Business Innovators Radio - Episode 33: Crafting Tomorrow: Revitalizing Humanity in the Construction Industry with Jamie McMillan

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

Part of The Construction Executives Live Series Mistakes made not humanizing, diversifying and attracting youth to the trades are well documented and disappointing to say the least. The focus now should be how we can create a more transparent, accountable and people focused industry in order to attract and retain the young talent that so far eludes us. How can we entice our youth to explore a career in the trades by modeling the positive changes we are making as an industry and ensuring that every generation is welcomed and needed in order to create a sustainable future for construction.In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-33-crafting-tomorrow-revitalizing-humanity-in-the-construction-industry-with-jamie-mcmillan

Welcome to In The Zone and Construction Executives Live, brought to you by U.S. Construction Zone, bringing you strategies for success with construction innovators and change makers, including In The Zone peer-nominated national award winners. Here's your host, Jeremy Owens. Welcome back to Construction Executives Live. I'm your host, Jeremy Owens, owner and founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations improvements. Hey, thanks for hanging on. I see a lot of you guys still hanging on. I appreciate we had some technical difficulties. Hey, this is live show. I mean, live TV, right? Never know what's going to happen. We are going to record this as well, so this will live on in infamy, but thanks for hanging on. We do have a great show, and we're going to get right to it right now. We are sponsored by a great team at Build12. Check them out, build12.com.

Our revenue generating machine, check them out. We have a great show, and I want to get right to it to catch up on a little bit of time here. We have a show called crafting tomorrow, revitalizing humanity in the construction industry. And we have a great guest today, Jamie McMillan. And I want to get right to the content of this show. So let's introduce Jamie. Jamie is, she's been in the skilled trades for how many years now, Jamie? 21.

She's a visionary motivational keynote speaker, a trailblazer, and an iron worker. And we're going to talk a little bit about that experience as well. She was an iron worker way back in 2002 when only 2% of the workforce was female. And she resides in Canada, correct? I do. Yes. Okay. And she has been speaking for, you know, you got on the road typically about 30 weeks a year, correct?

Yes. Okay. So we're going to talk about that speaking experience. She's got, she's won many alcalades, including in 2019 when she was named co-chair on a national skilled trades advisory committee to create. a campaign to promote careers and skilled trades at first choice pathways to youth for Canadian federal government by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And Jamie McMillan joined the helmets to Hardhats Canada team as an outreach specialist

providing career opportunities in the building trades for serving, transitioning, and former members of the military. So thanks for being here. And I apologize for the technical difficulties there, Jamie. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I apologize to you to whoever it's watching. I really struggle with technical stuff.

I'll build you a set of stairs out of metal. Exactly. We all have our pros and cons, right? Hey, I want to get right to it. Let's start with your career in construction. I know it's kind of been a wild ride for you. So let's start from the beginning. Oh, absolutely.

So I discovered the trades when I was 25-ish-year-old, and then I ended up applying, and I got in right after I turned 26. And it was a, I lived a very convoluted journey before I got into the trades because I didn't know what I wanted to be. And I was an academic and you know how some kids we go for what our parents want us to do just because they're passionate about it or we don't want to let them down. And I did a health care career first. And it wasn't for me. So in 2002, I joined the skilled trades never looked back.

Awesome. Yeah. And I've heard you talk about that, that experience you had with an old, I guess a classmate, right, where she rolled up and she told you what she was doing and you're like, hmm, you know, like, and I mean, that what a fate kind of situation that kind of brought you to the trades, correct? Yeah, it was very interesting. I was, I just moved to Hamilton, 500 miles away from where I grew up in a town, a half a million people. And I was not in the best headspace when, uh, she pulled over on the side of the road to answer her phone and needed a pen and hers was out of ink. So she rolled down the window and I was the

stranger passing by her car who she said, hey, do you have a panic of borrow for a second? Turned out she had, she was actually my high school nemesis. We didn't even like each other in high school. We used to fight all the time. And that girl saved my life because that day she told me about an apprenticeship opportunity and that was it for me. It's all I needed to hear. Wow, that is crazy stories. Have you, have you told her that since or does she know about that? She does know. She does know. She's no longer in the trades. I think she's teaching. now, but we haven't been in contact for years. I thank her every from stages all over North America.

Yeah, no doubt. And why have you often described yourself as a skilled trades missionary? Tell me a little bit about that. Actually, that's funny because I grew up in a very fundamental evangelistic homes. I feel kind of sacrilegious saying that. But it was actually the boiler makers did an article about me in one of their magazines a few years back. They put me as the skilled trades evangelist. I was worried when my dad would read that article, but actually it kind of stuck.

