Building Beyond Boundaries:The Impact of  Women Shaping the Construction Industry

Catie Williams:

Hello everyone and welcome to Women in Construction Week. My name’s Catie Williams and I am a vice president of product development at InEight. I’ve been in the industry for over 15 years and I’m so excited to be here with a wonderful panel of ladies today. And our topic is Building Beyond Boundaries: The Impact of Women Shaping the Industry. A couple housekeeping tips. So the platform is going to have several customization options for you. So you can move windows around, make them bigger, drag the corners. So play around a little bit with the tools. You are automatically muted, just so that you know. And we are recording this, so if you want to watch it later, you absolutely can do that. And if you’re experiencing any issues, feel free to use that chat feature. And then if you have any questions, there’s a Q&A box, so please put those in there.

I will try to incorporate those questions in. Otherwise, we’ll save a little bit of time at the end, but I will try to incorporate those in as we go. We’ll also do some polls during our webinar here, so please engage in those too. We want to know what you’re thinking. So let’s get started. We’ll do a round of introductions. Oh, actually I missed a slide. Sorry about that. Just for anyone not familiar with InEight, we are a cloud software provider that provides integrated solutions. We provide a solution for the end-to-end life cycle of a construction project, bringing together cost, scope and schedule. So if you want any more information about that, feel free to reach out to us. You can visit our website or reach out to us as well through that chat function. I think we’re ready to kick it off for some introductions. All right, let’s go ahead and we’ll start with you Tracy. Do you want to introduce yourself?

Tracy Black:

Sure. Hi, I am Tracy Black. I’m the CFO for Interflow. Interflow is a construction company pipeline infrastructure. It’s got about 650 people in it. 13% I think are women. I’ve been here in the construction industry for about 18 months, but prior to that, worked across multinationals within manufacturing, tech and very male-dominated industries wherever I’ve been. I’m a CPA, an MBA, and I recently graduated from the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Catie Williams:

Awesome. Congratulations and looking forward to all of your insight from your experience. Josie, do you want to introduce yourself?

Josie FitzGerald:

I’m Josie FitzGerald. I’m the general manager of land and water for Aurecon in New Zealand. We are an organization that does engineering, design and advisory services in the infrastructure sector. I’ve been in the industry around about 28 years. I started my career as a land surveyor spending many days out on sites, both greenfield and construction sites. I actually had a passion for high-rise building set out for some reason. I think I love the accuracy required. I’ve always worked in the infrastructure sector and particularly in residential land development, the defense sector and the built environment market. In my time with the organization, I’ve had many roles in my career, so technical, people, and team and project leadership, business development, client relationship, leadership, so forth. I’m an owner in Aurecon and one of Aurecon’s top 50 leaders. And like I said, I’m now general manager of our land and water business, which has got around about 200 people across New Zealand and into Manila.

Just a little bit about me, I think, I’ve got three teenage girls and I’m a full-time working parent. I think a couple of projects really stand out to me and I think this shapes who I am, but I worked on the survey definition of the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea and experienced the lives and landscapes of rural Africa. As well I led our global environment and planning team for a time which included Africa, Australia and New Zealand. And I think what I learned about this was that I’ve got a hunger for change. I like broadening my horizons and traveling and meeting new people. Finally, I’m a passionate advocate for females, the infrastructure sector, and that’s why I’m here today. Be it engineers, surveyors, architects, advisors, constructors. I think diversity is critical in the design and delivery of infrastructure and both for our homes, our cities, our places of work and our environments.

I’m the chair of The Diversity Agenda here in New Zealand, which is an organization set up by industry to drive diversity into the engineering and architecture professions for better outcomes for all. So I’m really excited to be here today to share my experiences and insights with you all. Thanks Catie.

Catie Williams:

Yeah, Josie, that was a fantastic intro and I think especially talking about your personal… Thank you for sharing that and I think that a lot of our listeners will be really interested to hear about… I don’t love the word balance, but how you’ve integrated your working life, your professional life and your personal life. So I’m really looking forward to getting into that. Thank you. Jillian, will you introduce yourself, please?

Jillian Formentin:

I will. Hi. Hello everybody. I’m thrilled to be here. So my name’s Jillian Formentin and I’m a chartered mechanical engineer. I’m also chartered in engineering leadership and management. And I am talking to you from Western Australia today in the middle of Perth. I work for Clough. Clough is a national engineering and construction company. We’ve been recently acquired by the WeBuild group, so we’re going some really exciting times and now have got a reach into all corners of the planet, which is really great. Well, I graduated over 32 years ago now, which that seems like a really big number. And I’ve worked in a number of different parts of industry. I started in Tasmania, I grew up in southern Tasmania and began my career in earnest in the gas industry. Like every good young engineer in the gas industry, Perth is the place to be. I only intended to stay here for five years, but that was 27 years ago.

