. Why shouldn't women have access to it just like everyone else?

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28:40
Speaker 1
I love it. Yeah. Okay, so we should want more women involved because quite frankly, it's a fantastic career path. And you know, we want to, we should want to encourage people into that line of work. Awesome. All right, cool. Let's. Let's hear Katherine.

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29:00
Speaker 3
So she said on the workforce development, I guess transition more on that bottom line. Like, women bring to the table different perspectives that I don't think have really been discussed. And we're really fantastic at disrupting the status quo. You know, we're talking about our well being on site, in the office, work, life balance, parenthood, maternity leave. And we're starting all these conversations, which a lot of guys actually appreciate. And they're like, oh, wait, I do want more time off or I see the benefits of that. And so women are starting this movement of belonging in the industry and creating community and having those open discussions. And honestly, like a sense of belonging in a company actually increases job performance by 56%.

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29:51
Speaker 3
It reduces turnover by about 50, and it decreases the amount of sick days because sometimes, I mean, people take sick days simply because they don't want to go to work that day. And they're just in a bad head space. Right. And so by creating these good communities with good strong communication, these relationships, you're able to encourage people to meet their potential at work, which affects that bottom line.

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30:17
Speaker 1
Love it. Love it. Great stuff. Morgan, what would your answer be? Why do we want women in construction?

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30:22
Speaker 5
Yeah, I mean, I agree with both of these ladies have said, first of all, why not? And second of all, it's a different skill set that women bring to the TABLE I mean, like Catherine kind of stated earlier, the relationships, the organization, communication, that is all such a vital part of construction that women have mastered. And a lot of my superintendents that I've worked for have actually preferred working with women. So it's super exciting to see the percentage of women in construction increasing year over year. So I'm really excited for the next couple of years and to see even more women coming into the construction industry and showing off their skill sets.

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30:58
Speaker 1
Same here. And so all I do is I don't work for any construction companies, but I have lots and lots of different clients who are construction companies. And I will tell you unequivocally that when there are no women on the leadership team, it's like one of my first priorities is to get women to be a part of the leadership team. For all the reasons that you guys are saying, like, yes, all the points that you're making are so right. But purely selfishly, the team desperately needs a difference of opinion. And everybody gets into this really monolithic way of thinking. And if I can have, if we just have to have diversity of thought.

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31:39
Speaker 1
So, so, and what I found is that an all male leadership team is not nearly as intelligent, not nearly as capable as they would be with, you know, more equal representation that way. So anyway, I, I, I love the question. I love your answers, I think great points. So Stacy, what do we have in terms of additional questions? Heck, you probably have like a dozen. So what other questions do we have?

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32:10
Speaker 2
Well, for Emily or Catherine, actually. So your podcasts feature guests for women. Are the women that come on your show when they say that they're attracted to the industry, is it because they already had typically a family member already in the industry? Or do you see more of that being the reason of people, of women joining the industry because they're influenced by family members?

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32:39
Speaker 4
I'd say it's, for me it's 50.

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32:40
Speaker 2
50.

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32:41
Speaker 4
A lot of people are. But just as many people, you know, learn it, learn about it in different ways. Usually in school, they learn about it in college as an opportunity.

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32:50
Speaker 2
Okay.

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32:51
Speaker 3
Yeah. I think more of the women that I've talked to, they gravitate towards it because it is comfort. It's what they grew up with.

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33:00
Speaker 2
Do you have any, or hear of any suggestions on how we can promote the industry with people that are completely kind of like how you shared your story, Catherine, where you weren't, you know, even considering construction as an option, really, because people in your family didn't you weren't brought up around construction. So how can we reach people outside of the industry to come in?

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33:29
Speaker 3
So it's starting young, right? We in school, we talk about, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And you've got all your normal stereotypical answers, you've got the high paying answers like lawyer and doctor, but no one brings to the table opportunities in the construction industry which are really high paying as well. It's fantastic. So it's just embedding it more into curriculum. It's after school programs, it's camps, it's just really showing up for the high schoolers, the middle schoolers and the elementary school students and showing them that yes, they learn about architecture, they learn about engineering, but there's this like amazing middle ground that brings all this stuff together and is such a hands on opportunity.

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34:14
Speaker 3
And this caters towards the people who don't want to sit in offices, who want to get their hands dirty, who need the movement, who can't. They don't enjoy that constant day in, day out routine and they want to be able to mix it up while having a very successful career.

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34:31
Speaker 2
We talked on a prior episode about mentorship and sponsorship and how to gear towards looking for a sponsor to help you in your life. Who or how did you go about finding a sponsor or a mentor? I'm sure that's challenging because we already have limited women, you know, in the field. So how do you navigate that in finding someone?

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34:58
Speaker 3
Honestly, most of my sponsors ironically have been men. I think it is funny because Andrea, who talks about the mentorship and the sponsorship, she tends to say that men sponsor other men, but they don't sponsor women. And through conversations with her and just reflecting back, I have been part of that small percentage that's been really lucky to have men who actively have my back and advocate for me, even when I don't even know them. Right. Like I've got one of my mentors, Jeff McCoy, he literally went up to bat, told different people in the company, hey, you're gonna lose her unless you bring her out into the field, let her come work with me, let me teach her what she wants to learn and let's see where she grows from there. And I mean, he constantly pushed me out of my comfort zone.

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35:47
Speaker 3
But I've also had women sponsors and usually those people who are more sponsors versus mentors, they actually seek me out and they actively get involved in my life and ask me what I need and take a front row seat in my own success.

