CLF 2023 D1E3 | Collaboration and Construction Buzzwords with Regina Marklund (Turner) & Katy Fairley (BCCA/Fairley Strategies) | EP82 (Part 3)

Day 1 Episode 3 | In this episode, from the conference floor at the VRCA Construction Leadership Forum 2023, James and Christian are joined by Regina Marklund, Construction Manager at Turner Canada and Katy Fairley, Consultant at BCCA and Principal at Fairley Strategies.


EPISODE LINKS:
Regina Marklund LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/regina-marklund-aba04b42/
Turner Construction: https://www.turnerconstruction.com/
Katy Fairley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katy-fairley/
BCCA: https://bccassn.com/

PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH

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Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Welcome to the Site Visit Podcast of Leadership and Perspective from Construction with your hosts, James Falcon and Christian Hans.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Let's get down to it.

SPEAKER_07 1:00

Third interview of the day. We've got smiling faces around the table. We've got Katie Fairley from Fairley Strategies. Kind of assist kind of with BCCSA. BCCA, sorry? All right. And we have Regina Markland from Turner Construction.

SPEAKER_06 1:20

Turner, the small construction company.

SPEAKER_07 1:22

That little one?

SPEAKER_04 1:23

Yeah, we're small. We don't really do much. No. We haven't been around for very long either.

SPEAKER_06 1:27

No, no, yeah, for quite small.

SPEAKER_07 1:28

So before we got going here, uh Regina, you were sharing a bit of a story, kind of your background, but also how you and Katie know each other. Why don't we just start little intros, but then maybe that story as well in yours?

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Yeah, no problem. I uh just wanted to mention, you know, in Katie's previous life when she was working for the general contractors, uh, she worked for a company called Kinetic, and um I was new to Canada um being an American. I came up in 2016. And so networking was really important at that time, especially learning a new market. And so uh Katie and I got to know each other, and you know, we had a few opportunities to collaborate, um, which I know she hates that word, so I had to throw it in there. Yeah, yeah, what's the first C word? Yeah, we're like what's culture.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Culture was the other one that we're gonna do. Oh, that's not what I meant. Culture.

SPEAKER_06 2:12

Oh yeah, I was like, I thought it was COVID.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Oh, see, I'm telling you, the C words are culture.

SPEAKER_06 2:19

Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's move on. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Yeah. Yeah. So she was just instrumental in um helping me learn the market a bit. And um, you know, we kind of lost touch for a little bit, I think, as you moved into your new role in your consulting company. And um, you know, I was doing some different things with Turner, but um, it's neat to come back together and um you know reconnect.

SPEAKER_07 2:39

So very cool.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

Yeah, well, I was just gonna say to that, I mean, I think that like technically we both worked for general contractors, like you know, it's uh we we should have been almost enemies, but I think that that speaks to though like the nature of our business and of construction that it is relationship-based, and that even though like we could have quite easily, you know, again been enemies, you know, it was just an opportunity to like you know meet. Frankly, there's not a ton of women at that level in in the construction industry at the time, even now. And so, yeah, it was just like you know, we had a couple of glasses of wine together, and and yeah, it was just I think really, really positive to be able to connect like that.

SPEAKER_07 3:15

It's really solid collaborative work.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_06 3:18

So uh do tell us why do you hate the word culture so much?

SPEAKER_03 3:22

No, not culture. I hate collaborate.

SPEAKER_06 3:23

I thought you said culture was the first.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

Well, no, that's what I said. Oh, that's what you said.

SPEAKER_06 3:27

Why do you hate that word?

SPEAKER_04 3:28

Well, it's it's a it's a buzzword of you know, what's the right culture? You know, uh the the company, do they have the right culture and you know, staff retention, things like that, you know?

SPEAKER_06 3:38

Like you're kind of sort of sort of like a behavioral panacea kind of description. Yeah, and it's yeah. So like we last podcast we talked about this that we we basically identified like the culture is the net sentiment of a company, and everybody contributes to it, both positive and negative. And you can only like steer it from a leadership point of view. You can't actually make it happen.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's things you can do to foster the right thing. Yeah, exactly. That's the steering that is. I like to call it the right environment. The right environment. The right environment.