And I met the man in my dreams who came along with four daughters. So I am the stepmother of four of the most incredible women I know and I’m also a grandmother of five young boys, so… Oh, one’s a young man and then four young boys. So I’m also a huge advocate for women pursuing whatever their heart yearns for and I’ve been actively working on helping remove barriers to STEM careers for women my whole career. One of the questions I’m often asked is, “Wow, engineering and you’re a woman, how did that happen?” So I’ve created a whole lot of answers to that question over the years, but it’s also helped me inquire into, well, why would we not want to be an incredible career like this? And I’m committed that people have a whole range of choices and one of the platforms I use for that is Engineers Australia. I’m a big voluntary leader of Engineers Australia here in Western Australia, but also on the National Congress for the last couple of years. So yeah, very happy to be here today and I’m really looking forward to inquiring about this important topic.

Catie Williams:

Yeah, that was all great. Thank you so much everyone for your very good, nice thorough introductions. That’s fantastic. So we’re going to try, we have a few themes that we want to hit on. I think when we were preparing for the webinar, a topic we talked about was just in general these career chapters or how you move through these phases in your career. And so I think my first question to all of you is what are some of the key milestones in your career that got you to where you are today? I think Tracy in the role that you are and the executive role that you’re in, and how did being a woman impact that? How did that influence it? Was that ever a deterior role or was it a challenge? Did you feel like being a woman held you back?

And I think maybe if we start on some of that, the path to your current role and the path to your success and how has that shaped your journey and your career chapter, I think is a great place to start. And I don’t know, Tracy, I called you out specifically, which wasn’t very fair, but if you want to go first-

Tracy Black:

Yeah. All right, let me have a go because these guys are really eloquent. They’ll be able to mop up any disaster that I start with. But I think when I reflect back the younger years, I think it was male-female agnostic. But what I have noticed is once you do get to the more senior positions, that’s when you really start to know and notice some of the challenges that I think we as women all face. In terms of my career path, I’ve always been laser-focused on being an accountant, being a CFO. So in some ways I feel like I’ve just cheated because that’s a goal to go for, it’s really clear and how do you get there? You just keep going after your boss’s job. That’s essentially how I thought I would go. But I would say that one of the key things that I did through this period was… Because I actually left school when I was 16.

So getting all of the qualifications and the education that I have probably over a 20-year period as a mature-aged student and after hours and as a mother of two children, that’s really where a lot of my extra energy went through my career. And I’ve been a CFO now probably for the last six or seven years and just worked my way up in that way.

Catie Williams:

I don’t know. Let’s see. Jillian, I think you’re off mute, so I don’t know, do you want to chime in there?

Jillian Formentin:

No, I can definitely. Like I said, it’s a really, really great question. I’ve had a number of career chapters and every one of them has been building towards creating… I think how I look at it it’s like the biggest set of choices to make the biggest difference I can. So I’ve always hated that question, where do you want to be in 10 years? Or where do you want to be in five years? But I do set very clear intentions for the kind of difference that I want to make. And sometimes I go, “Well, which industry do I want to be in?” Or, “Who are the kind of people that I want to work with?” Or, “What are the kind of problems I want to solve?” And as an engineer, I mean, I’m an engineering director with Clough, which has been an extraordinary opportunity to work with a company going through massive changes. We went through some fairly difficult times like many companies have in the construction industry.

And then to be acquired by a company that’s quite different from Clough, although we have worked alongside WeBuild for a long time, the opportunity to work with people and create some ease in those interfaces. And when I look back at my career, that’s often the kind of role that I’ve been in. I’ve been in projects that are bringing people together to do really great things. In terms of the journey I’m on, again, I’m looking for where I can make the biggest difference, but also looking for the kinds of ways that I can maybe make a unique difference so that I can continue to promote myself and where I can move forward in my career.

Catie Williams:

Do you think that women struggle to see themselves or set those goals or some of the career progression for themselves in this industry? And I know we do want to do a poll that’s around this topic, but do you think that… And I think we can go ahead and put out the poll and then we can keep talking about it. Tracy, you said you knew you wanted to be a CFO, but do you also feel that sometimes maybe there’s a lack of the representation or if you don’t see someone in those roles that then you’re not even setting your sights on those sometimes some of the roles or have trouble coming up with a career path or plan? I could be speculating but I’m just curious.

Tracy Black:

Yeah. Look, I think not having those female representations at the top level it’s definitely been difficult to… What’s that saying? That you can’t be what you can’t see. And I really actually do think it’s so important and we’ll probably touch on quotas and things later, but having that representation, that female representation at the top, I think it’s critical.

Jillian Formentin:

I just don’t think too that the-

Josie FitzGerald:

I can add-

Jillian Formentin:

Sorry. I’ll just keep going. One of the things I just thought of then, Tracy, was as human beings, we make really good risk managers. We’re always looking at what are the risks and is it safe for me? And I think having senior women that we can see that can help guide the way, can reduce that experience of it feeling like it’s too risky. Because we make big decisions when we choose our next career step and we want to win, certainly don’t want to fail. And if we’re too concerned about that or we don’t see that we’ve got something guiding us forward or someone or people that we can see that have succeeded before us, it can make it harder.

Catie Williams:

Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Josie, you were going to jump in there too.