And missionary is kind of a bit of a better word because I like to go into very rural communities and talk to students and stuff. And I don't mind if they want to use the word. I just see myself as a passionate skilled trades advocate and worker that just wants to help improve the industry. Right. And tell me a little bit about that iron worker experience. I mean, obviously you entered that. You know, I think you said too, they thought you, they maybe thought you, you were a male because your name was Jamie and they just kind of made some assumptions. So tell me a little bit about how that started and then what are some of the good things and

bad things that happened to you during that experience. Okay. Yes. When I did apply for the Ironwork, it was fun because I had some really high marks on my tech programs in high school, not to say that any other compulsory marks were very good. But I guess because my name was Jamie, they thought I was a man. So I got an acceptance letter in the mail that said to Mr. McMillan, which was pretty awesome. So that may have been the end. I've gone to a lot of jobs actually, too, where they think that I'm going to be a male when I get there because my name's Jamie. And then when they see that I'm female, they'll try to witch me to like safety, firewatch, easier jobs. And I'm like, no, you got to someone else. But I think that one of the big struggles is not,

I don't want to call myself out and say, hey, I have struggles and challenges because I'm a woman in the trades. I believe that we all have the same struggles and challenges. And some of us have different challenges because of our physiological differences. But the truth is, yeah, being a female in the trades can be challenging because we are an underrepresented group. And we do get some of those antagonistic personality styles that, you know, pick on us. But they do the same thing to everybody. And for me, it's all about, you know, just proving them wrong and using that.

negativity that they send your way to kind of turn it around and make it more of your motivation to just, you know, be as best as you can be. Yeah. And so it has a change? I know you said it was like 2% right in 2002. What's it out now you think? Well, that was specifically with the iron workers. Sure. And a very low number because we are considered one of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the world. It's not dangerous if you're doing your job properly. Number overall for women in trades, it's still hovering around five, four, five percent. And there are some inflated numbers on there. It's very interesting because sometimes I've seen lists of the women that are in the trades. And sometimes I'm like, hey, wait a minute, this is an admin staff and this is the project

manager who never did an actual apprenticeship. She's in a woman in construction, but not in women in skilled trade. So sometimes those numbers are inflated, but it's still about the same. Yeah, and we talked a little bit about kind of the culture that we've, you know, grown up. I'm third generation. You've been in the trades a long time. You know, this lack of accountability that we've kind of grown up with, you know, I've seen it firsthand as well. You know, how has that kind of, has that changed at all?

Or is that still very prevalent in our workplace right now? So this is like the beating a dead horse syndrome, I feel like sometimes. It's like, there are. are some companies who are very forward-thinking, they're very progressive in change, and they're doing their best to make sure that they're holding people accountable and reforming the workplace. Unfortunately, that is not happening everywhere. It is not all employers are the same. Not all unions are the same or contract companies. And I want to, I want people to realize, I am speaking from a contractor perspective. So some people confuse contract workers with full-time workers.

I'm speaking from a contract worker. And so there's a lot of nepotism favoritism and oftentimes they don't hold certain people accountable the brother the cousin the aunt the best friend the neighbor there's still that that happened so sometimes when you do raise your voice to complain about something um you know you end up being the one that moves moves into a position to get laid off because they can do that without being reprimended by other people like no one's holding them for moving you to a position where they can get rid of you and keep the person who's toxic that cause the problems for you. Right.

So you don't have bad behavior because of it. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. It's just like a perpetuating cycle, right? And, you know, obviously now, if I look at now versus even when my dad was in the trades and then my grandpa, like, they didn't talk about it. Like, that wasn't even. So I guess that we have to start with communication understanding that it's a problem

before you can fix it. But, I mean, that's the positive thing that I keep putting my hat on is like, hey, this is being talked about. There's some spotlighting to some of these issues. So that's a start. Obviously, it's just a start, though. Yeah, and it takes a bit of, it takes some guts to come forward and actually speak about because a lot of people did stay quiet because it was like you need to have the attitude

of suck it up, buttercup, or here's your tissues if you want to cry about it or, you know. And there was that tough, tough person mentality in this industry and a lot of other industry. too. And so trying to down those barriers and soften people and bring that humanity back, it's hard because the people like us who are the voices where the squeaky wheels sometimes we end up

with a negative view. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I mean, that's how it always is. So you started the iron worker. How did you get started speaking and like how did that whole process work? Well, that was funny. I was a really late bloomer on technology. I didn't want to get an email address. I was like,

I waited until everyone had a computer before I finally got one. And out of the blue one day, I finally created an email address. And I got a message from an organization called Skills Ontario, never heard of them before. And they asked me to start mentoring for these little mentorship dinners and lunches that they would have. And I went out to a few of those at first. And it just kind of started snowballing. I went to their events to go do mentorship. And next thing you know, a panelist didn't show up one day.

