Building Healthier Workplaces with Stephen Walls

Ever wondered how a British accent can stir curiosity and shape identity when living abroad? Join us as Stephen Walls shares personal stories from Canada and Australia, revealing the cultural nuances and humor found in British dialects, from the Queen's English to the Geordie accent. These tales of linguistic mix-ups in the construction industry will not only entertain but also offer insight into how language and background weave into one's identity. Together, we explore the laughter and learning that accompany regional terminology and the rich tapestry of British accents.

Our journey then pivots to the world of construction, where we challenge the traditional education narrative and celebrate alternative career pathways. Through compelling stories, discover how trades like construction open doors to valuable life skills and entrepreneurial opportunities, often overlooked in favor of a university degree. Learn why trades are gaining respect, particularly in cultures like Australia's, and how they provide financial stability. The conversation underscores the need for broader acceptance and encouragement of trade-based careers, offering a fresh perspective on success beyond conventional academic achievements.

As technology transforms work environments, we discuss the balance between digital reliance and preserving essential on-site experience. From the emergence of high-tech workspaces to the mental health implications of prolonged screen time, we share practical tips for achieving healthier work-life integration. We also highlight the power of empathetic leadership and mental health awareness, advocating for open dialogue and community building within the construction industry. This episode is a call to action for embracing healthier, more connected work environments while celebrating the unique satisfaction of tangible work experiences.

PODCAST INFO:
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the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
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Chapters

• 0:00 British Dialects and Construction Perspectives
• 13:05 Career Development in Construction Industry
• 25:05 The Risks of Working Behind Screens
• 38:45 Future Work Environments and Automation
• 43:49 Changing Perceptions of Trades in Construction
• 58:18 Construction Industry Challenges and Opportunities
• 1:10:29 Managing Pressure and Leadership in Construction
• 1:16:45 Changing Attitudes for Mental Health
• 1:23:30 Building Connections Through Podcasts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're British, I am Me too.

Speaker 2: 0:02

That's cool. It's kind of weird being British, eh. Did you find that, like in Canada, being British is kind of a thing?

Speaker 1: 0:10

It's a thing. Yeah, it's always interesting that people in Canada and in Australia when I live there as soon as people hear the accent, it's like a. It's a point of difference. Right, it's a point of note.

Speaker 2: 0:21

People are interested and you tell them about yourself and they're a little less interested, but the accent does get you in yeah, yeah, it's kind of interesting because I, uh, my daughter says you know, daddy, you should just always you should bring back your english accent. Actually, I have some friends from turkey. Yeah, uh, they're like, just do the british thing, because it sounds better I agree. So would it be weird if I suddenly like just said okay, everybody, as of now I'm going back to my british accent.

Speaker 1: 0:52

I think it sounds perfect really yeah, but you've got to be authentic right, it sounds a little pompous to me it does, but you that's the down south accent. It can be a little bit pompous. Maybe try a geordie accent up north. A bit like me, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07

I don't think my dad would be able to handle that. Yeah, yeah, so I'd have, definitely. What is it the Queen's English? I think that's what they say. Yeah, the Queen's English is like neutral.

Speaker 1: 1:17

I don't know if it's just proper, proper, okay, queens, but yeah, there's so many Like the accents and the dialect in the UK are like even in the Northeast born and raised. If I speak to somebody in the Northeast sometimes I've got no idea what they're saying. You know, like it's just between how they speak and what they're saying. I'm just lost and I think that wherever you go in the UK there's little pockets of interest and little dialects. It's always fun to try and work out.

Speaker 2: 1:47

Well, what I find interesting about and this dovetails into construction is how things are perceived Like. England has been a classes thing. I don't know if it's still like that. I think football players have kind of leveled to that. But being rich and having what you would consider a commoner's accent, sure, right, yeah. So I think that that has changed over the years and it's interesting. My, my family, my parents' parents one was a restaurateur from London, yeah, and had a restaurant on cranbourne street, okay, and my mother's parents, uh, were electricians. They had an electrician, yeah, uh, contractor, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:35

So they did barclays bank and all that did all the contracts for all of that stuff nice. So it was interesting because there was the socialite kind of, and then there was the working class. That's a good blend. What is a good blend? I think it's a great blend. I think that I get all my engineering mind from my grandfather, totally From my mom's side, from being an electrician. I remember he used to have like a. I used to go into his house in Croydon and he had the shed with all these tools and you know, the pegboard and all the tools had the outline around where the pliers would go, where the hammer would go. Spanners and all the spanners, spanners, yeah, spanner.

Speaker 1: 3:11

Spanner yeah, that's pretty cool A spanner in the works. Yeah, if you put a spanner in the works, it's like putting a problem into a situation. Right?

Speaker 2: 3:19

Well they say that, well, now you would say there's a wrench, which means a problem. Yeah, there you go, Spanner in the works. Does that mean you're going to fix something?

Speaker 1: 3:30

No, a spanner in the works is to introduce a problem, right?

Speaker 2: 3:34

Okay, that's what they say is a wrench in the problem. It's a good point. Is it a wrench in the problem.

Speaker 1: 3:37

I'm probably getting that wrong Because I think you know, having worked now in Canada, in the UK and in Australia, now in Canada, in the UK and in Australia, often we're talking about the same thing. It's just a different language or name or what sort even from tools, materials, trade packages, um, contract speak Like it's the same thing when you get into it, but there's an initial. What are you talking about when someone calls? You know, whatever else you might call it, uh, lining, here it's drywall, whatever, whatever they call it. Lining Like dry lining or sheeting or plasterboard, like it's all super interchangeable. But you know, if someone has been calling it something for a long time and you're new to it, you're like what are these guys talking about?

Speaker 2: 4:19

What's the weirdest thing? Like the weird dialect thing that you've gotten burned over the years? You what's the weirdest thing? Like the weird dialect thing that you've gotten burned over the years? You've said something in construction and they'll be like what, what is that?

Speaker 1: 4:27

I don't know if I've ever put my foot in it so badly. I don't think so, even right there. Put my foot in it, put my foot in it, yeah, yeah. And also when I say me that's my, that's a Geordie thing.

Speaker 2: 4:42

Okay, is that's a Geordie accent Close enough?

Speaker 1: 4:44

What does Geordie mean that's a good question and I should probably know. Yeah, you should. I imagine it would have gone way back to when we were building ships, probably oh, I see Newcastle was a big like Shipping port. Shipping port. Yeah, oh, I see. Okay, that's in the Northeast, northeast. Yeah, can you surf in Newcastle? You can, I can't, because I'm terrible at surfing. This scar is from surfing, which is a story.

Speaker 2: 5:06

Oh really.