Josie FitzGerald:

Yeah, I was just going to… My own experience when I first started out, there was very few senior females in my world around me, which was probably my local office at the time, 28 years ago when the rest of the world wasn’t quite as visible as those around you. So I didn’t see and I couldn’t see how I could progress forward and I think I just spent that time learning my technical trade and getting better and doing the things around me that everyone else was doing. But over the years, there are a lot of senior females in my organization both here in New Zealand and in Australia. And I notice now we’ve got a New Zealand managing director who’s female and it’s made a huge difference to me and even my own confidence and I can see myself… All of a sudden I was like, “Maybe I could aspire to that role now.” Whereas before I just thought I hadn’t really thought about it. So I honestly think it does make a difference to you can be what you can see. To your point, Tracy.

Catie Williams:

And maybe to elaborate on the question, does it also matter to have women peers? So not just in the leadership roles, because I do think that, like you said, that is definitely very important. But what about also who you’re working with and who you’re collaborating with? I mean, how often are you all the only woman in the room?

Josie FitzGerald:

We’ve just, and as part of The Diversity Agenda here in New Zealand celebrated, a project where the national Archives building in Wellington where all of the senior people on the project were females. And it was like, this has never happened before. And it was really noteworthy. We actually had a presentation and a discussion about it and they all talked about the close collaboration, the relationships that they built on the project and the client was sharing in the success and saying that it actually was really a successful project because of the open collaboration that went on. So not saying that doesn’t happen elsewhere, but in that example it was definitely obvious and valued.

Catie Williams:

That’s neat too.

Jillian Formentin:

And we are doing pretty well at Clough. Just reflecting on what it’s been like over the last 32 years, it’s changed. Early on, you can imagine too, down in Southern Tasmania 32 years ago it was really quite an anomaly to have a young woman on the engineering teams and I felt like a little bit of a freak sometimes. It certainly has improved over the years. And here at Clough we’ve certainly got a huge commitment to gender equity at Clough and we’ve been really successful. We’ve got about 20% of our engineering professionals are women. Now that’s certainly concentrated at the younger end of the scale and we have less senior women, but you’d expect that as well. But it’s actually rare now for me to be in a meeting with no women. I’m just thinking it’s certainly changed a lot over the last years and it does make a massive difference that there are more perspectives available. I notice I don’t have to be as careful, I don’t edit my thinking as much, I don’t have to test the water before I speak as much as I used to. So I think that’s really good.

Catie Williams:

And I don’t know, Tracy, if you wanted to say something. I really quick wanted to get our other poll up because we’re asking specifically if there are women representation in leadership. But just to touch really fast on the poll that we had asked, Tracy, you actually are the one that said when we were prepping that you look at the makeup of an organization before going to it and for me that was really eye opening. And I mean, I haven’t changed jobs in a long time, so I hadn’t really considered it. But I think for anyone on the call, I think how important to hear that this is something that women are considering and if you’re someone looking to retain or attract talent, knowing how important that decision is and that we’ve put the results up here. But I do want Tracy to be able to give her thoughts. But it does look like it could potentially be something that somebody has considered. Obviously there’s other factors. That’s the results from the poll.

But it’s definitely something that women are thinking about is, who’s working there? Am I going to be represented? And so thank you for everyone for participating in the poll. And Tracy, I don’t know if you wanted to share any more thoughts, but we also will do another poll too if you want to participate in that one.

Tracy Black:

All I would say is absolutely and probably for the last 10 years have… I probably had about 10 jobs in my career and definitely the last couple I would go on and look at every company and see who their executive team are. Actually, any company I deal with now even I look at that because… And it’s very judgmental and probably not very generous of me, but I make a judgment when I see that and I… Going into a new company, I think, “Yeah, I know what this place is going to be like if they don’t have women at those executive levels or if they’re not highlighting.” And it’s real. It’s real. If there are women in these roles, it’s a different culture. I’m not saying that I don’t take the jobs when there isn’t, but I have to say that I certainly am judgmental as I go into it.

Jillian Formentin:

Yeah. A question I ask myself is-

Catie Williams:

Go on, Jillian.

Jillian Formentin:

Sorry, Catie. Yeah, a question I ask myself is, will my voice be heard here? Or how hard will it be to be able to make the difference I want to make? When I speak up, are there going to be people listening? I mean, that can be the case even if there are senior women in the business depending on… So you want to do your research and even if you can, meet people or read things about them because it’s your ability to be heard, that’s going to make the difference. So we’ve got some terrific men in our business, the best. And some of them have really oriented their careers to make a difference in this particular area. And they’re doing the work to make sure that they are listening and they get coaching and they work with people that can help them make that available.

So yeah, I wouldn’t urge people to just look and then go, look, “There’s not enough long hair in that picture.” Because you’ve got to be smart about it. But yeah, if you can see that there are women being successful though and are elevating to those higher roles, then that’s a pretty good signal that you are more likely to get heard in that organization.

Tracy Black:

And I would say I took this job and there was no women in the role, but there was an appetite for change, there were values, there was a growth trajectory, there was a young MD. And now we talk about, “Oh, is this role available? Were there any women that applied for an exec role?” So we have two women in the exec team out of seven, which actually isn’t too bad for such a very male-dominated industry.