So they asked me if I go on there. It was like the longest half an hour of my life of shaking in my seat. And then they thought I did a good job. So I got invited by teachers to go speak at schools and different events. And I remember my first keynote, I almost fell off the stage. I was holding on to the pulpit for dear life. Like, ah. And I got through it.

And then it just kept getting easier and easier because I guess there wasn't a lot of voices at the time to speak to the trades, especially the represented voices. So they were like, and it just. snowballed from there and now I have an agent. I do 30 weeks a year of professional speaking in schools to educate kids across North America and now employers are like, we want to talk to you because how are you doing that and how can we do that? Yeah, that's such a crazy story. I mean, you hear a lot about that with speakers like in the beginning it was just, it wasn't something they thought they were ever going to do. Right. And so many people have a fear of public speaking. So you can see how

about just saying yes and doing it is like kind of what you need to do because then it just gets a little bit easier and a little bit easier, right? Yes. And I think that every, if people can get comfortable with doing it, it gets easier and easier. But if people can get comfortable doing it, there are so many awesome stories and voices in this industry. And I'm like, if only you would just get on a stage and tell kids or go to an event and talk to kids about it, because then kids can see, hey, that's my story.

I can relate to that. look at how successful this person is. And I've seen people go from homeless to hopeful and thriving because of this industry. So I want everybody's voices to be heard. Right. And like we talked about modeling. Like if you, if you're not showing yourself up there, would a female even see themselves as that an option? Like it's obviously been such a white male, a hard hat white male with a, you know,

with blueprints in front of them, that's been like the imagery that we've had for, you know, decades. So without you showing up, would they even see it? Would they even picture it for themselves? Some, no. No, not at all. You know, it's funny because I got into the trades in 2002. And I think I went to my first trade women's conference in Sacramento, California. I think it was 2011. And it was absolutely crazy because there was only about 400 women there at the time. And some of those women had worked their entire career and now were retiring and had never seen another female on the job and didn't think we existed. And now this conference, this past year, we have 5,000 traits women from all over North America and supporting men.

So we are growing in numbers for our camaraderie and our getting together, but we're not actually growing in numbers in the field. We're just starting to get to know each other now. And the more we raise our voices and show that we can be here and that we've been long, the more we're letting not just the young girls know, but we're letting the young boys know that we have been here all along and they can stop thinking that we don't belong here. Yeah, good point. And it takes that, it takes the, you know, getting over the fear of the speaking and getting in front of people. And like you said, having an agent putting you in wild situations, going to rural places, like whatever, just show up. and talk to them. And so you talk to mostly youth, correct? I do. I focus mostly on youth. I have about, I try to make about 20 available corporate speaking engagements throughout my school year, throughout the year, because I really like focusing on youth. And I speak to kids all the way from pre-kindergarten, right through until whatever

age group they want to hear me, because I think we're all kids at heart. And I have an awesome experience because of the fact that I'm like on my own and I take the time off the tools to do this, I get booked sometimes for up to 15 presentations a week where I'm just literally given an itinerary, here, go here, go here, go here. And I'm sitting in hotels and going to rural communities and even indigenous communities that are way off the beaten path. And because I'm showing up and showing them, I'm like, you know, this isn't the center of the earth.

There's a big world out there. And you can work anywhere in it and still call this. home. And it's just been, I don't even know how to put it into words the experiences that have had and the lives that have been changed because of it. Well, they often say when you give back to whether it's an industry or a cause, you know, you get things back and return a lot of times tenfold, right? Like whatever, whatever they're saying or the way they're looking at you, like, so what kind of feedback have you gotten or is there any cool stories that you've gotten from a student where, you know, kind of blowing your mind or keeps you going, right?