Speaker 1: 5:07

But yeah, you can surf in the North Sea in Tynemouth. There you get a few waves and it gets pumping and people get out. There it's pretty cold. The North Sea is yeah, she's fresh, she's fresh, yeah, she's fresh, yeah, nice, yeah, colder than the water here.

Speaker 2: 5:24

Welcome to the Site. Visit Podcast Leadership and perspective from construction. Your host, james Falkner. Business as usual, as it has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before and hitting the reset button. You know you read all the books. You read the email. You read Scaling Up. You read Good emails. You read scaling up. You read good to great. You know I could go on. We've got to a place where we found the secret serum. We found the secret potion.

Speaker 1: 5:53

We can get the workers in. We know where to get them. Once I was on a job for a while and actually we had a semester concrete and I ordered like a Korean Finnish patio out front of the side show.

Speaker 2: 6:03

These days I was down at dallas and uh, a guy just hit me up on linkedin out of the blue and said he was driving from oklahoma to dallas to meet with me, because he heard the favorite connect platform on your guys podcast and we celebrate these values every single day. Let's get down to it. Go steven, steve, steven. What are we doing here?

Speaker 1: 6:28

whatever's easiest, steve. Steve tends to be the the work name because it's uh shorter, but it's a ph though it is steven. Yeah, that's the, maybe steph. No, it's not, though steph curry ruined it for all of us. There was never a. There was never that association until he came out um but yeah, it's so. I do get stefan a lot here and I'm just past the point of correcting it. I've been called worse, so I just I'll let it. I'll let it go. But so steve removes that uncertainty right.

Speaker 2: 6:56

So yeah, at work it just tends to be steve so here's what I find interesting about you is you have your, you've got this little brand thing going on, yep, which is Stephen Walls PM. Yep, so it's SWPM, yep. So is this, in your opinion, you kind of like a free agent when it comes to being a PM? That's the intention, yeah, okay. So this introduces an entire new type of setup when it comes to, um, you know, employment, um, less risks, maybe for general contractors, etc. You are a sniper, comes in and does and does your thing, and then they're not responsible for your holidays, they're not responsible for all those other things that having an employee is. I guess it could be an impediment of growth to some degree, because you've got a lot of risk, yep. So do you see this as a possible new gig economy of you being a PM to whoever needs you?

Speaker 1: 7:59

Yeah, well, that's what we're trying to find out who's we? Me, okay, yeah, the royal we. But yeah, that's what I'm trying to find out. So this is very much a uh, an exploration and curiosity at this point. You know I've been doing project management and working in construction for about 10 years in various different industries.

Speaker 2: 8:16

You're not that old though, no 35. Oh, 10 years, like you were 25.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Yeah, Okay, um, like in the professional side of things. Obviously I'd labored for a bunch of people before that and done some other jobs just to make money and travel. But 25 was kind of when I sat down and started building a career. So about 10 years in and I'm sure we'll get to the rules that I've enjoyed in that time. But over the last sort of three years it just it was this little idea that kept creeping up on me about having your own business.

Speaker 2: 8:46

I see okay.

Speaker 1: 8:46

And originally it wasn't necessarily going to be in construction, but it's what I'd been doing. So it made sense to leverage the work that I'd already done, the skills that I already had, the network I already had, and then just see if I can make a business out of that and how it feels. And it's still fairly new. I kind of set this up the start of this year, um, but I was contracted to a company as an employee so I finished that contract um before like jumping fully into this one um. But yeah, the idea is to provide services to clients directly um growing businesses like the owner's PM kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 9:24

That's the role that I like is owner's rep, I see. Yeah, so I'm not really a builder or a contractor's PM. Right, I've done pseudo that stuff when I worked for JLL we did managing contractor as well as the traditional PM, which is we hold all the sub-trades essentially in the contract. We're the builder and you disperse all the money. Then, yep, yeah, you control cash flow. Yeah, the client pays you, you distribute downstream and I love that role because you get so much more exposure and you get to work with the trades. But it's a lot of work. In a big company like JLL you might be managing three to five projects.

Speaker 2: 10:02

So you're doing all the submittals, all that kind of stuff, all the bidding, all of it.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Okay, All of it, which makes you very good at what you do, but it's hard to do it for a long time because you're just always on, you know like you're managing all the subbies, you're managing all the consultants, you're managing the client. So it's a lot Okay okay, so.

Speaker 2: 10:24

So the setup is that you are a um, it's an employment contract every time so I'm a sole proprietor.

Speaker 1: 10:30

And then there are options around how I can be engaged. So I'm engaged to a development consultant at the minute who is doing some deep energy retrofits. That's an accidental business for him. He's not a project manager, so he was like I need someone to come in and just take the reins on this and just get us going. So that was the perfect opportunity, right, I bring all the skills that I already have into his business. I don't need to be visible as swpm. It's at this point. It's. It's not essential to me. I can sit under his business, um, but he pays me as a, as a, as a contractor, essentially. So, yeah, he doesn't pay me for holidays. There's no bonus system in place. It's just here. We're going to pay you for this work that you do and we sort of keep going.

Speaker 2: 11:15

Okay. So what's the deal with the insurance side of things? Do you need liability insurance? Yep.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Yeah, you need general liability insurance. Like to cover?

Speaker 2: 11:23

your ass Errors and omission yeah. Yeah, need general liability insurance. Like to cover your ass Errors and omission?

Speaker 1: 11:25

Yeah yeah, ah, okay, yeah, yep, yep, interesting, but I mean it's fairly straightforward to get that right.

Speaker 2: 11:29

No, fair enough. I'm just making sure that that's covered. I mean, on an employment contract you don't need it? Exactly, yeah, but if you're doing like if this is paying into your company.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Sole proprietorship was to bridge the gap between being an employee and then having a business, without going the whole way where you're also employing people. I just wanted a period in the middle where you just run a sole proprietorship because you still have to do the website, the insurance, the accounting, the bookkeeping.

Speaker 2: 11:58

So you're going to incorporate at some point.

Speaker 1: 12:00

We're not sure it depends how long?

Speaker 1: 12:02

Yeah, I keep saying we You're going to have to get. Yeah, I don't know, maybe I think of, maybe there's some sort of growth. Yeah, maybe in the back of the mind there. But it's interesting because I kind of moved away from the team dynamic by setting up as a sole proprietor. That was going to be a risk for me because I quite like being around people but to build my own business I wanted to be someone who was a separate entity but you could place into an existing business and kind of contribute to that without the full. We need you here five days a week, six days a week, nine to five, seven to three, whatever you're working on.

Speaker 2: 12:39

I think from an accounting point of view and tax point of view, there's probably some advantages of being incorporated Definitely, definitely. It's not that big of a deal. No, it's not, it's not a cost or You're still sole yeah exactly, and I think you don't need to have employees.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Right, it just separates you as a person from you as the business. Yeah. Yeah exactly so if I got to a certain point where I took on more work or other work, I'd probably look to do that, yeah, but right now it's running pretty well as it is.