Catie Williams:

Josie, I don’t know if you wanted to add on anything to that before we moved on.

Josie FitzGerald:

No, I think just going back to your earlier question though, which ties us all together for me around those different chapters in your career. I’ve read a really good book recently by Ginni Rometty, who could get Good Power. She talked about it as me, we and us. And that was really just about me. I spent the first part of my career really, like I said, honing my craft and everything was about me and advancing myself. And then I went into this really tricky chapter, which is about we, and that’s I’m in a leadership position in a business, I became an owner, I started a family and all of this stuff and probably got a first mortgage. So everything. It happens at the same time, right? And it’s a really, really tricky part of your life. I thought I could do everything and I did, but I ended up doing a lot of stuff without… A lot of stuff, probably not very well. It probably was okay, let’s be honest, but to my own high standards.

So I ended up having to peer back a few things and actually go, “I’m going to put that on hold. I’m not going to take that leadership role. I’m just going to focus on being a good project leader or client person and look after my kids for a bit and that sort of stuff.” So I suppose I just want to acknowledge a lot of people are in that. That’s quite a long stage of your career, right? And we go through that for quite a long time. I think I’m coming out the other side with teenage girls. They look after themselves a little bit. But then that’s when you get into that us thing. And for me, The Diversity Agenda here in New Zealand is one of those things where I think I’m trying to change industry now. I want us to do better. So yes, I’m in my organization and trying to do more there, but it’s coming to that point where I want to spread my wings more and look and help to try and uplift the whole of industry.

So I just thought it was neat, that thing around chapters, which I think Jillian, you started off talking about and just compartmentalizing it like that and acknowledging that they’re all quite different and we’ll all be at different stages.

Catie Williams:

Yeah, I don’t know the most eloquent way to say it and I know that we’re going to talk a little bit about the balance of… Balance, integration, whatever the right word is with family. The alignment as a woman of your professional and personal, right? Because you go through those stages of having kids, right? I mean, the challenge that your coworkers and your bosses assume that you will have if you decide you want to have a family and how that… Also, the timing just doesn’t necessarily always work out with where you’re likely at from a career perspective. And again, we can dive into that a little bit more later, but how you’re saying in this book, I mean, it’s like these chapters also fall necessarily always at the great time when your personal life… Right? Chapters. Right? I feel like that’s what you’re saying too, right?

It’s like you’re right in the thick of very difficult things of proving yourself at work, but also personally too. And I mean, I think we talked a little bit about it when we were prepping and for women sometimes you feel that more because sometimes that burden gets put on women more from taking care of children perspective and all that. And we can dive into it more now or we can… I know I didn’t share the results of the polls, so I don’t know if anyone has strong thoughts before I share those results. But otherwise I do think that wraps up our career chapter as well.

Okay, so it does look like everyone that’s attending, we have some good representation from women on the executive leadership team, which is fantastic. That’s great. I had seen a recent stat too that said… I think it was for the US. I tried to look for something globally, that said that women’s representation in construction and the executive leadership was up to 40% and it previously had been closer to that 10 to 12, which is also good news. So I do think things are moving in the right direction. But maybe to tee up to the targets conversation we had, is creating gender targets a good way to continue to get that representation to get to a good place where we’re seeing a better balance? What are your thoughts on having targets around gender? I think we have another poll-

Josie FitzGerald:

I-

Catie Williams:

Question too. Sorry Josie, I didn’t mean to cut you off there, but…

Josie FitzGerald:

That’s all right. While the poll goes up, I can share some insights. I mean, we first started looking at this at Aurecon around about 20 years ago. It was before I had my children. And way back then we were seeing that females were dropping out of the industry at what we call a level five, six kind of level, which is probably about 10, 12 years into your career. Whereas for men, it was about five or so years later where it started to dip away. And so yeah, 20 years ago we started to look at this and look at what we could do and set up women’s initiatives and different things. And then 20 years later we’re still talking about it and we thought it would happen. And I’ve actually seen some data around this and I think it’s closing the gender pay gap. 256 years to close the gender pay gap at the rate we’re going, right? So I think without targets, you actually will get there, but it’s going to take us 256 years.

So what we’ve done in our own organization and with Aurecon and then with The Diversity Agenda we’re talking about it as well, is putting targets in place. So not necessarily quotas. Well, they’re not quotas. They’re targets to help guide people and say, “This is our expectation. We’re currently at 33% at this level of females and we’d like to get to 38% this year and 41…” So the achievable aspirate, but they’re also aspirational and ultimately they’ll get us to where we’d like to be, which is a representation of the community. So I 100% stand behind targets. I think they’re absolute necessity because we won’t get there without them.

Jillian Formentin:

Yeah, I could add to that too because I agree completely that we need to have the numbers in front of us. And this is the way I think about it. I like a good sporting analogy. Imagine watching… I don’t know. I love watching Australian rules football. It’s a great sport, right? But imagine how boring all that kicking and running and hand-balling and even… All of that would be if there wasn’t a scorecard. The scorecard gives us the game to play. And in those moments where we have the opportunity to make a decision to go one way or another, if we’ve got a clear communicated scorecard, we can show up where maybe we’ve got weaknesses. Otherwise, you think about at the end of the football game that all get in the locker room, they go, “How was the game?” “Oh, we had fun.” But there’s actually no idea about what actually happened. And what happens in a football game, the thing that matters is the score.