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36:02
Speaker 5
Love to hear that for me, I was lucky. One of my friends was transferred onto my job site, and it kind of turned morphed from a friendship into a mentorship. So she was kind of my sounding board. Like, if I had anything construction related, personal related, I would go to her, talk to her, hear her experience, because she was more experienced than I was. And that helped me out so much.

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36:25
Speaker 1
And it speaks to what you were talking about earlier, Emily, with that. You know, the idea that this common thread was that actually there were men in these women's lives who played a significant role in, you know, help. And so, you know, whether they were sponsors or mentors at that age or whether they were just role models, and that's a different thing. You know, it's an extremely powerful lesson.

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36:52
Speaker 3
Yeah.

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36:53
Speaker 4
I think it's really important that we don't get. We don't depend on just women to be mentoring women, because, of course, just frankly, there aren't enough, and if we do that, we're just doing ourselves a disservice. So we really do rely on men. We need all of the men to be allies in order to move us all forward in the industry.

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37:11
Speaker 1
Awesome. Love it. Stacy, any other questions?

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37:15
Speaker 2
Just selfishly, I'd like to know for Morgan and Emily. So Morgan does the work pants. Is there any other gear that you see coming down the line in the future?

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37:30
Speaker 5
I see all the gear coming down the line in the future. We did start off with pants, just because that was the first thing that I noticed when I was in the industry. We are launching a second pant this spring, so I'm super excited for that. It's called the relaxed pant. It's more of, like a cargo take rather than a carpenter pant. But then this winter, we're gonna come out with some winter lines, which I'm super excited about. So, like, fleece line pants and a really cool work jacket, which I'm really excited about. And that's just kind of the start of it. So I'm really excited for what comes in the future, and I love all the feedback I'm getting from women with their stories and what they want to see me create. So there's a. There's a lot coming.

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38:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I'm sure the same with you, Emily, Right?

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38:14
Speaker 3
Yes.

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38:15
Speaker 4
We have some new styles coming out this year. We have one coming out in a couple of months. It's a comp toe. Many people have asked us, yes, we like steel toes, but some people need comp toes. So we're creating a composite toe shoe that should Be out in the next few months. I'm very excited about that. And then we have some other styles as well. Just going by feedback from our. I would say our audience, but it's not just our audience, it's our whole community. People are always reaching out, letting us know what they're looking for, what they can't find on the market. So we have at least three new styles that will be coming out later in the year and early 2024 that we're super excited about.

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38:52
Speaker 2
Do you guys both work with companies like Red Wing Boots does, where you can give a, like a fee, you know what I mean, to the workers or, you know.

‍ ‍

39:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, it was actually. It's a really good point. I wonder about that. You know, what's the best way for a company.

‍ ‍

39:12
Speaker 2
Yeah.

‍ ‍

39:12
Speaker 1
To help their employees to get access to, you know, this as a part of what they offer their employees?

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39:21
Speaker 3
Yes.

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39:21
Speaker 4
Yeah. If you're. Well, if you're a person working at a company, the best thing to do is ask your tell your employer that you would like to use Juno Jones boots or Justin Workwear on, you know, on site. And you can often get reimbursed for. For what it is because maybe they don't have it necessarily at. In their, you know, at the company for you to buy there. So they may reimburse you to do that. But if you're a company and you're looking to support women in construction and industries in general. Yeah. The best thing to do is reach out to us and we can help you. We provide discounts to companies so. Especially with volume so they can supply their workers and give them access to Juno Jones boots.

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40:01
Speaker 5
I agree with that 100%. Just reach out. The company stores are really important. That was one thing when I was working for a general contractor is the men have pages and pages of company merch that they can buy on the company website and the women's. All their stuff fits one page. Page. So if, like Emily said, reach out to us, we can give you like bulk discounts and stuff like that. And then you can supply it to your women on your company website. And we can do branding and stuff as well. So your logos on it.

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40:30
Speaker 3
Yeah.

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40:31
Speaker 1
Cool.

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40:31
Speaker 3
I want to chime in there real quick.

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40:34
Speaker 1
Yeah.

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40:34
Speaker 3
For the people who are responsible for finding their PPE and looking at. Finding material for their company sites, even. Don't wait for the women to come to you. Go to the women. Every single woman who's ever set foot in the field will have an issue with Some kind of ppe. They'll have recommendations. We're all struggling with it. Right. We're constantly sidebarring with each other. So don't wait. Just be proactive. Go ask these women what they need and source it.

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41:03
Speaker 2
I really like that point because a lot of women also feel uncomfortable. So speaking up and asking for things, so going to them would show a huge way of support.

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41:16
Speaker 1
Well, and I can. And I gotta imagine that just so many people don't even know that there are options. So, you know, creating awareness. Hopefully this does that. Hopefully our viewers will spread the word and have, you know, have some light bulbs go off, you know, and bring this back to their companies. Not just. Not just. I mean, I hope they all go onto your stores and that they use the codes that you've shared for women in Construction Week and that they get, you know, boots and that they get pants, but that I also hope that they bring that message back to their company.

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41:51
Speaker 3
Yeah.

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41:53
Speaker 1
Awesome. Stacy, anything else?

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41:55
Speaker 2
That's all we have.

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41:57
Speaker 1
Catherine, Emily, Morgan, Anything before we jump?

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42:00
Speaker 5
Thank you for having us.

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42:02
Speaker 4
Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun.

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42:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, thanks for joining us. Agreed. You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time and for joining us to talk about your stories today. I think Happy Women in Construction Week to you next week, again, first to market, and we'd welcome you back anytime. And we'll certainly spread the word about your podcasts and about your companies and about the great work that you're doing. So thank you.

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42:34
Speaker 2
Thank you. See you. Have a great day.