Speaker 2: 13:05

So let's just talk about sort of what got you to here and I think this is relevant because I think some of the other topics we're going to talk about is sort of construction and you know the younger generation, you know you're 35. So but I think you've kind of come through this time where um construction is a viable option for a lot of people moving up right now and getting people into the trades, um, so it it's mentioned here as, as we're sort of um, you provided us some information about you and so, like traditional education, the way that was when you were younger kind of didn't work for you. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 13:46

What was it specifically? That was like you know, like ah, this is just not how I work.

Speaker 1: 13:51

Yeah, probably a maturity thing. To be honest. I think we all develop at different ages and I always reference a good mate of mine From the age of 13,. He knew he wanted to be a dentist. He just knew, and he is now a dentist. So everything he picked, you know, from the age of 14 to 16, was geared towards that goal and he's doing it now. He's doing really, really well.

Speaker 1: 14:12

But for the majority he might have been the one in 10 that had that certainty. The rest of us, you know, at 14, we haven't got. Most of us don't have a clue what now we want it like we. We have a bunch of interests, but to be to to say, okay, I'm going to pick, you know, these 10 modules to study for the next two years and then specialize in three or four when I go to A-level and then specialize again and really niche in to go to university and study. I guess this role would be construction in the built environment or construction management who knows that at 13 or 14? Engineering, exactly right, whatever it might be, and it's great if you do know that. But I think, in my opinion, the school system, at least in the UK, if you're semi-bright, which I was close enough to they drive you into going to uni, because it reflects well on them as a school right how many people they get into uni.

Speaker 2: 15:05

Which is fair Is that some kind of a tick box, totally. Yeah, it's a metric. I never really thought about that. Yeah, it's a metric. Is that the way it is?

Speaker 1: 15:11

here too, I'm not sure.

Speaker 2: 15:13

I'm not sure Interesting. I'm going to dig into that. Yeah, but it definitely seems like that factor when you think about it totally because then you have shapes, your life. Well, you have other people pushing for their own reasons other than the betterment of the actual person. 100%, yeah, so you?

Speaker 1: 15:28

you essentially have a system yep, it is exactly and you can tell. You can tell the difference in the teachers that are there for the system. So it's funny. There's probably there'll probably be a link to leaders in business later, but they're sort of the seniors in in that education system that I can think of. They're just pushing you to go to uni. They want as many of every 10 students to go to university because it reflects really well on them so if somebody went to a trade school, would that not be considered a tick?

Speaker 1: 15:56

I think it depends. And I think the other side of the teachers who genuinely care about the kids and the individuals and you can tell which ones they are and they might say look, steve, you're probably not set up to go to uni. It's it's not for you. But you like woodwork or you like whatever? Go and have a look at this trade. You know you can make a lot of money as a tradesman and it's a great apprenticeship.

Speaker 1: 16:17

And in the uk there are great apprenticeship schemes available for people who sort of get into that position where they're like I don't't really want to go to uni, but what do I want to do? Like my nephew, he just turned 16. He's going to start a bricklaying apprenticeship. He might not do that, he might not want to do that long-term, but if he does it for a year or two he's going to learn so much oh yeah, tons so much. Like you know from a potentially to have a trade, but also just how to be a person and a man. Like working on site in the northeast, he's going to learn a lot. You know how people want to treat him and how he has to learn to deal with other people that aren't his family or friends.

Speaker 2: 16:53

It's going to be huge for him you know, if I, if I look back and I and I think of you know, in my 20s, um, I started my own business. But I can only imagine if I started something in construction, adjacent or construction related, like some kind of a sub trade specialty, and I, you know, got training for that and I started a company. Just knowing how I operate a business now, I think I would have killed it because there's just been this demand the whole time.

Speaker 2: 17:23

A lot of the time in career I was manufacturing my own demand. Okay, right, because I was always trying to get a customer who would say that they don't need me, yep, and I would convince them that they would, yeah, and then the sale would ensue, yeah, but in construction there's not enough sub-trades for the work, nope, and it's kind of always been that way. You've seen cyclical, you know, economic changes where it's been actually horrible for some people, absolutely. But you know, when I think about it now, I think, wow, okay, I'm like I'm always trying to figure out how to optimize a business, yep, and how to do things, and I think if you're that kind of mind, yeah, you could just really really crush it in construction, yeah those people who start a trade early and then figure out they have them that mind.

Speaker 1: 18:10

Yeah, the people that can do both they just unbelievable.

Speaker 1: 18:13

Yeah, so I like when I talk about it a bit more, a big part of of my development was was playing rugby and as I got to a little bit older and there was like younger lads and they would. They would be getting to that age 15, 16 and like not normally, not really knowing what they want to do, and I just always told them to just like get a trade, if you're at all interested, start a trade, and you might only do it for two years, but you learn so much in it and it could be huge, rather than falling into uni because you pushed into it. And the. The worst thing about uni is like it's so much fun, like I love that side of it, but you're going to get into debt straight away. Out of the gate. You're in debt and it's hard to get out of that, whereas if you go and get an apprenticeship for a trade or for something else, you're making money straight away. It's not very much you know you're not going to.

Speaker 1: 19:03

You're not going to buy a house anytime soon, but you're making money straight away. It's not very much. Yeah, you know you're not gonna. You're not gonna buy a house anytime soon, but you're not in debt like you're starting to create profit already and you're learning. You're learning like real world skills and if you're lucky, you'll get good mentors who also teach you the business side of it.

Speaker 2: 19:19

And if you get in and stay in with that person or start your own thing, like I just think it's, it's a huge opportunity you know, I think back to 2006, um, I did some tech work, yeah, for a rebar company, okay, and they were up and coming at the time, yeah, and within a very short time they were making a lot of money, yeah, and I thought, whoa, yeah, and that was back then. And now they are like one of the biggest. It's huge, and these but these two guys were very, very shrewd, good business people, yeah, and well, put together, that was the thing that I was like. It was very professional, was very professional, yep, and I thought, okay, this is a bit different, you're.

Speaker 2: 20:08

You know, rebar is, yeah, it's dirty work, it's dirty hard work for sure, and you know they had to have their own manufacturing for bending steel and all that. So prefab to get to the job site. Yep, and the planning and and it's, it's very, it's mission critical stuff, right, right, absolutely yeah, yeah. So the professionalism around things I keep thinking back to that now, and if anybody had done any trade at that time scale, yeah, and with that professionalism, the one thing that's specific about that is that you're got, you basically have raw rebar that comes to your and you're doing the prefab, so there's cash to be made on the manufacturer.

Speaker 1: 20:50

Yeah, it's a full cycle, right?