Oh, I've had like just so many, so very many. And now like through, so I'm a professional speaker and I go under the brand as a corporate speaker is made in the trade. So at a dot com is my site. But the truth is, is I have another organization called kickass careers. And it was named by students. And interestingly, years ago, I went out to a school to go do a small talk and visit a shop class and when I got to the shop class there was one girl that had gone to the presentation

was now in the shop class and the boys picked on her and I I kind of like had this connection to her there was something there and I ended up hanging out with her during that day and talked to her and at the end of the day I gave her my cell phone number I'm like if the boys get me tell me can you go into the school sometimes as a speaker they think that you're a celebrity or they they think you're somebody special because you're speaking I'm just another person so she was very nervous, text me, and her teacher eventually convinced her. Mr. Q's like, Dee just text her. And she texts me one day and she's like, hey, this is Dee thinking I wouldn't even answer her. And I end up saying, hey, what's up? Nice to hear for you. Boys are being jerks at school today.

I'm like, I'll be there in 20 minutes. I had the afternoon off. I jumped in my car, headed to her school. And now this girl is an integral part of my life. She's like a sister. She's part of the kick-ass crew's team. But the craziest thing was a couple months later, I got an invite to her graduation because her parents wanted to thank me in person and bring her graduation to say, hey, you really helped our daughter out and you are a great, excellent role model to her. Please come as one of the family members to her graduation. We'd like to thank you in person. I cried so many tears, but those experiences, and now she's just part of the team. She's part of my life. She's like a sister and a family member and a trade sister because she's going through an electrical apprenticeship right now.

Wow, that's a great story. I mean, you can see how that one would drive you forward, right? I mean, you just need those little nuggets every once in a while. I'm sure there's times right when you're on the road where you're like kind of searching for that next one, right? Like show up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, what kind of topics do you like you're, you have this itinerary. You're going all over the place. Timbuktu as well. Do you have different content? Like what content do you really get into or does it change based on where you're at? Well, it could change on age group and based on the different areas that I'm at. But a lot of times my content is pretty much, I don't push kids particularly to get into the skill trades. Like I'm not trying to change what they want to do.

But I want to enlighten them and say, hey, you're in school. And right now you have 18. free years that are given to you that all you have to do is learn no matter what your circumstances are all you have to do is attend this school every day and learn and do your best and while you're here why not practical life skills why not take some of those tech programs to help you learn how to maintain your vehicle maintain your home and like these are things that are not only going to help you in your day to day life they're going to save you a lot of money in the long run yeah and if you do like these programs then hey you might be interested in

going to a technical program at a college, or if you're like me and hate academia altogether, maybe you can take that experience and go get a paid apprenticeship and earn while you learn opportunity. And that's the greatest thing about construction is it doesn't matter what your circumstances are. You can change your stars. If you don't have money to go to school and you can get into an apprenticeship, that's great. And all you had to do was apply yourself for that 18 free years of education. So I always hold kids accountable for it. I'm like, you have this 18 years.

You're going to throw it away or are you going to do something positive with it and use this for what it's giving you? And that's pretty much my story. And then I talk about the successes, the money they can make, the opportunity for travel. And the fact that out of all the careers that AI is going to suck up and take away from us, we don't have to worry in this industry because we need our human touch. Everything that's built and maintained in our world around us needs construction workers. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So, wow, that's, that's so fascinating. So when you're in talking with these, with these children, what age groups are you like, are you talking to generally? I have started right from pre-kindergarten, so I'm talking like maybe five years old and up. And I've gone right through and talked to people at colleges, detention centers, all over the place. So very, all different ages.

Are there more apprenticeship opportunities now? I know that was a focus. I know what, shop has been, let's talk about that. Wood shop was cut. I know in my generation, we had it. And then shortly after mine, it was gone and never, never returned in my area. It's not available. So Woodshop, is that coming back? And then are apprenticeships more plentiful? Because that was a problem, too, is like, where are the apprenticeships? Well, it's disappointing because there are schools that don't even have shop classes. And some schools that have shop classes and the door hasn't been opened in years because they don't have tech teachers to teach the shop classes.

Now, I will say that I do notice that a lot of times in Canada, we're a little more progressive when it comes to the skilled trades than in the U.S. However, I was in New Jersey yesterday at a school that had 11 tech classes. It was amazing, but you don't, there are a few between. But what I'm recognizing, at least here in Canada, like our provincial government in Ontario last year made an announcement that every student now in grade 9 and 10 has to take compulsory tech class. But we don't have all the tech classes in the schools. So right now it's a big push to get funding to put tech classes back in. And now, how are we going to get tech teachers?