SPEAKER_06 4:10

Yeah. So the culture word, um yeah, what's it what's what's it been like for you over the years coming through the ranks and being like consultants, being like, you know, in like how how has that been for you? Um the culture of construction.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, when I started off, I came from um the like the public sector from government. You know, I worked in open safe so far as public service, but uh, and then kind of moving into construction, it was like these are my people. You know, this is this is the attitude, the way you know that I work, the blunt, the straightforwardness, you know, let's have an argument, move on, you know, find that solution, and just get the job done, whatever that might be, be you know, project or pursuit. Um so you know, I I think a lot of that hasn't changed over the you know 15 years almost that I've been in the industry. But um, yeah, I think that there's like this is where I will go off on a tirade about about the other C-word, you know, uh collaboration is because it is, it's a buzzword. And I think so often it's being thrown around from owners where you know collaboration has always existed in our industry. It has, you know, yeah, exactly. I mean it's inherent. Yeah, it takes a team. Yeah, you bring together, you know, dozens of trade contractors, you bring together, you know, a GC that's uh you know coordinating. There's another C-word. Um, you know, like the owners and user groups and the different consultant teams. So we've always collaborated. It's just now owners are expecting us to collaborate while also taking on all of their risks. And and I just really irritates me. And I think from a contractor's standpoint, you can't collaborate if you're not making money. You know, if you're if you don't have a profit at the end of the day, no one's collaborating. And then, you know, and further to that, I appreciate that maybe that owner's PM, the owner's rep, whoever, you know, they want collaboration, they're looking for that, but they're being hamstrung by their contract terms and what's being dictated to them from their lawyers, you know, ultimately. So yeah, it's I think it's this really annoying, you know, buzzword that has otherwise always existed in our industry, you know, regardless of contract, regardless of delivery method.

SPEAKER_04 6:22

So and it's usually the ones that are pushing collaboration where it goes wrong. Yeah, and they're the least forcing it, right? They're forcing something that you know naturally would exist if you create the right environment. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 6:37

So, what is the right environment? And is is Turner fostering the right environment or a great environment? And same question for you too.

SPEAKER_04 6:45

I mean, we certainly strive for that. I think one of the things you heard me say up there on the stage is we really promote active caring, and active caring is at all levels of the job site. So it's not just the general contractor and their relationship with the consultant team and the owner, but it goes down to the actual trade worker and addressing people by their first name and taking a minute to get to know them. If you can see somebody's off, maybe they're having a bad day or there's something going on at home that's impacting their day-to-day work. You know, so how do you give them that space that they feel like they're a part of something that means more than just coming in and clocking in and clocking out, but they want to be there at the end of the day. So one of the current projects that we're on, we have a very large trade area. We have a little over 400 workers on site right now, but we've created a space that they can leave the work site and come down and take a break in a clean space, have lunch, and actually, you know, feel like they've got um clean water to wash their hands, they've got adequate washroom facilities, treated like people, right? And I think that's the biggest thing is that you know, they we're not better than them. We can't do our jobs without them at the end of the day, right? So if we're not giving them a place that they feel like they are part of something, what what are we doing then?

SPEAKER_07 7:59

Okay, something really cool here. I don't know if this is clicking with you. Let's see. Three podcasts ago, we had a gentleman named Daniel Loney from Excelsior Measuring. He shared a story about visiting a job site in Vancouver where there was a common area where trades could gather and have lunch together. And he said it was the happiest place he'd seen on a construction site. And he was talking about Turner Construction.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

That's amazing. I love to hear that. Thank you so much for sharing that.

SPEAKER_07 8:28

That's kind of neat. That was not planned. You literally just started sharing that. I was like, wow, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 8:33

Ding!

SPEAKER_07 8:34

That's neat. Check out that. That's neat. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so yeah, our job's done.

SPEAKER_06 8:41

No, no, no, we're together. Um so when you uh you obviously have to have the the trades that you bring on for the project. Their leadership values have to mash toward that though, obviously.

SPEAKER_04 8:54

Yeah, and you know what, to be honest, we um with the amount of subcontractors we have, we have probably 130 different contracts because we've had to divide multiple scopes up in many different ways. And there have been instances where certain individuals are not fitting that environment and they stick out like a sore thumb. And at the end of the day, we have a zero tolerance policy for any of that harassment behavior, anything that makes somebody else uncomfortable, and those individuals will be asked to leave site. We've had trades that have management that have personality conflicts, they demean our staff, and we've had to have conversations at the leadership level of those specific trade partners and ask that they be removed because they are ruining what the environment is that we're trying to create so that everybody does feel valued and has uh a comfortable place to be when it comes to the work site.

SPEAKER_06 9:46

Yeah, that so uh is the word values a uh you're a horrible V-word? Is that is that a V-word you don't like? No, no, no. Buzzword?