Speaker 2: 20:52

Yeah, there's a manufacturing side, whereas some other sub-trades they're just getting materials and installing materials Exactly, and they're just getting materials and installing materials Exactly and they're not really doing much. Yeah, it's just coming from a supplier.

Speaker 1: 21:02

Exactly yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:03

So you can understand how they would make so much money because of that element.

Speaker 1: 21:06

Yeah, you're buying it for a certain amount, selling it for a different amount, modifying it and sharing it. Yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:13

And then there's the labor on top and the specifics. So, yeah, that's pretty cool, but let's just talk about you, as you know, a PM now. And then do you think, as we move through time here, that this independent contractor I'm going to say gig economy it kind of is like that, but kind of not really Gig economy are kind of like short things like Fiverr and like you know, people going around and doing this?

Speaker 1: 21:43

stuff, or like Elance, which is now like is that called?

Speaker 2: 21:45

Upwork now, yep, yeah. So I mean, is there, do you know other people who have the same model as you do?

Speaker 1: 21:51

Have you come across some people? Yeah, so there's a guy that I used to work with at JLL who, who was? He had his own business. He was contracted to jll, yeah, but he also had his own projects on the side, um, and I just I saw how he operated. I saw he came in whenever he did the jll stuff.

Speaker 1: 22:08

He was just so efficient because you could tell that he had other things to get back to. He wasn't drawing work out right, he wasn't like, oh, you know, sitting on stuff for a couple of days, you know, kind of messing around putting balls in other courts. He was just super decisive, yeah, because he saw that one, it pushed projects on for jll, but two, he had other stuff to go and get back to. So I know that there's a little bit of a um, maybe a perception of freelance contractors, you know, kind of like being making money and and whatever. But I think if they're efficiently minded, they're actually really valuable because they're there to do exactly what they're paid to do in the time agreed and they've got other stuff that they need to get back and kind of crack on with, whereas, you know, some employees might not feel that same pressure.

Speaker 2: 22:53

Yeah, they've got the culture to deal with. Yeah, exactly being part of this engine.

Speaker 1: 22:59

And they've got the whole development and you know the hopes that they're placing on this career to to, solely to, to get them to where they want to go. So whether this becomes I mean this has been around for for for a while, yeah, but I think over the particularly covid just accelerated so many things right and I think a lot of people thought about what am I doing? What do I want to do? Um, so I think and it's it feels like it's easier now than ever to start a business, like it really wasn't very difficult for me. I kind of labored over the decision for for quite some time, but then when I made the decision, it didn't take very much time or resource to get set up at all.

Speaker 1: 23:37

But I think you have to be it's very situational Like I'm 35, no kids, no mortgage, I'm in the perfect position to mess this up if it goes that way and you have to be prepared for that.

Speaker 1: 23:49

You know, if you had kids and had financial responsibility, maybe you can't take that risk. So I think it's situational on who you are, your situation and how you operate. Know, I don't think I don't think it would be for everyone, but I think more and more people, as remote work continues, as people are struggling for talent, as people are changing jobs, I think positioning yourself as your own business, with a very clear explanation of what you do and what value you offer, I think more people might get into it. But I think it's probably not quite a gig economy because, particularly in construction, project management or design and build project management or the various models have worked in, it's not going to be a short-term thing like no projects are that short and if they are, you don't want them and if they are one, you don't want them and probably nobody's going to pay you to be involved because they're going to be such a quick turnaround.

Speaker 1: 24:45

So it's not quite a gig as much as a contract. I think the contract thing is it could be six months, it could be 12 months, it could be whatever. So it's probably not as quick and agile as the gig economy, but it's getting closer to that and I think a lot of people are exploring it.

Speaker 2: 25:05

Yeah, so you had this comment about sitting behind screens. Oh man, okay. So what's the deal with this? So, as in, like, when you take on a new employment agreement or you take on a new contract, whatever you want to class it as, how do you sidestep? You have to be in front of these screens. Yeah, they go to site once in a while to see what's going on.

Speaker 2: 25:36

It is emails, it is in software. You're like dealing with all this stuff. Rfis change orders, all this kind of stuff. So that's never stopping, is it? No, no.

Speaker 1: 25:46

Okay. So that's kind of the risk, right is that it's going to continue going that way as more AI and software like people are investing so much money in software for the construction industry. Now it's going to mean that even more of our job gets done on screen and even less of our job gets done on site. I think that's a massive risk.

Speaker 1: 26:04

I think that's a huge risk when you say risk For PMs. If you're not spending time on site, you're not going to be a PM, you're going to be a project coordinator. You're just going to move information around. You're not going to learn what's actually happening on site. You're not going to learn the sequencing of a build and how it's not perfect. Like. You can draw a um, a schedule up, right. Like a program, yeah, you can create a work back structure, whatever you want. It's perfect, right, it's finite. You've created it.

Speaker 1: 26:31

But construction doesn't go like that. You know, somebody doesn't turn up on site, somebody um, injures themselves or whatever and has to slow down immediately. Your workflow is disrupted. You can't capture that on a piece of paper, you can't capture that in a software. And not just PMs engineers, architects, designers. It's very risky that everything gets done on a screen. I know that it's really helpful and there's efficiencies there, for sure, but I think it's super dangerous if we're not spending time on site, because it's a two-way piece. It's the learning piece, but then we're all just habit creatures, right? Humans are just habit creatures. What we do, we usually continue to do until we decide to stop. If you get to work at 8.30 and sit in your desk until 5.30, maybe with a lunch break, yeah, and every now and then you go in the toilet and like that's just. I just don't think that's the way to work. I think it's super dangerous. I think you've got to go out and have.

Speaker 2: 27:26

So when you can you break down the word danger for me, so danger for project problems or danger for the person? Yeah, both, okay, both I think.

Speaker 1: 27:40

Let's just like split those off. Yeah, so danger for you as steve? Yeah, what's the danger? I just think it's terrible for your posture and your mental health.

Speaker 2: 27:44

Okay, let's talk about that part, yeah so blue light, okay, okay, from the screens. Yep, okay, do you sleep? Well, I sleep okay. Yeah, what's what? How many hours before you put your head down to the pillow are you staring at a screen?

Speaker 1: 27:56

um, I tried to limit it as much as possible. I think after eight o'clock at night I really don't want to be on the screen. And you're sleeping at what? 10, 30, 10, 10, 30.

Speaker 2: 28:05

Okay, so a couple hours yep, because I like with, maybe it's the the older I get, the less I can handle it, like I I end up waking up at like I don't have a great sleep. If I've stared at blue light, I even have those glasses. Yep, they don't they. They great sleep. If I've stared at blue light, I even have those glasses. Yep, they don't they kind of work. Actually, they really. If I put them on, they kind of have an amber lens to them. Yep, and they do like if it's a sunny day and I put them on, it makes everything look fantastic.