Like, that's another struggle, right? Nobody wants to leave the construction industry to go back to school and take a pay cut to become a teacher. So we're having problems with that too. So I know there's there's some pretty good programs now up here in Canada where educational faculties are working with skilled trades professionals and trying to create sort of like interns and apprenticeships for skilled trades professionals to come in. So I don't two people now who are doing it and one person that's completed it. And so I am seeing it come back. It's getting an apprenticeship right after. We keep screaming that there's a labor shortage, but I keep having kids say to me, you encourage me to get into this industry and now I can't find a job. And that's on employers. Because

employers are screaming shortage, but they're not willing to give that apprentice the first try. It costs a lot of money to offer somebody an apprenticeship. So sometimes they don't want to give it to somebody who doesn't have the experience yet. Yeah, yeah, that's a tough thing. Maybe the teachers could be, you know, retirees, like their last phase, right? They want to get off the ladder and they want to get into the classroom. But it would take a special person because it's not easy to teach, right? I mean, you've never done it before, you know, to switch from that industry to a classroom scenario.

That's going to be a tough sell, I think. Oh, yeah. And especially if you're getting some of those, like some of the retired men in the industry are, they still have some of that old school behavior and attitude. And to be honest with you, those students are, we don't have the same students coming out of school nowadays than there was, you know, 20, 30 years ago. Like even when I came out of school, like 20 years ago, it was a very different. different attitude about things. So now kids have a very different attitude. So in order to teach those

retired people how to educate these younger people with an attitude that is so strange compared to what we dealt with before, that's a challenge to. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So you mentioned a little bit about made in the trades. When did you start a made in the trades? And what is that kind of how the speaking starts is from there? What problems are you solving and made in the trades? Well, it actually started with kick-ass careers first. So I've been under the brand of kick-ass careers since 2014, and that's where we have a team.

And made-in-the-trades was kind of like a more kick-ass careers didn't sound too corporate to me, so when people started for me to come out to corporate events, maybe a corporate, more of a corporate name. So funny, I was sitting there one night, and I thought about, I was looking at going on a vacation

and I seen something that said, Made in the Shade, and there was somebody sitting under an umbrella on a beach, in the shade and I'm like, oh, made in the trade. And then I'm like, I do have my life made in the trade. So now my whole effort is to get other people meet in the trade. Right. So when you're out speaking, I mean, obviously this is one way to humanize our industry. What are some other ways that we can do this? Maybe it, maybe not. If we're not speaking, what are some other ways we can do it? Okay. I am by no means a psychologist, but I study a lot of stuff. I,

find psychology so fascinating, especially now over the pandemic. There was a huge, huge crisis with mental health, and I helped out at a shelter for a while. And so it became very important to me in understanding psychology. And when you understand psychology, you understand that people gain or your emotional intelligence comes at a very early age. So usually between five and seven years old, that's where you cap out on your emotional intelligence, dependent on the people around you that are mirroring you, your primary caregivers, people that are primarily in your life at that age. So if you don't have, if you don't come from a good upbringing, there's chances are that you will be emotionally stunted on account of that. And that's a lot of people in the

skilled traits. And it's funny because even understanding some of that psychology, that's why things like ADHD and autism and different quality styles like defiant personality style is huge right now that's all coming up and that is part of that intergenerational trauma that gets packed down and how you're raised. So I really try to understand that it's going to be very hard to teach old dogs new tricks. Yes.

And that's where that saying comes from. It's really hard to change the mentality and emotional intelligence of somebody that can only understand it cognitive. 100%. So the only way we can really, really, really. make the changes is by, A, going back and revamping our education system to train young students how to understand empathy, accountability. But the older people, we're not going to get anywhere with them if we're not holding people accountable for their bad behavior. So when you can't change

the emotional feelings that they have, you can hold them accountable for those wrongdoings that they do and try to reprimand them that way. But it's really hard to take them differently. And that's where we got to see it. So I think that the more we focus on the younger generation coming in to replace the older generation, that's where we need to focus on changing those bad behaviors. Yeah. And the mental health thing, I mean, obviously it's been a big, big part of my platform is mental health and construction. It's been a tough thing. Obviously, young people as well, you know, coming into the trades, they, their mental stability isn't as high for a lot of reasons. A lot of those reasons are.

are not their fault. Some of the reasons are the way we've parented them. The list is long. But how do we make sure we check in on our young employees? And obviously, like, if we have an older gentleman who's trying to manage somebody from a younger generation, that's going to be very difficult for them to do because they've never done it before. So to expect them to be like, oh, all of a sudden they're sensitive and they're doing check-ins and wellness check-ins, that's probably not going to happen. So how do we, how do we do that? Maybe it's a, it's changing the staff meeting. Maybe it's, it's as having somebody on the team to check in with people because it's a problem. And one of the biggest problems I see is that we don't talk to each other. No, no. Communication is,

you're not even encouraged in construction to even talk about your challenges and stuff at home. They're like, leave your personal issues at the door come here, be big and tough and strong. And that's really hard to do because we're emotional humans and especially getting the diversity and the trades and so many different personality styles coming in. That's not easy to do. And these generations are being encouraged to communicate. They're being encouraged to be more forthright with their emotions and not to bury their head in the sand and pretend that they don't have any. So this is going to be a difficult thing. And a lot of people right now are like, well, what training and education can we give everybody to, you know, to help this?