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42:36
Speaker 1
See y'. All. All right, Stacy, let's do a little bit of cleanup here and. And talk about next week. So first things first, as I always reiterate, and. And I think it's so important to build that list of people who aren't reliant on getting a an invite from LinkedIn. Please send Stacy an email right here. Stacey H. Steeltocom.com to get access to our mailing list, which will keep you in the know and make it really easy for you to register for our live episodes, as well as click on links to get access to the recorded episodes. Next week, we have episode number 43, which is. We're bringing back a guest from our very first season, which is a friend of mine and a really smart economist. The economist for.

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43:30
Speaker 1
He's the official economist for the Associated Builders and Contractors Nationally, and I want to say one or two others, but his name's an Iban Basu. Very, very dynamic speaker. A lot of fun and he'll be giving us the rundown on what exactly is going on with the economy and how that is impacting the construction industry in 23. That'll be an episode that you don't want to miss. So please do come and check us out for that. Stacy, what else am I missing?

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44:01
Speaker 2
Nothing else. But you know what? I wish I asked the girls if they were attending the NAWA conference, that we're going to be in person. I believe some of them are. But that's May 15th, right?

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44:12
Speaker 1
Yep. That is. It's May. It's May 5th. You know what? Let me double check that. But, yeah, I believe it's May 5th. Nope. Not. Not 15th. May 6th. May 6th.

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44:21
Speaker 3
Oh, May 6th.

‍ ‍

44:22
Speaker 1
May 5th and 6th. So it's the Friday, Saturday, May 5th and 6th in Washington, D.C. is the NAWIC Northeast Spring Conference. And we'll be running a show live there. And I'll actually be doing a keynote the following morning.

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44:37
Speaker 2
I'll reach out to the girls after we get off here and include it in the E. Newsletter to see if there'll be an attendance. So if you're attending, you can meet them in person.

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44:49
Speaker 1
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to. To hear that they are and that maybe even they're, you know, featuring some of their products. So, yeah, awesome stuff. I. I can't wait to. To hear the review. Stacy, on the Juno Jones boots.

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45:03
Speaker 2
They're awesome.

‍ ‍

45:04
Speaker 1
They're just already.

‍ ‍

45:05
Speaker 2
Materials nice. It's super comfy. I haven't done too much walking in them yet. I have to get out to some more job sites, but so far, so good. They're beautiful boots. And were talking earlier. My dad's been in the shoe business his entire life, his career, and Emily's down in Philly, so I'm going to set the two of them up because he was in the orthopedic shoe business. Definitely not sexy shoes by any means, but it she. He could probably, you know, provide a lot of knowledge when it comes to people with feet issues working on the field and how to make that comfortable while she can bring the sexy to the shoes.

‍ ‍

45:45
Speaker 1
Telling you, I'm gonna get your dad as a guest one day. I'm just gonna be like, we have a special guest.

‍ ‍

45:51
Speaker 2
No.

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45:53
Speaker 1
All right, Stacy, thanks so much as always for creating such a fun show, such a good dynamic. So we. It was. I definitely would. It would just be me talking at the screen without you. So thank you.

‍ ‍

46:05
Speaker 2
Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day, guys.

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46:08
Speaker 1
You too.

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46:08
Speaker 2
See ya.

‍ ‍

There’s a demand for qualified leaders in the construction industry, and our guest for this episode has dedicated herself to meeting that demand by unleashing the potential of women in leadership positions. Mentors guide up-and-coming professionals, using their experience to help develop a (usually younger) mentee. Sponsors, on the other hand, advocate on behalf of their mentees and help them advance in their careers by being proactive with those in positions of power. In this episode, we learn how to be an effective sponsor for up-and-coming leaders in the construction industry to help eliminate the leadership shortage.

Transcript:

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00:08
Speaker 1
All right, it's morning huddle time. Good morning. I'm not saying it works. I wish you, Godspeed with all of that. I think that's really nice. You know, I'm not sure what kind of success you're gonna have with that today, because the world, my friend, has changed. Right? Latin American construction workers, they have different needs.

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00:28
Speaker 2
They have completely different.

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00:30
Speaker 3
These awards have a huge, like, criteria that you have to fill out. And they usually have a community service or community relations portion, you know, the.

‍ ‍

00:40
Speaker 2
Most productive with a high performance value. And, you know, sometimes it's 11 o' clock at night.

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00:48
Speaker 1
Funny, isn't? Yeah, not for me.

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00:51
Speaker 2
Not for me.

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00:52
Speaker 1
At 11 o', clock, I am guaranteed to be snoring. So foreign. Good morning. It's morning huddle time. We're here for season four. I am psyched. We've got three months of amazing guests that Stacy helped us to hook up with I. Her, I guess just her charm. She's. She's incredible at getting people to agree to come hang out with us. It's so wonderful that we have today Andrea Jansen, who's joining us from Ambition Theory. And Andrea, how are you today?

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01:30
Speaker 2
Oh, I am fantastic. Thank you so much for inviting me onto the morning huddle.

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01:35
Speaker 1
Yeah, we are so glad to have you. You're very welcome. And Stacy, how are you?

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01:40
Speaker 3
I'm doing great. I'm really excited about today's topic. I'm super passionate about mentorship and sponsorship, and I can't wait to hear what you have to say, especially, you know, people first joining the industry and navigating that in their careers and all that stuff and how they can get help and guidance throughout their careers.

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01:59
Speaker 2
So it's going to be great.