Speaker 1: 28:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:32

If everything feels like the tropics. R. Yeah, yeah, um. But then when I take them off, you can actually see how much blue is in the world. Yep, um. But even those don't typically work for me.

Speaker 1: 28:42

They still keep me up, well that's eye strain, right, they're gonna help your eyes because they buffer out some well I don't know the blue light. The blue light effectively, but your mind is still wiring. Right, your mind is still racing, processing all that stuff, like it's just, like it's just calling all this stuff 100, trying to fail. Right, what's not useful. If you don't slow that down, it's not going to slow itself down, because that that's how the brain works, right, like the more you give it, the more it'll just keep running. So if you don't slow down, so, like we like to have dinner on a night time, go for a quick stroll after who's we? Now? There is a way.

Speaker 2: 29:14

You mean me, girlfriend there is two people involved.

Speaker 1: 29:16

Wow, yeah there is a way, uh, and then my girlfriend.

Speaker 2: 29:19

There is two people involved. Wow, yeah, there is a wee, and then after that let's just check it. There's a lot of wees going on.

Speaker 1: 29:23

A lot of eyes, really, yeah, and then go for a stroll. We don't watch too much stuff on a nighttime. We might read or stretch. No, I never got into Peaky Blinders. I watched the first episode and I gave it up. I'm pretty bad for that. Yeah, I just won't stick with things long enough. I don't give a lot.

Speaker 2: 29:38

Long. I say to my wife this is poorly produced. Yeah, I find some reason. That's not. Apparently that's probably really good.

Speaker 1: 29:44

Often I get into something like eh yeah, I've been trying to watch Better Call Saul for about 10 years. Oh yeah, I'm still on like season. Sorry, the danger on the physical side of things sitting all day, posture, yeah, just posture and just just stagnancy like I don't think good work is. I know you have to have deep focus. I think that's totally fair, blocking out you know 65 minutes or whatever and just smashing a bunch of stuff out. But then get up and go outside like I would always try and encourage people to go outside and have a stroll and just look at some stuff and see what other people are up to, because I think if you just wired and it's not just one screen anymore, right, like I look at some designers and they've got two massive curved screens, their laptop in front of them, their phones going, they might have a tablet.

Speaker 1: 30:31

It takes a very special person to be able to concentrate with all that going on. And they are there, but I think most of us it's just a bit too much.

Speaker 2: 30:40

So what about the stress? Okay, so that's the personal side. Now let's say what's the danger to the job site? Yeah, I just think that, because you have a superintendent there anyway, that's the babysitter of the job site.

Speaker 1: 30:52

Yeah, you and your superintendent as a PM, your superintendent, he's got to be your best mate or she has to be your best mate, but you have to have such a good relationship with them like, well, typically they do, they do, yeah, but otherwise it doesn't work but a a site super or a site manager?

Speaker 1: 31:08

um, they want you on site, they want you to help them answer questions that they don't know. Like, you get some site supers who are both they're a site manager, they're a construction manager, they're a construction manager and they're a project manager. They're very good, but there's not many of them and they're getting paid a lot and they're on the big jobs because they're that good. Most guys are very, very good site managers, but they don't love the project management side of things necessarily, so you've got to form a tag team with them, right? Like my site managers or site supers, they're always on speed dial for me, like you want to be calling them multiple times a day.

Speaker 2: 31:41

So what is this danger of you being behind screens? Only You're?

Speaker 1: 31:44

removed. You're just so removed from what's going on on site. So what about cameras? Oh, like, in terms of 3D scans and updates.

Speaker 2: 31:54

I'm with you on what you're saying.

Speaker 2: 32:00

Just to steel man of where technology is going, I would say that there is cameras and like multi-cameras yeah, not just matterport, but I mean that's going to give you, you know, a sequenced time of when things are done. Maybe you're doing matterport every day and then you're you're looking at those, but just live cameras, you know there are cameras now that show deliveries, sure. And AI is basically for reasonable accuracy Yep, I mean high 90s. You're going to have to fill in the gaps that it can't read the side of the truck or whatever that is. You know what's coming in, what's going out, so I think it's going to get better over time, yep. And then machine learning and ai is going to be able to do a lot of the work that you didn't have to go to site for, yeah. And then, obviously, bim modeling is helping and bim overlays on video.

Speaker 1: 32:51

There's all these kind of cash detection yeah, no I get it in terms of, like, um workflow and reporting. I think it's super helpful, there's no doubt. But I just think from a personal development perspective, like, if you're a PM or you're anywhere on that project management path, you know, project coordinator, assistant PM, senior PM by the time you get to the end of your PM stuff and moving towards senior PM, you've probably seen a lot of things on site enough that you don't have to go. But the good PM still want to go. They still want to go every now and then. There's a presence when they're there, there's a support when they're there.

Speaker 1: 33:29

If you rock up to site only when something's wrong, you're not really building relationships. Like, I like to go to site and speak to some of the trade guys so that they know who I am. So if something goes wrong and I'm asking them for something to help me out with the situation, they know who I am. Yeah, they're not just like oh, you're this guy that flew in and is, you know, just here to take credit for fixing a problem. If you're on site, like, you can get to things before they become a problem, and it depends how the site is resourced, depending. One site manager might be enough, but it's probably not. It's probably not right like you've got to have a site manager and then some support underneath that multiple sets of eyes, people watching out for each other. But I also just think there's a risk of you not knowing what you're talking about. Like I'm not a builder, I don't have a great construction knowledge, particularly. I just figure out who knows how to do stuff right and then encourage them to be able to do that. So you're a gantt chart master, not really, like there is a little bit of that. But you know, communications master communication, I would say, is kind of my thing and and relationships, um, but you've just got to be there, right, like you've, you've got, if you want, if you're going to ask someone to do something, you've, you've got to have a bit of um, a relationship there. Right, you've got to have a currency to exchange if, if you're just someone who, just from a distance, asks people to do stuff when they're already trying to do the best but something's gone wrong, they're not going to want to do it for you. Like it's a bit of a leadership thing, right, as a like there's a huge difference between management and leadership. Management is just getting things done and getting people to do things. Leadership is convincing people to do things in their own way and kind of supporting them through that right.

Speaker 1: 35:07

I think there's a there's a huge difference between the two. So I think for pms that aren't on site, you're losing that aspect of your role. You're going to be fantastic at other stuff you might be excellent at scheduling and managing budgets and, and you know the vr and and um, all the stuff that's going to come from a tech perspective but you've got to have boots on and be on site right. You've got to know what's going on, particularly from a safety perspective. You've got to see things in real time and be like, oh that guy, like he's doing something that he shouldn't be, because those standards, if you let them creep and a site manager can't see everything if he's on one side of the office or site, someone's going to do something on the other side, but your safety person should be doing that and it depends on that, like I say, a house site's resourced right, the big projects probably don't have a problem.