So I don’t know if it’s a particularly good analogy, but it gives me some freedom about it because quotas seem hard. It almost sounds like it’s unfair. We’re going to give people opportunities who don’t deserve it. And all of that world comes up when we think of quotas. But in the world of a scorecard, it gives us the game to play that’s going to keep us going in the direction that we all say is the better one, which is diverse teams with big different perspectives, equity for all, choice for everybody, that all the things that we know is not only good for people, it’s good for business and it gives us that game to play.

Catie Williams:

I love that. I think that [inaudible 00:30:01] a great way to put it, a great example.

Tracy Black:

If I could just talk about it too, because I think quotas are essential. Quotas, targets, whatever we want to call it. Because it isn’t an even playing field. The jobs that I could go for with my professional qualifications and my diverse experience, I could be in an interview with several other men and when they process it as, “Who are we going to choose? These people are all equal.” And then they picture me sitting in the boardroom table with them or the men. I do think that the final decision often is an emotive one rather than a perfectly data-driven or without that sort of bias. It may sound that I’m being bitter, but I honestly think without the quota, there is no reason to say, “Okay, well let’s start to build this more female representation.” And also feel grateful in this industry that we’re in too because the…

I don’t know about all of you, but certainly the water authorities that we work with in Interflow and all the government agencies, they have criteria that we have to report on. It’s part of our tender processes. So they’re also helping to drive this change. And I think that it’s important and I’m really happy about that.

Josie FitzGerald:

I think another point, interestingly, you’ve got past legislation where… I don’t know exactly, but the gender pay gap reporting, right? Is now coming out. And what you’ll see with that is that whilst you may have pay equity in like-for-like roles and that could be spot on and there’s no pay equity gap. The gender pay gap is significantly swayed when there’s more men in more senior positions in an organization. And you’ll see that that sways it quite significantly. And I know in our organization it’s showing up. Until you get more females at an equal number or similar number, your pay gap is always going to be apart. And now that that’s been reported publicly, I think targets are only going to go one way to help towards closing that pay gap, which is now published.

Catie Williams:

That was really good. Thank you. Okay, so we’re going to switch gears just a little bit. We did get a couple questions, so I’m going to try to incorporate those in. I think maybe moving to the more of the work-life balance I think would be good. I liked this quote from a woman named Jennifer Todd, she’s a founder and president of a contracting company, which she said, “The biggest challenge of being a woman in construction is the constant reminder that you are a woman in construction.” And I thought that was perfect. So I’m curious because I think this will relate to a question we were asked too. What has been the most challenging part about being a woman in the industry and is there anything you can think of that would change that?

Josie FitzGerald:

I think one of the most challenging things for me-

Jillian Formentin:

You go, Josie.

Josie FitzGerald:

Jillian, sorry about that. One of the most challenging things is the assumptions that people make on your behalf as a female. And I can remember this happening to me when I wasn’t even a parent and my boss at the time just decided that I wasn’t going to be able to be a team leader because I would leave and have babies. I found out from a colleague and I thought that was wildly unfair. One, because I did want children, but I didn’t know if I could have children. It turns out it was quite hard to have kids. Who knew that? But the fact that actually I didn’t know if I was going to take time off or… No, I mean, who knew. So I confronted this person and they were like, “Oh.” Then they had admitted they’d put their own experience with their wife who left work and took time out to raise their family into their thinking around what I would do. I mean, that still happens. I mean, maybe not to that same extent, I hope.

But people make assumptions that maybe someone won’t want to travel because they’ve got a young family or whatever, without actually involving others in the conversation. So I think it’s really, really important if you ever see that to call it out because that’s unfair. People should be able to have the same opportunities no matter who they are, what they are and what their life experiences are because who knows? They may want to get out of that situation that they’re in and that would be a great example. And just the other thing I wanted to add into this around the work-life balance, I think the most positive impact I’ve seen in my time is the change in policies which are now becoming equally open to all parents, whether they’re male, female or non-gender, to be able to take time off to look after young families.

I think that’s one of the key things that’s leveled the playing field in terms of promotion because more and more men and non-females are taking time out of the workplace to raise families, whereas previously it was females. So it was impacting us more and more in our career progression than others. So I think those two things are what I’ve seen and then one’s negative and one’s positive.

Catie Williams:

I think that’s great and I want to give Jillian and Tracy both an opportunity to answer as well. And another question that came in, and maybe you could answer this as you answer too, was how do you handle the promise of work-life balance but then the demand and expectation to work extra hours and work overtime and being a single parent? From this industry’s perspective, how do you think that that can be addressed? I mean, I know I hear from fellow peers and things like that, that it still very much feels like an industry that supports the one single working person household versus the makeup that we have today, which is not that. So I’m curious if you have any other thoughts and could maybe address that part of the question too.