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02:01
Speaker 1
Agreed. I'm fired up. I'm also, I'm sitting here thinking, like, I can't believe that it's been already nine or ten weeks or something like that since were last on. Usually we take 8 off, but this time I think we took 9 or 10 off. And I was really getting used to having nothing going on Tuesday mornings. So. But no, I'm, so I'm. I'm really excited to be back in action. This feels more normal to me to have this going on every week. So Stacy is, as always, going to lead the conversation on the live chat. For those of you who are joining us live, if you are not joining us live. Thank you. Think about joining us live next time if you're in a position to do so. It's 9:00am Eastern here on LinkedIn Live. And then, of course, we're getting Stacy.

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02:55
Speaker 1
We have so many people downloading on Apple and Spotify now. I keep watching those statistics. They're going through the roof. It's really exciting to watch people joining us that way. But I do miss having so many people joining us in person. I want, I want more people in person.

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03:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely.

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03:12
Speaker 1
You know, it's, it brings a lot to the Q and A. But look forward to the Q and A here in, you know, 20 minutes or so. And I'm going to jump right in with Andrea if that's good with you. Stacy, we'll see you in a bit.

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03:24
Speaker 2
Sounds good.

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03:25
Speaker 1
See you. Thanks. All right, Andrea, let's get to the business of talking about sponsorship and mentorship and what it's all about. And I think I'm, you know, embarrassed to admit that, you know, it wasn't until we had you, Stacy said, you know, hey, we've got Andrea joining us for this that I started looking into this and thought, oh, man, I wasn't really sure of the difference myself. So tell us a little bit about what mentorship is, what sponsorship is, how they really differ.

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03:52
Speaker 2
So don't feel bad about not knowing the difference. Most people don't know the difference. And actually, most people use the word mentorship to describe both mentorship and sponsorship. So we don't really say the word sponsorship out loud, and we don't necessarily need to. And I'll explain the difference. And I want to say thank you for inviting me to talk about this topic because this is my absolute favorite topic to teach about. And it's the topic if people, if women in the construction industry or companies that want to get more women into leadership positions, if they implement one thing, this is the thing that's going to get them the results the fastest. So I'm so excited to talk about this today.

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04:32
Speaker 2
So I don't know about you, but for my whole career, ever since I was probably a teenager, people said you need to find a mentor if you want to be successful. And so I did, like most people, and I spent hours just talking to people about what it takes to be successful, how they became successful. And to be honest, after a while, I was kind of like hitting my head against the wall because it wasn't working. And really, there's this interesting unconscious bias that shows up on how men and women are mentored. And it's different. And I'll explain the difference. So mentorship is really about getting advice. So say you're that, you know, that junior person. You're up and coming. You're like, I want to get to that next level. You go find that mentor.

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05:15
Speaker 2
So that's either a senior person in your company or in the industry. They don't need to be in your company. You meet them, they, you know, will share stories, they'll maybe tell, give you some advice, drop some names of who you should talk to about the thing that you want to learn. And then you go back to your desk or your office or your job site and you're like, okay, I'm all inspired. I'm going to do this. I'm going to invest in myself. And you're like, okay, I read the book, I heard the story. You know what? If I call that person that you mentioned, they're not going to recognize the number. They're going to think it's spam. So they're not going to pick up. You know, same thing with the email.

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05:51
Speaker 2
They're not going to reply because they have no idea who I am. So at the end of the day, it's up to you, the mentee, to implement, you know, what you've learned. The onus to take action is on you, the junior person.

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06:04
Speaker 1
So that's a slow go. I mean, it's, and it's very daunting. And to your point, you are met with a lot of resistance. And, you know, even if you do have the courage to do that outreach, which is by itself a mountain, the amount of obstacles that are thrown in your way, precisely because to your point, it's very difficult to get somebody to pay attention to you when you don't come in with some sort of, you know, some sort of support.

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06:36
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. And so sponsorship, on the other hand, is where you're that junior person. You want to learn that thing, you ask the senior person. And I'll give the example of business development, because that's a key skill that people need to learn in the construction industry. You need to understand how does the business of construction work. That's usually a skill that you need to get to that next level of leadership. So I'll give you an example of a sponsorship situation. So you go to that senior person, you're like, I want to learn how to. How the business works. And that senior person is like, you know what? I have a meeting with the VP of Sales and Business development tomorrow. Why don't you come along with me? So you, as that junior person, you get that exposure. You get to meet that vp.

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07:18
Speaker 2
You get to learn about that thing. You need to learn directly from that senior person. Then they get to know you. You start to build that relationship and that person knows. This person wants to, you know, learn this skill. They want to get to the next level, they're motivated. And then typically in a sponsoring relationship, it's like, okay, you know what, in two weeks, I am pitching a new client. Come along, protege. That's what we use to describe that junior person in this relationship. Come along. And you know What? I'm presenting 20 slides. You take the first five. I'll be here. I can step in if you screw it up. But. But we'll do this together. And really, it's that onus to take action is on both people.

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07:59
Speaker 2
And if you think about who's going to progress faster, is it the person that's preparing and reading all the books or the person that's kind of thrown in with that person to guide them and learning it as they go?

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08:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think there's no substitute for experience and Trial by Fire, you know, and all those types. I mean, I think it's a good combination. I'd also recommend reading the books, but I agree that certainly getting the hands on experience is going to advance you faster. And so I want to bring this back to the thought of unconscious bias and how the experience differs between men and women. And you know, these aren't just your opinions. These are. This comes from data. I know that you're a data collector. It's a part of what ambition theory does. So tell me, what's the difference between men's experience and women's experience in this and point to that data.