SPEAKER_03 9:54

No, no, I think I think that's a a fair game. Like but you know, but I think values although at the same time has to be more than you know, written on a piece of paper, you know, dictated through some sort of you know, strap planning session with the executive team. It has to be, you know, kind of back to that buzzword and culture, you know, it it's the environment that you create. It's it's a lot more natural. I I think most companies, you know, they can't dictate what the values are, you know, and same thing on a project site, like it becomes something inherent of just how it feels. So I think, you know, uh you talked about just individuals and their their impact on a project and on its delivery. And I think absolutely, and it's it's finding those people that are um, you know, have the right mindset.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

And we want people to be on the job site that want to be there, right? I mean, there's workers that come in and they're not used to a clean, organized site. No, and they're like, I don't, I'm not comfortable in this environment. And a lot of times, right? Boots are too dirty. I know, like, I mean, what's going on here? Like, I actually, you know, can use a washroom. What? Yeah, um, so you know Are they plumbed washrooms? Yeah, no, it's actually.

SPEAKER_06 10:56

So you guys have like like movie trailer washers.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Well, this is uh a full million square foot interior TI. So we actually have space building washrooms, but they're protected, you know, uh like crazy. Um, you know, one of the other things is graffiti. Uh we have an anti-graffiti policy, and that's even drawing a smiley face somewhere. You know, it's just do not deface any of the property there because that also impacts how everybody else treats the facility, right? Treat it like it's your home.

SPEAKER_06 11:24

You know, when you when you talk about uh about values and the fact that you know you sort of have it can't just be like written on paper. We um at our company, like we got this one value, and I we had to go through and provide like examples of how they utilize that. Because we had one that was deploy consideration, and that's like be considerate, like don't be uh you know payhole, right? Like just be nice, like but the thing is is it's uh unless you have a two-way street conversation, like it can be a very one-way street without so but you know, we we provided uh real life or real work examples of how to how to utilize that. So those are I agree with you. I mean, because you know you see integrity, you know, that's that's the biggest one. Integrity is like an eye word. That's an i word.

SPEAKER_05 12:14

That's an eye word.

SPEAKER_06 12:17

Yeah. That's cool.

SPEAKER_07 12:18

It's a funny thing that you're talking about these clean job sites and creating spaces where people are kind of caught off guard. It's like, what have we done in construction for so long that has made people feel that way? Where and we talk about it often, you know, okay, so maybe it's a software thing or whatever, but that people live something in their life every day. They use a certain thing that they're used to using and it's really nice and it works really well, or they're used to I don't know, visiting a place that's just clean or whatever, but then all of a sudden when they go to their job, if they're in trades or if they're in construction, it's all of a sudden this dramatic difference every day. And it's just like a shock. Why does it need to be that way? Yeah. I don't know that it takes a ton of dollars invested to make sure that every it does take a little bit more care and attention. The scale of a project would would have its perks.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Of course, you know, if you have a little bit more money in the budget, you're able to do that. But I think at the end of the day, it's also how you set it up. And you can work with your trade partners to be able to achieve that as well.

SPEAKER_06 13:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, true.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Yeah, I think I think the challenge there, I mean, I think the project you were describing is private sector. You know, I think the public sector, um, you know, so often maybe their budgets are tighter. And like we talked at our panel about um, you know, contingencies, and it's just so much tighter. There's so many more eyes on a on a public sector project. And I think to turn around and say to an owner, hey, we're gonna we're gonna teach and treat our trades well and give them proper facilities, you know, but it's gonna add X amount to your project. Like I think that's a hard pill for that owner to swallow. But you think about COVID, like, you know, the biggest thing came out of COVID was having a place for people to wash their hands.

SPEAKER_05 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

Come on. I guess uh, like, you know, and that that's innovation and construction. There's an I word I'm not a huge fan of either.

SPEAKER_07 13:59

So you know, yeah, that's thinking the innovation.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

Actually, yeah, Katie, it was the the one question I was hoping you were gonna answer, uh ask up there on the panel is uh about innovation, what we will see in the next 10 to 20, 50 years in the construction industry when it does come to a lot of these other things that are out there when it talks about AI, robotics, prefab, and everything like that, because there's some pretty unique things that we're hearing about that are coming to fruition. And the the scariest one for me personally is this AI. It's exciting.

SPEAKER_07 14:30

You're gonna get James going here.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

But it's but it's it's scary. Skynet, right? I mean, just the things that you can do with it. It's um I'm learning a lot more about it more recently, and um I think it will do amazing things, but I also think we have to be careful.

SPEAKER_06 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

Yeah, I think for me too, I think about you know, the the unimaginable disruptor. You know, I mean, if you were 20 years ago and you're a taxi company, you're never imagining that, you know, uh rant strangers are getting into each other's car to you know, go to a restaurant or you're letting strangers in your house for the night. Exactly. Yeah, like that is that it's nothing that anybody imagined. And like that's the stuff that I'm I'm thinking about what are we not seeing that's just going to come at us as an industry and just completely blow it up because all the things that they've been talking about. Remember, drones were gonna change the industry like seven years ago?