Speaker 2: 35:53

They probably they might have multiple.

Speaker 1: 35:55

Yeah, they might have one site manager and he might have to run away to pick something up or go from site to site.

Speaker 2: 35:59

They might have multiple Jump from site to site exactly.

Speaker 1: 36:01

Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 36:04

So let's just talk about where this is going. I know that this is a little departure from what we thought some of the subjects were going to be here, but this is kind of a great conversation. Yeah Is maybe like the multiple screens and the posture that's all relative to the office, sure, okay, so maybe there's a new evolution of what the work environment is.

Speaker 1: 36:31

There's no doubt.

Speaker 2: 36:32

Okay. So if this was like here's your desk, here's your three screens on monitor, stands, et cetera. Yeah, here's your, even's your three screens on monitor stands um, etc. Yeah, here's your even a herman miller chair, thousand dollar chair, aaron chair, right feels great and all that. You're still sitting what is this?

Speaker 2: 36:48

sitting is the new smoking totally yeah okay, so, uh, well, maybe there is some changes that can happen. There's more of a and I think, okay, let me just. I have a thought, but I think what will drive this is operate by wire at a remote location of heavy equipment, of heavy equipment, okay, okay. So now, what you see is there are excavators, now that they are operating, and they're not in it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:27

They're using a control box and they're drive-by-wire Yep, okay, so that control box essentially could be anywhere. Yep, okay, if you were dealing with, you know, internet, right, so that kind of connectivity. Then you start to think of, well, what would be the ultimate visibility for somebody in um, um, you know a piece of heavy equipment that was usually sitting in a cage Yep, what is the new version of that? Is it standing holding a box with a joystick on it? I don't think so. Yeah, I think what it will turn. Do you remember in Avatar, when they're sitting there and they're more in a relaxed environment, they're more reclined, they sort of might have a VR headset on, yeah, yeah, on, yeah. And there's this new experience of not having to be to deal with. Traffic should be, you know, 50 miles away or whatever. It is not being the elements, you're actually there, you have a full environment. What it will be like in the excavator you have? You have um, haptic feedback so you can feel things, sensors, so let's just say that that's where that heavy equipment operation setup could go.

Speaker 2: 38:45

At some point, I'm sure it will evolve and evolve and evolve. Where you have a pod and now where these pods are is up for question could be another office or a command center. Maybe offices are called command centers. It turns more military. It could be another office or a command center. Maybe offices are called command centers. Yep, it turns more military. Yeah, so let's say that's where that goes, yep, then you start to see, you see the PM going well, that kind of looks good. And you're thinking, well, maybe I could be not sitting upright, I could be reclined in more of a not like a lazy boy kind of thing yeah feed up.

Speaker 2: 39:21

You're reclined back. No, you're looking up that's happening and you're dealing and maybe just hear me out here maybe the cubicle office is now this round pod. Yeah, and this round pod is your environment. You're dealing with all this stuff.

Speaker 2: 39:36

Yeah, and you get out and you have two hour breaks or an hour break or whatever it is, and you're rejuvenating yourself diet variant, important food, like how your your entire process, everything you go through, yep, to be able to optimize yourself in that. So maybe there's some things around there, um, that we can see some really cool innovations going on so that it is at the dovetailing of not having to go to site as much.

Speaker 1: 40:06

Yeah, that's an extremely futuristic view which I think we have to chase down. We have to chase evolution and improvement, right, like that's how we're all wired, and particularly with that stuff. There's a safety aspect to that as well. If you don't have to have a human in a 25-ton excavator or I mean, you see it, with the robotic sort of demolition arms, right, there's nobody under that slab when it's getting demolished. That's a huge improvement. Nobody can argue with that.

Speaker 2: 40:32

But you're going to have people on site who are monitoring what those things are doing.

Speaker 1: 40:37

Yep, yep, they're just not Setting them up, they're just not operating.

Speaker 2: 40:40

Yeah, and the operations is where the big dollars come in. There's somebody who knows what they're doing.

Speaker 1: 40:45

Yeah, but then I mean there's like everything. There's a few sides, right. How do you replace the experience of an excavator driver who's been doing it for 30 years? You know, you see, some of these guys can open beer bottles with like with their um bucket on the excavator. How do you, how do you guarantee that that experience no longer becomes required because of the how advanced the technology is? You know what I mean. Like it's got to get to that robots is picked up. The egg they're coming through. Yeah, like there's.

Speaker 2: 41:15

There's no doubt that that's going to be there but if, but, if a robot can emulate the tactile response we have from fingers.

Speaker 2: 41:22

Yeah, okay, so, um, a claw, basically, yep, you know, someone can pick up a bottle cap with that is what you're saying. Yeah, very small, but that's an extension of of us, right? So, exactly, the end of that claw doesn't have nerves. So, guaranteed, a robot can do that better. Yep, for sure they can do that bottle cap and repeat it over and over and over again and they'll identify what it is. They know what the diameter of a bottle cap is. It will go into the information. They'll know how much they've got to pinch it by without bending it. Yep, all of that is a perfect example of what would be replaced by you know machine, and it's happening, right we know it's happening in in the heavy civils and stuff.

Speaker 1: 42:09

We're definitely trying to get into more um autonomous machines because there's a there's an efficiency and there's a removal of human error. That the other side of that argument. You know, them being experienced is great, but they make errors, they get tired. You know, mental health, coming into that side of things as well.

Speaker 1: 42:27

You know, yeah, guys, uh body gets tired, yeah, machine operators who are sat in their cab for six hours a day in the middle of nowhere you know like things happen, right there's, there's all sorts of things. So I I think if you can delineate and differentiate where humans it's a very dangerous sentence to utter, but where humans aren't needed and where it's worth whatever that risk comes with. But then there's always got to be a time where humans are going to be required and I think I think they're required in general.

Speaker 1: 43:00

Yeah, they're just doing different things. But I think back to your point about maybe, say, a PM who's in this incredible capsule and leaning back and working. You can visualize it as a very futuristic possibility. But I wonder whether that just blurs the lines of work and life even further, like that was. A big part of why I set up the sole proprietorship and to have my own business was to try and get a bit more control over that work-life integration. I kind of wanted to draw my own boundaries a little bit more because of my other interests and just how I wanted to operate and spend my time. I think if you've seen these setups where people are like lean back on a lazy boy, they've got screens on arms coming around, they've got a drinks machine, they've got a car, like it's, for some people that must be heaven. But I think there's a huge risk for me that that would just become so sort of interlinked and it would be hard to differentiate work from work from life and for some people reality.

Speaker 1: 44:01

For some people that's probably ideal, very driven people. Probably that's exactly what I want. I want my life and work to always be running simultaneously. But the majority of us probably want boundaries, probably want to be okay, this is work, that's that compartment, and then you know this is going to be everything outside of work.