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09:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, so that's a great question. So typically women are mentored. So women are given advice, prepared to the opport, prepared for that opportunity. And men are typically sponsored. And again, like I want to reiterate, this isn't my opinion. This is based on years of research. And the cool thing is we are. And this happens in every industry. It's not just construction. We're actually gathering more data right now so that we can actually quantify this experience for women specifically working in the construction industry. So we will have that in a couple of weeks. But that's typically how it plays out in the unconscious bias. And it's one thing I do want to say is people never do this on purpose. They don't even realize they're teaching. They're treating men and women differently. And it's actually out of really good intentions.

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09:56
Speaker 2
So for women it's the unconscious bias is I want her to be successful, I want her to do really well. I want to support her and I want to make sure that she's ready for when that opportunity arises so that she knocks it out of the park so that she does a really great job. So that's kind of the intention around it. Whereas for men it's typically about like, you know what, let's throw them in. They can figure it out as they go. And the key to doing that, like it's great to take those risks because you need to take risks to grow. But the benefit of having that sponsor is that they have skin in the game too. So if something goes completely wrong when you're taking that risk, they are in it with you.

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10:39
Speaker 2
So they can guide you to, they can help you pick up the pieces. If something goes wrong, they can help you navigate the politics of it. You have that person with you. Whereas in a mentoring relationship, if you're taking that big risk and it goes really wrong, the mentor is not, they don't have skin in the game. If they gave you that advice, you did. It completely did not go well. Nothing happens to the mentor. And the opposite is also true. If they give you some amazing advice and you follow it and it's a great, like you deliver really well, the mentor is not in it with you, so they don't get the credit either.

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11:16
Speaker 1
Wow, wow, wow. So something just happened in my brain as you were talking through that and that I, something kind of clicked in. Is that it actually through what you said is, you know, it's good intentions. It's this real desire to help this woman to be successful. But maybe this almost treating that woman with kid gloves instead of throwing them right into the, to the mix. Almost like being overprotective of the women that you're trying to help is actually hurting them. You know, you're by trying to protect them from failure, you're keeping them from being. And I can, this all makes sense because I can totally socially. Right. It's, it is ingrained. Speaking as, you know, a middle aged guy. Right.

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12:10
Speaker 1
I, I would say it has been ingrained as a Gen Xer growing up for sure that like, you know, I was definitely to be more deferential toward women. I was taught, I was taught to like open the door for women and be nice to women and you know, women, you have to treat women special and extra nice, you know, and things along those lines. And so psychologically I could totally see how we are. When I say we, I mean people who look like me, people we are failing to challenge or failing to throw people to throw women right in the fire. Like, and again, if I thought of a, of a male, right. Of a guy, my. A younger male, I'd be like, yeah, throw them into the fire. What the hell, See what happens.

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13:03
Speaker 1
And, and that is actually a strategic advantage for that person. That is fascinating. But then it's also sponsoring. So talk about being a good sponsor for a minute. Like, how do I. You talk about having your skin in the game. How do I, how do It in a. In the most supportive way possible where they're really set up for success.

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13:23
Speaker 2
So before I answer that question, I just want to go back to this epiphany that I just watched you have, which is pretty awesome. But when another thing, the. It's not just like men are kind of like being protected above women and preparing the women. It's really, it doesn't matter if you're a man or woman that is sponsoring or it's really. The behavior is on who that junior person is. So women will prepare other women too. And that is something like, I find myself getting stuck in these mentoring conversations and I'm like, you know what? Like, we know. And I'm going to segue this to like, how you actually shift the mindset to that opportunity. So because women do the same thing, it's not men versus women. It's just like you said, how we're socialized, right. And it's just, it's nobody's fault.

‍ ‍

14:10
Speaker 2
It just is. And once you know that is just the society and the culture that we're in, you can move forward. So how to be a good sponsor is. It's really about. The first thing is actually slowing down a little bit because the key about sponsors. Spot the difference between sponsorship and mentorship. You can give advice all day long, but you as that senior person that sponsor or that men, if you're a mentor, you can give advice all day long. But there's no skin in the game, right? Like, nothing's going to happen to you if you give that bad advice. And if you give. If somebody isn't really that. That great because you're aligning your reputation with theirs. So the first step is slow down, get to know the person and ask yourself the question, like, am I comfortable aligning my reputation with theirs?

‍ ‍

14:59
Speaker 2
And so understanding, like, ask a lot of questions like, what are their goals? Almost like, take A step back, do a bird's eye view. Like, what are they good at their job? Like, what are people saying about them? Like, what is their reputation? Because you want to just gather a little bit of information and ask yourself, like, am I comfortable aligning my reputation with theirs? And it doesn't have to take a long time. It can happen really quickly. Like, you just, you want to connect with us, that person and really kind of make that decision. Are we going to go for this together? And you don't explicitly usually ask it. It's like it's kind of this dance of human behavior. You're kind of. So if you're looking for that sponsor, that's what you do.

‍ ‍

15:39
Speaker 2
If you're that protege who's looking for that person, that can open the door for you. It's about pausing for a second and maybe thinking, it's not maybe about me. Actually get curious about them. Think about, like, what are their goals? Try to figure out what they are trying to achieve and think about, like, the kind of value that you can bring to them. And really, you need to actually prove yourself that, like, you know what, I have a good reputation. Like, if you create this opportunity for me, I'm not going to screw it up. Like, I'm going to deliver. Because if you go down in a sponsored relationship, both people go down. But if you're like extremely successful, both people get the credit for that. So slowing down is the first thing.

‍ ‍

16:22
Speaker 2
The second thing is really about shifting, like, not getting caught in the advice trap. Because we as humans, we love talking about ourselves too, right? So yeah, because we're all like, everybody's going to get stuck into this bias, right? So that junior person is going to come and say, please tell me all the advice, tell me all the stories. They're going to ask you for it. So you have to recognize this. Be like, you know what, Like, I could tell you a short story. But then shift your thinking to like, what opportunities do I have access to that I could bring this person along? And it could be as simple as, like, you know what, I'm going to a conference next week. Usually only the senior leaders go to the conference.