SPEAKER_06 15:20

Yeah, like and they don't work in the rain.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

Yeah, like it's wild.

SPEAKER_06 15:24

The uh just one I think you have like a specific question towards the towards the industry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, just on the AI front, I think that what we all need to temper ourselves with in terms of you know what that's the impact that that's gonna have is is that uh other countries are building the AI. So we can just say that we have our own guardrails here in North America, but they won't match because it's a race to the bottom of humanity in the world.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

You really are gonna go off deep right there.

SPEAKER_06 15:56

No, but it's true though, right? We can say, hey, look, we're gonna do this and we're gonna have our guardrails and we're gonna make sure that we're all let's say that there's a there's a there's a national policy, Canada and United States on what you can do with AI. Great. China and India and Russia, and the internet's totally open wide. Yeah so unless they're you know, you're unless yeah, it's are you ladies? It's yeah, it's very worrying. Are you both in Vancouver?

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:25

Okay. Do you like Chardonnay or do you like uh Sauvignon Bunch? Do you guys like nice wine? Do you drink one?

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think the glass of wine that you and I had together was one of the most expensive. You remember this ever? Oh my god, I almost died. It was yeah, it stood out, and then I think combined with parking, I was like, well, like I'm glad I like her.

SPEAKER_06 16:44

Nice, that's nice. Was it from Washington State? Was it a uh Syrah from Washington State?

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Yeah, I don't remember that. Oh, yeah, it was wild. But I I was still like kind of vaguely new to Vancouver, and I was just getting kind of used to, you know, it wasn't the island. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 16:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So and the reason you ask is because the pairings that we've been having, uh, there's a lot of synergy with the the in in the conversations that you want to dig into a lot deeper than just a 15 or 20 minute conversation. So that's an invitation to do a longer conversation where we can get into things like AI and more words that we hate and um or don't like, or that's better by us. But it's a free-flowing conversation. There'll be we can we can have some wine, whatever, but it's in our studio. It'd be great to have you guys join us and do that. Yeah. Cool. Question for you. Question for you. We're at the construction leaders forum here in Whistler for the VRCA with the VRCA. Um, I want to know, and so is James, we've been talking a lot about advocacy, but I'll maybe for the industry, we'll frame it around building great work environments. What is one nugget you'd want to leave our audience with, and anyone that would listen to this, about one thing that you could do to improve in construction or in your workplace, uh fostering a better work environment. Just a nugget from each of you.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

I could have a lot of different nuggets to that topic, but let me think of one that might be better.

SPEAKER_07 18:08

Um boil it down.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

One one unique thing that we implemented on our current project site is doing a monthly book club. And it's a book club about leadership. So typically we pick a different topic and it's not mandatory, but you would believe most people are pretty into it because they don't want to be left out.

SPEAKER_07 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

And that's fostering conversations outside of the typical day-to-day where we can talk about leadership and um ways that we can be better as a team and things like that. So just a little nugget there. That's a little different. That's a good job site. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 18:43

Wow, that's innovative.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

You know, because everyone has so much time to read, right?

SPEAKER_07 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

That's why audiobooks are great. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Yeah, send out the link. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 18:51

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

Uh, I think for me, I mean, I I work for myself. I work uh, you know, alone uh at home. Uh, you know, did I was an early adopter. This is like a pre-COVID thing for me. Yeah, um, I think the main one is understanding, and this this is really applicable more to the like the office type management workers versus site, um, but is uh understanding that people have different work days and that you know, not expecting people to reply back, whether they're your employees or your, you know, um kind of outside uh team members, uh, your boss, is is giving people that space to create a workday that works for them. Um yeah, I mean, I have in my email signature, it says, you know, my work day is going to look different from you. I don't expect a response. And I I think it's giving people the space to unplug. Um but also, yeah, again, work whenever they want.

SPEAKER_06 19:41

Yeah, that's good for A and B players. The others, uh, I don't think so. But um, did you know that uh F1, you know, the the car racing F1, uh, when they go on their break, uh they are not allowed to send any emails at all. Like summer break. No, yeah, at all.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Okay, yeah, that's a European model. I think they have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_07 20:05

Yeah, they shut her down hard when they're not at work.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

Yeah, I think that's the law.

SPEAKER_07 20:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 20:11

All right. Well, right on, ladies, fantastic having you join us. We look forward to doing the full episode, but enjoy the rest of the day and construction leaders. I know, I know. Okay, we gotta we've gotta redo that. It's gonna be good. Great. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_06 20:25

Well, that does it for another episode of the site. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social account on Instagram and YouTube.com, choice. Let's get it.