And I'm like, all the training and education in the world isn't going to do a darn thing. If you ain't holding people accountable for the bad behavior that they're presenting with. Right. Unfortunately, the part of that is that a lot of times, especially in contract construction, the bad behavior is coming down from leadership. And you can't complain about leadership because they all band together in. stick together or sometimes it's just like the most toxic person on the job site might be the one bringing in the biggest money or, you know, one of the most competent like foreman or something. So it's really, it's a very finicky situation that's multifaceted and it's, it's hard to pinpoint. But I think at the end of the day, it's going to come back to really understanding your work site,

really holding bad behavior accountable and having some recourse action to get everybody working, together and understanding that you have to put the right people to work with each other dependent on their attitude, personality style, emotional intelligence, and that's hard to do. But this is something that AI can help us with. And I'm not an expert in AI, but I do. And he's been explaining some really neat stuff to me about how AI can be good at taking personality tests and then put together that are compatible to work together. Wow, that's a good one.

Yeah, I'd like that. So we're having a hard time. Like you said, we have a labor shortage. We talk about it all the time. But as we get these young folks to enter in maybe apprenticeship programs or in the trade somehow, and they're maybe, A, not getting jobs, or B, they're getting the job. And then they're going like, oh, shit, wow, this is not, wow, this is not what I had in mind. And a lot of them have never had jobs before, right?

So they're going, you know, from high school, boom, boom, boom. And they've never really had like the nine to five or yet. So we're not retaining a lot of folks. So a lot of them are getting out of the job and going, well, I'm out. And because the barrier is a little bit lower than, you know, for your degree, for example, there's a little bit easier out, right? Like they haven't invested eight years in schooling and like you're getting to being a doctor and you have to do it at that point. This is like a little bit of like, oh, okay, well, I didn't have that much skin in the game. so I'm going to start something new.

So how do we fix that? Because our retention problem is maybe as low as any industry there is. Yeah, that's true. Now, the one great thing about that that you mentioned is, no, you're not losing anything. And that's what I tell students are like, what if I get in and I don't like it? Well, you ain't losing anything, especially if you get into a paid apprenticeship. Yeah, that's true. Paid apprenticeship, you're actually making money.

So you're not losing anything. You're just gaining, if anything else. And if you don't like it, well, then you always have the opportunity to, go and try something else and that's fine. But the retention piece is not going to work if we don't have that communication and that accountability on the work site. And I think that right now I keep saying that word. I keep going back to accountability. But that's that's the reason why we're not retaining people in this industry is because when toxic situations come up, you know, you're the person sometimes who's the victim is the one who gets isolated, ostracized,

moved into the corner, laid off. And then they're struggling to get a paycheck. And I know as a dispatch worker myself, and I ain't afraid to talk about it, and maybe I should keep my mouth shut sometimes, but you know what, you can't make change if you won't speak to the problems. And I know personally as a, as somebody who was, you know, on a dispatch list myself, sometimes I was overlooked on the dispatch list because certain people that were in powerful positions didn't appreciate me for the work that I was doing. They were like, oh, she's bringing in women into trades and we don't support women in trades. So I got ignored and then, you know, or because I am trying to have a voice in this industry

and I get to have days off work to go to different conferences and stuff, the men on the job site sometimes are like, you've been here for five minutes. I've been here for 25 years. Why do you go to that event and I don't? And then I'm like, but what are you doing to be proactive in this industry and actually help the next generation? How many volunteers did you take off work to go out there without pay to go and encourage the generation of workers. So if we want to change and keep and retain a future workforce, we need to

really work on our emotional intelligence and our communication and then holding the people accountable that just don't want to comply. Yeah. So interesting. I did a podcast the other day about the generational differences and it was fascinating because I'm fascinated about all that and like, you know, not trying to change each other as much, more understand each other. This is a why we are the way we are. This is the way we were raised. These are the wars we were involved with. These are the stress, you know, COVID-19.