‍ ‍

17:05
Speaker 2
I will buy an extra ticket and bring this person along to the conference. And that them getting that exposure to the industry, the connections, you can, they can say hi, they can meet other people. That is going to teach them a lot than any, you know, advice that you're going to get them. So it could be simple. Things like that could be bringing them along to that meeting. It could be Making an introduction, it could be talking about them when they're not there. So if you think about like the decisions of like how people get promoted, like how do companies decide who gets promoted? Those conversations are happening when you, as the person who wants to get promoted are not in the room. And often it's like two levels above you that are making that decision.

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17:53
Speaker 2
So your boss may not necessarily be in that room and might be at that higher level. So having those people that can influence at that level, that's another thing that a sponsor can do. And when one place where people get really stuck is as the junior person, you're like, how do I add value to this senior executives world? Right. It's like how I don't. I'm junior in my career. I don't know a lot. The really interesting thing, especially in construction and especially if you're in a bigger company, if you think about it, executives and senior leaders, they can't know what is going on site at every project or even if you're in the office, they can't have their hands in everything.

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18:35
Speaker 2
But what you can do is you can be there, eyes and ears on the ground, so you can be looking at like what is happening here. And you can kind of tell them the things that are not in the formal reporting, the formal weekly reports, all of the things that get documented. There's all these other stuff going on. Like maybe there's a, you know, the client's a little bit mad, so you can tell, you can share that information and that's really helpful for that executive. So kind of recognizing as that junior person, you do really bring a lot of value. And as that senior person, having relationships with people that are junior to you, it gives you access to so much more information. So it really is a win when this is working properly, it's a win for everybody.

‍ ‍

19:18
Speaker 2
And it doesn't actually take a lot of time.

‍ ‍

19:22
Speaker 1
I really love this concept as a. On both ends of it. Right. I have mentors in my life who, if I think about it through a different lens, I'm sure have sponsored me.

‍ ‍

19:35
Speaker 2
Yeah.

‍ ‍

19:36
Speaker 1
And, and I have people in my life that I have that I've definite. I am like Mr. Advice. So I'm like, oh, no, you know that. But, but I see exactly what you mean. And I, I would really have to kind of, you know, think through each of those relationships. I'm sure I've been sponsoring some and I can think of some instances in particular that I've been sponsoring. But I've always done that thoughtlessly. And I'm sure my biases have been at work.

‍ ‍

20:11
Speaker 1
So I want to bring that back just one last time here with the idea that, you know, when we have to recognize that we have biases, one of the biases that we are likely to have, regardless of who you are, which I thought was really useful to think about as well, is that we've, we may have been socialized to not throw, you know, I don't know, to not. To not challenge women to the extent that they could or should be challenged and to maybe not sponsor and instead just get in the advice trap with these women that we're hoping to help be successful in general. I, I know this was probably a question you've answered a thousand times, and I want to be clear. I'm not, I am the choir here, right? Like, I'm not opposed to that.

‍ ‍

21:05
Speaker 1
But I have to ask the question regardless. Why should we have a vested interest in helping to elevate women in the construction industry? Aside from just in the spirit of equity, in the spirit of, you know, doing the right thing. What, what, why should we really want to do this?

‍ ‍

21:26
Speaker 3
Yeah.

‍ ‍

21:26
Speaker 2
So 100% agree. Because what we, what I found, what I've observed is that the, oh, it's the right thing to do. It's not a strong enough motivation. Right. Because it's going to take resources, it's going to take time and like, is there going to be a return on this?

‍ ‍

21:40
Speaker 1
Exactly. When the chips are down?

‍ ‍

21:43
Speaker 2
Right. And the thing about construction, it is a for profit industry. Right. It's not, it's not nonprofit. So we really need to think about, like, what is the business case for this? And it's a really interesting time in the industry because I think most people here are probably feeling the talent shortage. And the reality is right now, if you think like 10, 20 years down the road, there's going to, we're going to be in cases. And I've heard companies say that they're actually in this situation right now. They're like, we pitch for this job. Like, I kind of hope we don't get it because we actually, I'm not sure if we're going to be able to staff it. Like, there's that kind of tension, that kind of stress happening right now. And if you think about it, there's like, we need to recruit, right?

‍ ‍

22:29
Speaker 2
We need more people to come into this industry to deliver all of this work because it's a great business. The work is there, but there's not Enough people to do the work. And that's the place where some companies are at today. And probably in a couple of years more people are going to feel this pain. So I think if you can think about it that way, as this is a way to actually get more labor into the industry, more people leaning. So that's one piece. The second piece is this unique skill set that women bring to the table.

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23:00
Speaker 2
And this I'll try to, I'll do this really quickly, but there's been research that shows like when men are more transactional leaders, so that transactional is more that top down approach, like I'm the boss and I tell you what to do, I delegate the projects and that men veer more towards that side of the spectrum. Women are more transformational, so they are more collaborative. It's about setting that vision, helping people see their strengths, helping them rise to the challenge. So the research says men are more generally transactional, women more transformational. And we've no and I saw you nod. So in the construction industry, more of the leadership, even training, more of the skills that are rewarded are on that side of the spectrum. Spectrum. But with the younger generation, doesn't matter what gender they are.