Jillian Formentin:

Yeah, I’ve got a few thoughts about that because certainly something that I’ve had to deal with throughout my career. You can imagine with an instant family of stepchildren and… Stepteens, they were at the time. So this is my advice, if you are going to be someone in life who puts their hands up and says, “Hey, count me in. I want to make a difference. I want to be counted on. I want to produce results. I want to live the biggest life I can.” Right? I imagine most of the people on this call are probably said words a little bit like that at some point. The first thing you want to be really working on is you want to really develop the relationship with your word, your promises, what you actually say that you’re going to do. And look, there’s not an easy journey. I’ve had lots of coaching and mentoring and… To make this difference is when you say that you’re going to do something, it’s not to run yourself completely ragged, keeping all your promises. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying develop yourself as someone who can honor your word.

You’re going to break promises, right? If you have your attention on your relationships and making sure you’re keeping those relationships clean, that is the best foundation for everything. And I’m also not saying you got to be friends with everyone, that will also wear you out. When I say relationship, I don’t mean being friendly necessarily or that it can include that. It’s, what is the relationship for? Who am I in the relationship? Who is that person in the relationship? What are we out to accomplish together? And work on that. So if you are faced with conflicting challenges, which you will… If you are someone who’s up to making a big difference, you’re going to have so many competing and conflicting commitments all the time. It will keep you sane and also keep your reputation and also keep you well if you can develop a really good relationship to what you say you’re going to do.

And then when things maybe go a bit off, get in communication, say what you are going to do or by when the timeline’s going to slip by, what you can do, what you can’t do, what you’re willing to do, what you’re not willing to do and keep that dialogue going. It does take coaching and training. Find people who you admire that do that well and buy them lots of cups of coffee and have them share with you how they do that and how they honor those relationships in a way that keeps things going in the right direction.

Catie Williams:

I love that. I mean, building that foundation of credibility, that’s such a good piece of advice. That’s fantastic. Before I move to the next question, I don’t know, Josie, did you… Or Tracy, were you going to throw something else in there? You look like-

Tracy Black:

I just wanted to say, wow, Jillian, that was inspirational. All I was going to say was part of this will become less difficult when we have more women in the senior leadership positions. Thank heavens for Covid and the technical revolution that that brought about, because before that all the organizations I worked in never thought that you could work from home. So bravo for that. But yeah, women in leadership. I know I’ve got a full finance team here of women and one man, and they have young children and just my empathy and my understanding of their situation, I know that they’re supremely grateful for. Will there be overtime? Am I demanding? Do I want things? Yes, but work-life balance I don’t think means you don’t do any overtime. I think work-life balance it’s about that flexibility because I used to work with the US, so I’d be online at 10 o’clock at night. That would be awesome actually because my kids had finally gone to bed at that point, but I would leave work earlier.

It’s actually just making sure that you take on what you think is important. And you can’t do it all and don’t do it all, and don’t sign up for it all. Exactly as Jillian said.

Josie FitzGerald:

I think-

Catie Williams:

Yeah, that’s great.

Josie FitzGerald:

Another thing just to add it to that. I haven’t got any really wise words, but I think one of the things that you need to do, and we’re probably all guilty of it, is actually making space for yourself because you end up working and looking after your family and all those things and I think you always end up last, right? I’ve learnt that, but it’s taken me a long time. So make sure you have the discipline to set aside a little bit of time for yourself. You need to look after yourself in all of this.

Tracy Black:

And you’re worth it. That’s what I would always say. “I’m worth it. This is about me.”

Catie Williams:

Oh, and-

Jillian Formentin:

And if you ever noticed too that the most difficult promises to keep are the ones you make to yourself. I’ll say that I’m 99% reliable for anything in my diary that involves another human being. The things that are just me, not so reliable. So that’s something I’m really continuing to work on and that’s often that self-care, making sure we’ve got time to do the things that matter. So yeah, that’s a really good point.

Catie Williams:

And you’re not very good at your job probably if you’re not taking care of yourself, right? I mean, how you’re showing up definitely will be reflective of that. Another good question that came in is, when you’ve been working or getting promoted or moving to the next role, how impactful has another woman been in your journey? And that does go into our mentoring that we wanted to hit on, but I’m starting to get a little worried about our time. So if mentoring can weave into that a little bit, if that makes sense. Did another woman impact you at all on your journey or was it a man? Or who along the way helped encourage you? Maybe talk a little bit about that too.

Jillian Formentin:

I have been a mentor for a very long time and I’ve been a mentee as well. And I think this first thing, I just want to make sure I get this in here somewhere. Being a mentor, I can’t say that more, it doesn’t matter how young you are, there are people who need your leadership and your guidance. And I think I’ve probably got more out of mentoring than I have being a mentee because if my mentee asks something or needs some guidance, as a matter of my honour, I will go and find out or will deal with that for myself. I think that that can be really, really good. And then also help can come in all sorts of strange ways. In fact, hindrance can come in strange ways as well. Within an organization particularly find people whose success counts on you being successful. So if you are successful, then they’ll be successful. And then again, it’s creating that relationship so that you can really help them see how at stake they are in your success. And it sounds a bit manipulative, right? But it’s actually just pure physics.