All these things have an impact on why we are the way we are. But there's all this tug and pull about, no, you need to be more like us. No, you need to be more like us. We got to stop all that. And we got to be, how do we, like you said, our emotional intelligence. We're just not very human right now. We're not very human. We've been kind of more robotic.

And like for any industry, you have to. to have that component. And that's what maybe the technical industry is going to struggle with AI because they're going to get less human as you go. So how do we become more human? It's such a difficult question to ask you. Yeah. And it's such, so many of these questions and concerns right now are, and I'm still studying

this because I want to be able to speak to this more professionally, but I'm still in the early stages of trying to understand this myself. But we talk about the emotional intelligence and having healthy boundaries. So kids that are growing up now have different boundaries and they're willing to tolerate different things. But at the same time, yes, they're becoming more robotic and more sensitive. Well, we're looking at humanity. Yes, we need more emotional intelligence. We need to have healthy boundaries.

But what's happening that I'm seeing in the workplace now is that people are holding their own healthy boundaries, but it's becoming counterproductive to the construction industry because we can't have those same boundaries in the construction industry. Like right now you have students who don't want to work anymore. They don't want to have a normal nine to five. They don't want to do shift work. They don't want to get off of this thing. When you're talking about the generational thing, somebody I know that's a professional speaker talks about how we're living in the thumb generation.

It's now, right? And the thing is, is now they're bringing these boundaries into the workplace. And now humans are starting to hold more healthy boundaries, but we're making the boundaries in our, employment sector flip because in order for employees to keep workers, they need to adapt to the fact that they want to have these on them all day and they want to be recording themselves for TikTok all day or they want to be able to work whenever they want. And now employers in order to get workers to come into the industry, they're not getting the same quality work because people are focused on other things and they're letting their boundary slip in employment to retain a workforce. Oh boy.

It's like a tug of war. So where do we find a healthy balance? Well, employers have to start, even educators, like this thing needs to go into a locker during the classroom. This thing should go into the lunchroom locker. We have to put that down. And when it's work time, we have to focus on work time. And when it's our time, do whatever the heck you want. Yeah.

Yeah. Gosh, this is such, such difficult stuff. I mean, you can, you can see the pathway of like mental health. When this thing got introduced, it was like straight up, right? And it's like, but it's too far gone. And I talk about this when my kids all the time. Like it's just too far gone. It's part of their culture.

And, you know, to rip that out is like it's so painful for them. And so, but I just don't see a great pathway without the reliance and the immediacy and the things that we have with the phone. I just don't see a lot of things being an easy fix with it. no and for somebody who's in schools with educators and students all the time i am actually hearing i'm seeing firsthand how students are behaving differently with teachers teachers are not no longer allowed to hold students accountable because the parents aren't holding the kids accountable you when the teacher says put this away and the student complains next thing you know is the students coming in with their parents and the parents are like well if i have an emergency i need to contact them right but then we also have parents who are

busy working and trying to make ends meet because the cost of living is so high. They don't have time at night to sit with, you know, their kids and help them do homework or help them gain that intelligence, be that support system for them. So now here's the other problem with AI. You know how many projects are being handed in at school now that are done by AI and kids are not learning? I know, I know. You know, we live in a really messed up world and I don't know where we are going to go from here.

And I'm trying to understand every part of it with like nonstop rumination on trying to focus on this subject. But there are a lot of changes that need to happen. And I think the only way we're going to do a reset in this is to go right back to early childhood. Yeah, no doubt. Like, yeah, it's like almost a huge reset button is needed to be pushed. But yeah, I don't know how that's going to work. So, I mean, we talked a little bit about, you know, all these factors. And there's some things that are very pressing.

out of all of these issues and you're out talking to leaders, you're out talking to students, what's the most pressing out of all of these? What's the one that we really need to focus on first? And I want to make the next step. Oh, this is such a difficult subject. And I'm going to use a word that nobody's going to like. But we have a huge, there's a big rise in narcissistic behaviors. And the world is becoming so much more selfish instead of selfless.

And I think that's our. biggest issue right now is we're so focused on me, me, me, me, me, that we're no longer looking out for the greater good of everybody else. And it's become, everybody wants to represent themselves. Everybody wants to be a star. Everybody wants to have a voice. And the other thing is, at this point in time, very few people are willing to put in the work. They think they can all get onto YouTube and social media and become influencers and not. And so we're losing people who are really interested in working hard, working with their hands. I mean, I could just go on and on about this all day, but if we want to change this narcissistic behavior, we're going to have to start

digging deep to do it because the more narcissistic humans become, the less they're going to care about other people and we're going to live in a doggy dog world and it's going to get and I don't want to see that happen. And we need to all band together to change that. Yeah, it's going to start, you know, I look a lot of parents, you know, it starts at that young age and setting those boundaries and not letting your kids kind of rule. And that's kind of how it's been of late. And, you know, that's a tough, that's a tough one, right? How does that shift?