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23:45
Speaker 2
Whenever you ask the younger generation, it's like, what do you care about? They're like, I want a sense of purpose, I want to grow, I want to contribute. And if you think about what kind of leader are they going to respond to, as the research says, like they respond better to that transformational leader. So having women in the industry, having women in leadership roles, it's just a great way to inspire that younger generation, help them see that sense of purpose. And women can do that naturally. So having more women, that's another reason why, where women can bring that value because it really helps with retention and getting the most out of your employees. Sold.

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24:20
Speaker 1
I agree, totally agree. So I mean, you don't have to convince. I am 100% there with you. I see it in my work as a consultant. One of my primary goals when there are all male leadership teams is to proactively explore opportunities for creating diversity on that team. Because they get better, they get smarter, and you know, if it's a good leadership team, they learn from each other and they adopt some of those characteristics that they see working. So when that woman who it becomes, you know, an executive in that business demonstrates this totally different, just natural take on leadership, it's contagious and that's a really powerful thing. So all right, I'm Going to pull Stacy into the conversation, get some Q and a going here before we wrap. Fantastic discussion, Andrea.

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25:22
Speaker 1
I'm sure the audience has some questions that you can add value to.

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25:28
Speaker 3
Yeah. First off, did you want to share any specific stories of, you know, advocating for people or. I think there was one. A client that you worked with 10 years ago.

‍ ‍

25:43
Speaker 1
Oh, you're talking to me.

‍ ‍

25:45
Speaker 3
Was, was that your story?

‍ ‍

25:47
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

‍ ‍

25:49
Speaker 2
For Chad to share this sponsorship story you told me.

‍ ‍

25:53
Speaker 1
I, I, I admitted to Andrew yesterday. I'll do it briefly. I admitted to Andrea yesterday as we did a little prep conversation for this. I was like, you know, I, I, I want to be a sponsor. I enjoy helping people to reach the next rung in their career. I also have to balance that with a bit of a, and I think I'm not alone, but a bit of like a, what I call a hero complex, which is not something that I love about my personality. But, but is there, where there's this sort of desire to, to not just make the impact, but to, you know, just make sure that everybody knows I kind of made the impact, you know, like, that kind of thing. And, and I want to feel really good about myself.

‍ ‍

26:34
Speaker 1
And I think it's important that when we do this stuff that we, that we aren't embarrassed by the fact that. I think Andrea said it beautifully yesterday, was that, you know, I get something from that too. You know, I'm helping to elevate somebody, so it's not just me. Like, look at me being a great helper. You know, I want to publish how much I donated, you know, like, or whatever else. All these, it's all baggage I have in my brain, by the way. It's nobody else's problem but mine. But, but, you know, I think when we help, we, it's okay to win while we help. Right. Because you said it really well today is that we both share in that credit.

‍ ‍

27:15
Speaker 1
So when I sponsor somebody, when I put my social capital on the line and sponsor somebody who wins and becomes wildly successful, we're both winners in that story.

‍ ‍

27:27
Speaker 2
And in your story, Chad, the best part about it is, like, you help this person get into an executive leadership role and just calling you out, you own a consulting business, so having part of my job really benefits you. Just, there was a lot in it for you in this situation. Totally was a true win. Because honestly, if that person did a bad job, like, the whole company is going down. Right?

‍ ‍

27:51
Speaker 1
That's right.

‍ ‍

27:52
Speaker 2
They're like, okay, we did this because.

‍ ‍

27:54
Speaker 1
No, I saw this person and I was like, this person will be fantastic. They happen to be a woman. This is a win, you know? Yeah. So there's risk too.

‍ ‍

28:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.

‍ ‍

28:06
Speaker 3
So how often do you think you should be meeting with your sponsor?

‍ ‍

28:12
Speaker 2
Oh, that is a great question. So a lot of companies, a lot of organizations have formal mentorship programs where it's like, we have a contract, we have goals, there's a schedule of how often we meet. And it's very time consuming, especially because a lot of these programs are for women. Like, they pair a junior woman with a senior level woman. And if you think about that woman, there's not that many. Like, she's got to do her job. She's got to, like, overcome all these obstacles. And she's got a me for coffee like, every month with someone, it's a lot of time. The reality of sponsorship, it can be so fast. You actually don't have to meet a lot. And that is the key about, like, really understanding what are their goals, what are my goals, how can I build that trust?

‍ ‍

28:55
Speaker 2
And when you have that trust there, like, it goes really fast. You don't have to meet with them. Like, you don't need to be sitting there talking about advice. It's just kind of like keeping them in the loop a little bit. I'll give you an example, literally, of, like, people sponsor me all the time. So I'll give you an example. I did a speaking engagement a couple months ago, met someone, attended in the audience, they reached out. Later, we had a conversation on Zoom. So I'm thinking about, like, the speaking agent was an hour. We had a 30 minute Zoom call. Then I got an email last week from conference organizer that they are, you know, on the board of this organization asking if I can come and do a talk for them.

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29:38
Speaker 2
And if you think about, like that time, like, that person put their reputation on the line for me when they were making that recommendation. But the amount of time we met was very short. But because we kind of like, in that conversation got to know each other, we built that trust and we realized, like, we're in it together. Right? Like, I have to rise to the challenge and kind of connect with this organization, deliver something to them, and it's that way. So it's really. I love the sponsorship model because it is a lot less time consuming, but it's really about that trust and that mutual relationship and knowing that, like, I can call this person if things are kind of going, you know, this comfort, something's not feeling great.

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30:22
Speaker 2
I can go back and call my person and we're going to figure it out together because there's that mutual benefit. So that's what I love about the relationship.