Speaker 2: 44:19

The one thing that I have found that is very satisfying, and that is when you're going to a job site and I have gone there for our SiteMax customers. We're in construction, we're just in the technology side. Yep Me going to sites no different than somebody who's you know doing an electrical contract or doing whatever yep, um, but you got to be there early, yep.

Speaker 2: 44:48

So let's say that we I mean, there's a couple of times when we had to do trainings and we had to be there, like you know, seven yep just before, uh, for the meetings. And I have to say, getting up on a crisp morning and sun's not quite up yet, you got a coffee and you're driving somewhere and there's that moment of this clarity you have, yeah, and that is a fantastic human feeling. Totally you know you're going to go somewhere and you're going to achieve something. Yep, and there's going to be this result of when you drive away, yep, the pod experience that you're kind of not going to get there because you're basically driving to this thing. That's a repeatable thing, yep. That it's only the input into your eyes that changes. Yep, there's no visceral changes, no temperature change, there's no weather change, there's no, all these other things that humans have to endure. So it will. I'm not sure where it's all going to go. Yep, time will tell.

Speaker 1: 45:48

Exactly yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:49

But I think this campaign of concept of where construction is going is really good for young people. Yep, because even I talked about this on the last podcast. I think, yeah, about even the word trades Okay. So language is very important. So I'll give you an example. So back in the US politics, there was a time when it was called global warming.

Speaker 1: 46:27

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:27

Okay, yeah, there was a political consultant that came in and looked at the language and changed it to climate change. Yeah, because global warm is too attractive. Well, no, because it's change could be warm or cold.

Speaker 1: 46:40

Well, it goes both ways, right Warm is absolutely.

Speaker 2: 46:43

It's only getting hotter, yep. So one sounds negative, no matter how you talk about it. The other one you enter in the paradigm of subjectivity, yep. The other one's objective, because it's just warm, yep. So I think that that's important. Language is very important because it makes us feel things yep, we have a visceral response to language, totally so. The words trades has, in history, been considered to have less prestige. If you were to think about, think of your teacher's example yeah, I'm going to send you to uni, I get a tick box If I send you, let's say, 1990s, 2000s, yep. Would they get that tick box if someone went to trade school? Probably not.

Speaker 1: 47:32

No, thank you it would be a separate category. This is what I'm getting at.

Speaker 2: 47:35

Yeah, yeah, so you know, we have to break this all down, as ugly as it sounds, down to first principles, yep, because if you don't do that, you never really get anywhere.

Speaker 1: 47:43

You've got to peel the onion all the way back.

Speaker 2: 47:50

Yeah, you've got to go back to a forward. Yeah, so you just keep associations to construction, totally. So the question is is the language going to help us do that, or is it a hindrance?

Speaker 1: 48:07

No, I think the language would be a big thing, and I think how it's present, because language will inform perception, right? So, and I'm not sure if I made a note that I sent through, but in Australia, I don't think Australia has the same problem. Australia doesn't seem to have the same problem getting young people into trades, because it doesn't have that lack of prestige. Okay, I think it's much more.

Speaker 2: 48:25

But why does it?

Speaker 1: 48:27

Well, I think in Australia there's a few things, but mainly you'll make good money straight away. In Australia their minimum wage is very, very good. The cost of living is going up, like it is everywhere, but a young sparky or plumber going into that at 16 17 will start making really good money like or historically that's been the case anyway. That might have caught up a little bit now in terms of cost of living eating away at that. But you know, I had mates in australia who were plumbers and spoggies at the age of 18, 19 and they were making really, really good money and they knew by the time they were 24 they would have a house, they would be, you know, on their way to being set and they could associate that attainment of the life they wanted with a trade that was the vehicle to get the life. So that's where the language changes there. You know, if you meet someone in australia who's a plumber or a sparky, there isn't any perception that they're unintelligent or unmotivated, they're just. They've chosen a very viable pathway that in australia is really respected, like all the trades are respected in australia. The uk is probably somewhere in between. I think they have had problems getting people into the trades. But there's been a big push recently and people are moving away from the university cycle, yeah, and back into apprenticeships and and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 49:44

I've noticed in canada and I mentioned my sample size is quite small. I haven't been on a bunch of sites and I haven't been on big sites, but when I was working in the office sector here I couldn't believe how few young people there were on site, like in the jobs that I was working on and just the other sites that I would see. Just the skew of older, more experienced people to young people was alarmingly different to Australia. In Australia on a site you would have 60% young people probably, maybe a little bit more, and that would be from you know 16 to 24. And then you'd have a good core of guys maybe 20%, who were 24 to 34, like knew what they were doing, could leave the job, and then you might have some older heads who were just you know good to have around and you knew what they were coming in to do. That it's like 85% are older people here that I see on the sites that I've been to. That might not be fully representative, it might just be indicative, but I couldn't believe it. Like there's just it doesn't seem and I wonder if it's different in BC than you know some of the other provinces. It might be different. In Alberta More guys might be going into the trades, but it's probably representative of the opinion of going into a trade in Canada.

Speaker 1: 50:55

It's probably representative of the opinion of going into a trade in Canada. People maybe just don't see it as an attractive option and that's a massive issue, right, and it's an issue now, but it's obviously a much bigger issue in 10 to 15 years time when all these older guys retire and there's no one to replace them. So you can look at that a couple of ways. Maybe everything you're talking about about the transition to autonomy and efficiency maybe that's going to become necessity because there isn't the trades to manually do the work and we're like we've got to pivot and figure this out as opposed to being here. Can we influence and shape the industry to go this way because we think it's safer and cheaper and more effective? It might be a bit of both.

Speaker 2: 51:33

Well, so they say that you know robotics and technology in general, and construction is what they call it the three Ds. Removing the three Ds, the dull, dangerous and the third one, Dull, dangerous, and forgot the third one, heavenhood, god, dull, dangerous, anyway. So the fact that the construction is getting, oh, dirty, dull and dangerous, yeah, makes sense. Okay, that's the other one, yep. So the fact that construction is changing and we can't, one of the first principles is prestige. Yep, we can't say, oh, people shouldn't say that and I didn't even come up with it.

Speaker 2: 52:23

Someone else told me about prestige. It was not me bringing this up. Yeah, well, I'm bringing it up, but it's not me who invented this. Sure, this kind of theory, yep. So the prestige side you have to look at how young kids are wired. Now they're wired about prestige. Yep, we were, you know, when we were younger, but not as much. Now.

Speaker 2: 52:45

It's about the Jake Pauls, it's about these Instagrammers, it's all the YouTubers, it's all this stuff, yep. And it's like how do I get influence? Yep, I get influence by having prestige. Sure, okay, so there are different stratas on the job site of prestige levels, yep, if you look at those on a job site, you can be like okay, that person has to be here because they need a job. That person went to school and planned that job. Yep, you can see the different stratas. Yep, school and planned that job, you can see the different stratas.