If you’re in a role where your results will produce results for that other person, they’re going to be not only a help to you, but they’re going to bring resources, they’re going to recommend development and training, they’re going to introduce you to people and also you’ll become one of those people who is known for producing success around them. So I think that can be a really useful way to look at it because not in this on your own. Unless you are sitting on an island and you really are just producing results in your own little company and you don’t have clients. So that’s obviously not going to work, right? You’re part of a big organism and everyone wants to be successful. So yeah, find those relationships and those people who may be a bit more senior to who will do better if you’re doing better. And then make big requests of them for help.

Catie Williams:

That’s great.

Josie FitzGerald:

Yeah. I can add to that. I think, like I said, initially my world around me, there wasn’t many senior females and I think my first… I actually did get a mentor out of one of our Australian parts of the business and she was probably about 10 years older than me and was someone that was going through different life stages, but she was really great at helping to share the challenges she had faced before me and how she overcame them. So she was probably my first mentor. But since then I’ve had male and female mentors. And I think female mentors or people around you are great because they typically have… Not always, but typically have gone through similar experiences in around life and family that you… And dealing with that from a female perspective. I’m not saying there’s not lots of great dads out there, I suppose it’s just that kind of perspective and angle.

And so I’ve found that really valuable and I would recommend anybody at that stage of their life and in fact any stage of their life, having a female mentor to share those experiences. But the other thing I think around mentors, and I know I’m moving into that now, Catie, but finding someone that you can have a rapport with and I think… What’s been good for me and help me with my own leadership progression is having someone in a position of leadership that could help pull me up. Jillian, you talked about this before, they’re like a sponsor. They can talk on your behalf when you are not there. They’re advocating for you. They’re sharing information to you that helps you to navigate your own way. So I think all diverse mentors are really, really useful and for different reasons. And it’s actually good to have obviously more than one at any one time throughout your career and sometimes more than one at once. I’m forever grateful for the wisdom that they’ve all imparted to me. So yes, definitely mentors, I’m a huge fan. And I’m a mentor myself. Yes, Jillian, I am.

Catie Williams:

Tracy, anything to add before we move on to the next question or…

Tracy Black:

All I would say is I’ve never had a formal mentor, but I’ve always looked up to people, male and female, and taken what resonated with me from them. I did have two amazing female CFOs throughout my career. And just emulating them, getting their advice, talking to them outside of just day-to-day work I think is invaluable. I actually think networking and things like this, actually meeting other women maybe at your same level or whatever is also a really great opportunity. And if you get those opportunities, dive into them because that’s when you really work out where the opportunities are and how many great women there are out there.

Catie Williams:

Yeah, I think that’s a great point. And I think sometimes society has a way of trying to almost pit women against each other and so doing everything to not fall into that, the competitive atmosphere sometimes and really banding together, I think, as much as possible, I think is also really good.

Tracy Black:

Yeah. I have never experienced that negative women thing about women [inaudible 00:49:02]… I have never experienced that. I’m sure lots of people have, but I don’t know if that’s a myth or… I’d like to call that out with Mythbusters because I’m not sure. I want to see where that exists. I’ve been working for a long time and I actually haven’t experienced that.

Catie Williams:

Yeah, I think that’s great that you haven’t.

Jillian Formentin:

I think there are a-

Josie FitzGerald:

I too-

Jillian Formentin:

Few out there, I guess that’s…

Catie Williams:

I definitely have, unfortunately. And I know I personally got caught in the trap of feeding into it more. And then another woman gave me the feedback of, “Don’t be that woman. Don’t be that woman.” It was like, “Oh my gosh, way to call me out and I’m glad you called me out.” And it changed a lot of things for me. But very immature. I was just very immature.

Jillian Formentin:

I think that’s very true. No, but I think we’ve all got it within us to be that woman and I guess my guidance to people who maybe have either found themselves like, “Oh my gosh, I’m not being the way that I want to be.” Or maybe they’ve had some interactions that haven’t gone really well. I think there’s just to remember that most of us sometimes we’ll interact from fear. People will respond badly or will be bad with you or might bring that up in yourself when we’re scared of something. So the more that you can articulate what the fear is, it might be fear of being minimized or fear of missing an opportunity or it’s usually just fear of looking bad for some reason, I think we’ve all got it within us to get the fingernails out or whatever our version of that would be. But yeah, it’s good. And surround yourself by people that will call you out. Catie, that was a really good example. You had someone who said, “Hey, don’t be that woman. Don’t be that girl.”

It’s another really important part of my career has been I’ve deliberately surrounded myself with people who will call me out, who will listen to me bigger than I’m ever, ever listened to myself. I said the other day now, when we got together, we’re often a really unreliable witness for what’s possible for us, but also what reality is. So surround yourself with people who will tell you how it is and give you guidance and have that honest and authentic interchange with you to keep reality.