And maybe it's slow. And that would be fine. But right now it just doesn't seem to be the right trajectory. And yeah, it's really tough because you're talking about industries like construction that, when somebody calls a plumber and they're three weeks out to figure. your toilets, things are going to start to be alarming at some point. And we've had that in some industries where it's like the youths don't have the workers. It's going to get to that point, I feel. And then what's going to happen? Oh, now we just need to flood it with construction

workers that aren't very good, probably. It's just I don't know what the answer is, but I sit and think about it often, just like you do. It's going to have to come from the top down, though. We even, even government systems, we live in such a, like, it's all about power and money, right? Like, power and money, and money, and then you get these dictatorships. And it's just, we need changes from the top and we can't make any changes at the top if our leaders at the top are the people that are, you know, all about this toxic behavior. And they're all about themselves. So in order for that trickles it down, this is, this is multifaceted it because as long as we have that horrible toxic mentality, at the top that that is what trickles down and then they want money and power so the cost of living goes up the

cost of labor goes up the cost of product goes up and i keep i keep seeing them fight for minimum wage to go up and i i just people would understand that the higher minimum wage goes the higher the cost of living goes so you ain't doing anything to fix a problem all you're making the cost of everything else go up and the people who don't have people that are stuck on fixed fixed incomes can't afford to live anymore it's and so everybody just out for themselves to make money and support themselves it's it's crazy this is a this is a subject that's it's it's it's bigger than we can even sure if a way out we need this to be a whole cultural shift from the top down yeah yeah yeah yeah everything's long game right now it seems like and So, you know, the other thing, let's send on the positive.

So you're out talking to a lot of folks. What are some of the positive things you are seeing in the industry that you didn't see when you started? You know what? I'm starting to see that there's a lot of people coming together. I mean, you're always going to have a ying and yin. You're always going to have the good with the bad, no matter what. But the positive changes that I'm seeing are that they are recognizing now that it doesn't matter how we identify or what our preferences are, what religious belief we have, what color. our skin is we all should be judged on our abilities or hired based on our abilities.

And I think the world is starting to see the need for inclusive, diverse cultures and healthy workplaces. And I think that we're starting to slowly have the, maybe our voices aren't as loud yet, but we're starting to get some balance where the people at the bottom are actually starting to use their voices to change and talk about the issues. And because we're bringing them to light, I think we're actually kind of forcing people to change those workplaces and the cultures within them. So I think that's the best thing that's happening right now is that people are finally using their voices. And if I could say about the positive side of social media, that is what we can use it for positive. We can use it for negative. And if we're

using it as a positive thing to raise our voices together to make positive impact changes, then yes. And I see that happening. We just don't have enough voices yet. So I'm encouraging everybody get on board be a voice make the changes yeah awesome so how do people get a hold of you what's the best way to connect with you well you can go right over to made in the trade dot com that is my website and then on social media it's made in the trades anywhere or janey okay awesome well i appreciate what are you doing for the industry i mean we can all talk about it and we can all complain about it all we want but you're the one actually doing something about it and that is very commendable.

That's the type of guess I want on my show because it highlights people are doing something. It's just and it takes one. It takes just like that, that girl that you met. It takes meeting one to make a difference. And you've been doing that. So thank you and keep it up. This is the hill I'm going to die on. And if anybody who knows, I love summoning the top of great big mountains.

And this is my life's mountain. And I ain't stop it until I see more positive changes. Awesome. the fan, keep going. Oh, thank you so much for having me. This is an organization. We need more people with these voices to bring the attention. Yeah.

Thank you for being here. All right. Bye. Thanks again, guys, for showing up at a couple minutes late there. This has been Construction Executives Live. I'm Jeremy Owens. Next subject is going to be about AI. So we're going to get it into that topic of AI and construction.

And that'll be in three weeks. So look for an invite for me on that. Thanks for being here. I see a lot of familiar names and faces, as always, and we will see you next time. Bye. You've been listening to In The Zone and Construction Executives Live with Jeremy Owens. Be sure to subscribe to In The Zone and stay in the know with the best minds in the construction industry. To nominate an innovator or changemaker in the construction industry, connect with your management peers and stay up to date with construction industry news.

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