‍ ‍

30:31
Speaker 3
So leading off of that, like, the comfortability. So I act as a sponsor a lot to younger generations, high school to college level. And I notice, I don't know if they're intimidated or like you were saying, it's early in their career, so they don't know how to open up and ask questions, or maybe they don't even know what to ask. How do you get the younger generation to open up? Because once you know you're building your relationship with your sponsor, obviously 10 years, 15 years into it, you will call the sponsor for help and you have that relationship. Whereas when you're first starting out with your sponsor, you don't have that relationship yet. So you might feel a little uncomfortable. But how do you kind of pull that out?

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31:19
Speaker 2
I think sometimes it's going back to simple things, like, can you connect on another level? Like, oh, do you like their shirt? Like, compliment them on their shirt? And like, just start the conversation that way. Because you'd be amazed by when you can be authentic with someone, when you could kind of, like, take the walls down, how you can connect and how that relationship evolves and where that kind of those things come out. I think it's like sometimes letting go of this, like, here's the five steps, and just being authentic and really building that human connection with them.

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31:52
Speaker 3
So just getting a little bit more personal instead of focusing on the career part of it.

‍ ‍

31:58
Speaker 2
Okay. Yeah.

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32:01
Speaker 3
Okay. And then lastly, question about. I wanted to talk about the survey that you had coming up. I know a lot of women in the industry, or just the industry in general, have issues with competing with other industries and being flexible and offering those type of opportunities. So you had some type of survey to come? That's coming up and feel free to share.

‍ ‍

32:24
Speaker 2
Yeah, we are doing a survey. We partnered with the national center for Construction Education and Research to do a survey. We're going deep on sponsorship. So this is for women only, so please fill it out. If you're here, we'd love to include your opinion. It closes on February 13th. And then the second piece that has come up through a lot of our clients and just engagement with the industry. Is this question about flexibility because of the talent shortage? If you look at the landscape, there's so many flexible work options available, and construction has been a little bit late to the game on figuring that out. And the reality is like you are building something. So a lot of them, you have to physically be there. And I don't know if anyone's cracked that nut yet.

‍ ‍

33:07
Speaker 2
So we have a second piece of the survey where we're getting really curious about flexibility and what could that possibly look like in the construction industry. So, please.

‍ ‍

33:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, I spent a lot of time. So one of the things that I've been doing just in the past year has been really surprising. I spent a lot of time doing these studies inside companies, just inside the business about sort of stress management. And, you know, there are common set of common threads that are constantly the source of high stress. Lack of flexibility in the construction industry is, you know, and some companies are losing relatively substantial people out of the industry because they're just saying, you know, we. And, and again, it's the balance of women doing that to men is much higher. Women. And so we. It is, we've. It would be unbelievable to get to some solution for that works for everybody.

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34:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so we will be releasing the results of this in a report. We'll have some live events that will be. That you can come to that are free during Women in Construction Week. So that's the. In March, the week of International Women's Day.

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34:22
Speaker 1
Beautiful, wonderful stuff. Thank you so much. This has been a fantastic conversation. Certainly enlightening for me, which I always love, are I feel like I learn way more from these things than any other learning activity I do. And Andrea, you've been a wealth of information. So thank you so much for coming on and being with us this morning. Anything to say before parting ways?

‍ ‍

34:55
Speaker 2
No, I just want to say thank you for having me. Thank you for everyone in the audience for being curious and open. And I want to just encourage you to lean into that curiosity and keep staying open to new ideas.

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35:07
Speaker 3
And how can people get in contact with you if they.

‍ ‍

35:10
Speaker 2
So they can find us. We have a podcast so you can listen to our podcast. It's called Ambition Theory, Women in Construction. You can go to our website, ambition theory.com you can connect with ambition theory on LinkedIn. You connect with me, Andrea Jansen on LinkedIn. So I'd love to say hi and connect with you.

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35:28
Speaker 3
Great. Thank you so much.

‍ ‍

35:30
Speaker 1
Yeah, Andrea, thank you. All right, Stacy, let's wrap up and talk a little bit about next week. So first things first, I just like to remind people that we stream live on LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook on Tuesdays at 9am Eastern. But be sure to check us out on recorded shows if those times that time doesn't work for you. If you want to go back and binge on all the previous episodes, the easiest places to do that are Apple Podcast, Spotify and then YouTube. Also email us to be added to our weekly mailing list. Stacy h.steeltoe com.com Stacy will get you hooked up so that way you're not reliant on just that LinkedIn invite. But you can expect an email every week that comes across with some cool content recording from last week and a link to sign up for the next one live.

‍ ‍

36:22
Speaker 1
If that's something you'd like to do next week, we have a friend of mine, Trey Farmer, who is an architect down in Texas and has a fantastic conversation planned around passive house design, which is really the latest in, you know, design standards to meet net zero and even net positive buildings. That'll be a really technical discussion but also one that anybody can follow along with. He's, he really has a great way of bringing concepts down to earth. So with all of that in terms of preparation, Stacy, is there anything I've missed? Is there anything you want to hit on? Do you have a tip for us? Do you have a, do you have a steel toe communication?

‍ ‍

37:05
Speaker 3
I completely do not have a tip today.

‍ ‍

37:09
Speaker 1
Tip number one, have a tip. It's, it's all good.

‍ ‍

37:14
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'll be sure next week.

‍ ‍

37:16
Speaker 1
Is there anything that I've missed, Stacy?

‍ ‍

37:20
Speaker 3
No, I think that's it. It's just like you said. If you're not on the email list, please send me an email and we'll get that out to you. We do a recap too so we try to keep our shows short and sweet. We know you guys are busy so if you can't watch the show we at least do a little write up recap in the email.

‍ ‍

37:39
Speaker 1
So awesome. Which we so we will see you all next week 9am and we'll do so for the next 11 weeks hereafter. We look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks everybody.

‍ ‍

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.