Catie Williams:

Yeah, great. I think we have one last poll that we are putting out there and maybe for you ladies, if you have any thoughts on retaining women in the workforce. So what are some things that organizations should be doing to keep women interested in the industry? And I think it could also be to interest them to begin with, how do we encourage more women to enter the industry and then also to stay? So I don’t know if there’s any thoughts about that. And we are a little short on time, so we might keep this one a little short. That way we can get to our last question.

Tracy Black:

I got a really simple way. This organization has started thinking about retaining women in the workforce and it’s to get more women in. I heard in one of our executive meetings talking about just you get that first woman in the team and then the rest will come and they will stay. I think it’s all about numbers.

Catie Williams:

When you say that, do you also mean the cultural impact that that woman then has? Or you just mean because she’s there and representing that’s going to start the change?

Tracy Black:

Yeah. And usually they talk well about the company. Of course you have to have the right structures in place, but no women… You don’t want to be the pioneer, right? Because what it looks like if you’re the only woman in that team or that crew or that office or that project team. It’s obvious. So get more women in.

Catie Williams:

Yeah.

Jillian Formentin:

Yeah, and I would add to that too, Tracy. Bring them in and make sure that they are in roles where they can make decisions. I’ve seen a few times where we’ve had maybe some great women, but they’re not part of decision making and that’s not great. That’s worse. That would be worse than not having her there, right? So-

Tracy Black:

Yeah.

Jillian Formentin:

I think we all want to be mindful of that. We want to have our women be part of the fabric of the business, don’t have them as add-ons. That could be a bit of a trap. Statistics can look good, but if they’re not in there sharing their perspectives, actually guiding the business in the ways that work for everybody, then it can be detrimental. So yeah, I’d add that.

Josie FitzGerald:

And I think-

Catie Williams:

Like answering a survey and never seeing any results from the feedback you provided. Go ahead, Josie.

Josie FitzGerald:

Another thing, sorry to talk over you then, is the, I think providing leadership coaching development either within your organization, if your organization’s large enough and if it’s not, there are some great programs out there available for women through industry bodies and so forth. So I do think that’s quite important to specifically draw out leadership abilities and really hone in on some of those attributes which might’ve traditionally been seen as male. Like commercial tough negotiations and all that hard conversations and the commercial understanding and bringing. We’re trying this program, we’re bringing a plus one along. So bringing a female into a conversation, which you might not normally… For things like that just to get them to upskill and learn and just to build out that rounded leadership skills that might be needed and senior positions in an organization.

Catie Williams:

Yeah, that’s all great. Okay, so we are down to our last question and I wanted to ask, so what advice do you have for women that are in the industry? Maybe what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever given? Or when you think back and reflect over your career, what’s something that really stands out to you? You had to just say one piece of advice… I mean, although there’s already been really great pieces of advice throughout this whole thing, but if you had one more, what would it be?

Josie FitzGerald:

I think it would be take the opportunities that are put in front of you. Take as many opportunities as you can without… Fill your cup, learn from others, listen, ask questions. Really be a sponge. I’m here today learning from people and I’m learning a lot. I think we’re always learning. So yeah, key for me is taking opportunities that are put in front of you.

Catie Williams:

Thank you.

Jillian Formentin:

Yeah, I might add to that, Josie, I’d say, “Say yes and then work it out.” Right? People want you to be successful and sometimes, particularly when it feels like they don’t, if you are willing to put your hand up, be counted in and make promises about producing results, then you will have an untold amount of help coming your way. So yeah, I mean, there’s been opportunities in my career that I haven’t necessarily taken because allowed the concern or potential failure or looking bad to get in the way. They’re the bigger regrets than the roles I’ve taken on and they’ve not gone as well as maybe they could. So yeah, be bold, say yes, work it out. If someone has offered you an opportunity, take heed more in what they think of your capability than what your brain might be telling you right now-

Catie Williams:

And that’s great.

Jillian Formentin:

And go for it.

Tracy Black:

And I think to add to that, don’t overthink it and don’t try to overanalyze it. If someone has offered you an opportunity, don’t feel like you need to say all the pros and cons of why you can’t do it. Just say yes, think that you can and don’t be too hard on yourself, I think. And I think learn the business. So of all the things that we could do, I think the bit that we possibly don’t do because we’re learning how to be leaders or how to exude confidence is learn the business. And I think if you learn that, it’s male, female agnostic.

Catie Williams:

Yeah. Well, that’s great. All right. Well, we are out of time. I think I got to most of the questions. I apologize if I did not get to your questions. We really did get right up to the end. Thank you so much for joining the panel, Tracy, Jillian and Josie. It was great. I think we could have kept talking for a long time. I really appreciate your time and thank you everyone for joining. Please go out to InEight.com and you can learn more about our software and the solutions that we provide. And we have additional webinars that you can always join at a later time too. And please give us some feedback about what you thought about the webinar. There should be a survey that comes up on the screen. So thank you so much and enjoy the rest of Women in Construction Week. Bye.

Tracy Black:

Bye everyone.

Josie FitzGerald:

Thanks everyone.

Jillian Formentin:

Bye-bye. Thank you.

Catie Williams:

Bye.