Speaker 2: 53:20

But I think if we the theory of, like you know, rising tides lifts all boats I think if we can really help out the attractiveness of the people sweeping a site, for instance, or those who are coming there and doing these beginning jobs, like I need to if we can make that and I think we're starting to see that, with flushable toilets and hand washing on job sites, changing the environment, changing the environment, making it less dirty, making it more, you're going to have the change in the sentiment of the parents, because the parents will drive by a job site and go okay, well, that doesn't look like a mess, like to construction people. They look at a job and they can make sense of it. The general public who have the kids who might have gone to a trade school orientation at their high school in grade 11, they come back and they go hey mom, hey dad, or whatever it is, look what I went and saw today and they're like you're doing what.

Speaker 2: 54:14

No, no, hey dad or whatever it is. Look what I went and saw today. And they're like you're doing what? No, no, no, you're going to university. I didn't get to go to university, you're gonna. And that is the issue we're dealing with. Sure, we're dealing with this perception of a lack of prestige. I agree with that. Every parent wants their kid to do better than they did. Yeah, that's just the way it is.

Speaker 2: 54:27

It's like human nature, yeah it's human nature to lift your child up and do more than you did. Yep, yep. So when the level of what you did, especially in Vancouver, when real estate's $1,000 a square foot, everybody's reasonably successful somehow in order to even afford to live here. Otherwise they're going downhill the whole time. Yep, so that bar is really high, depending on how expensive the area you live in is relative to the prestige around construction. Yep, does that all make sense?

Speaker 1: 54:57

I think it definitely makes sense and I think, yeah, go back to the Australia point. They don't seem to have that problem. There's not the perception barrier of getting into the trades there and that's why a lot of people fall into that. I think the problem in Australia with construction is at the other end of the level. You know these big tier one GCs that are all going bankrupt over the last 10 years.

Speaker 2: 55:24

Oh, I see.

Speaker 1: 55:24

Yeah, it's just like I mean that's going to be hard because obviously they're like the sort of the big fish, the smaller fish. That's the goal.

Speaker 2: 55:31

Yeah, exactly right, that's the goal. Yeah, exactly, and the goal looks risky.

Speaker 1: 55:35

Well, it's just like a lot of them have gone bankrupt because they took on whatever too much debt and couldn't service the projects whatever it was, so that's like the bottleneck could shift there, whereas I think there's always going to be opportunity in Canada, like things need to be built. We all know that, whether it's houses or infrastructure to support, there is a massive amount that needs to be done to meet immigration goals in Canada. The problem here seems to be how do you fill that gap? How do you get enough people doing that work? And I think that goes back to perception. So there should be. There should be. The government and all of these unions just, in my opinion, should be putting money into how to advertise trades as something that gets a young person's attention on YouTube, which is where most kids spend their time, or some of these other platforms, and make it look great. Make operating an excavator look fantastic.

Speaker 2: 56:24

Make being a bricklayer look cool. You know, you don't actually have to make it look, you don't have to like stage it yeah absolutely yeah, Like I went to just an event down at a restaurant here because there was a trade show here that the ICBA put on, and I went to an off event party after Yep and the group of people that were there, I was like this is amazing. Everyone is super like checked in to everything they're doing. There's a community here.

Speaker 1: 56:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 56:57

And a lot of other industries, like if you you said you know your friend of 13 or 14 wanted to be a dentist, okay, if you go to a dental convention like wow, it's like it's. I'm not sure how long. Construction convention, yeah, and you've got a bunch of people are all a certain type who are really into making things and moving things forward it's such a great culture?

Speaker 2: 57:22

yeah, no. And so I think that, um, you know any parents are like oh, you know that the word trades yeah, maybe go to like build x. Yeah, maybe go to an event after buildX, maybe see what is happening, look at technology and construction, listen to podcasts like this and then maybe reconsider that Karen or Michael, or whoever your kid's name is, should take a look at this stuff, definitely, yeah.

Speaker 1: 57:50

And there's more avenue than just the trades and increasingly there's more avenues than just the trades. Well, they could work at Sightmax, they could work at Sightmax.

Speaker 2: 57:55

They could work at Sightmax. Yeah, exactly, we're technology. Exactly, we're in construction.

Speaker 1: 57:59

We're in a camera company that's deploying cameras on site.

Speaker 2: 58:02

You're still in construction.

Speaker 1: 58:03

Totally, Because I think if you think about it right, you always want to work where there's money. I always got told if Construction is like in every economy.

Speaker 1: 58:12

It's a huge piece. It's never stopping. It's never stopping Even when we go to Mars. It's still making it. Yeah well, we're going to have to build it right.

Speaker 1: 58:18

And here, interestingly as well, is that there's obviously cycles. So there's the new building stuff here in Vancouver. That seems difficult because of permitting and stuff. So a lot of people will pivot to retrofits, which is something that I'm doing at the minute. That's still construction and in many ways it's more sustainable because you're working with what's already there. You know you're not knocking something down to start again. You're working with what's retainable and then improving it, like that's a but like heritage facades and stuff like that. You can do that. But the stuff that we're working on at the minute with Montage Development Consultants is these deep energy retrofits. So development consultants is these deep energy retrofits. So we work with non-for-profit clients, usually housing societies, whether it's seniors, housing indigenous communities, affordable housing, government facilities. They operate these buildings not-for-profit and the government has set aside a lot of money to make buildings more climate resilient. So 2021, obviously the heat dome here there was a lot of people in.

Speaker 1: 59:20

No air conditioning.

Speaker 2: 59:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 59:22

So they yeah brutal, really brutal, and we see it in the jobs that we're working on.

Speaker 1: 59:26

Southwest phasing, people will be heating their apartment with their stove because there's no heating or cooling in there. You know, build into it. So I know, and you know, build into it. So I know and you know. You see, new construction is the glamorous. You see these skyscrapers and stuff and but there's a lot more to it. There's a lot more value and community in construction and and utility. And it doesn't always look sexy, it doesn't always look, um, glamorous.

Speaker 1: 59:52

You know people who we call them muck shifters back home, people who, like dig up the earth, remediate the earth to make it ready for housing developments. Right, they make so much money yeah, they make so much money and they don't have a huge amount of the stress associated with designing and managing and contracts and all that kind of stuff. So there's construction is just such a broad opportunity or set of opportunities to get into. And the best thing about it, I think which I think I've kind of displayed is you can start in one avenue and end up in a completely different scenario, like the idea of me as a young lad in the, in the northeast, you know, not really knowing what he wanted to do, and then 15-20 years later being on a podcast talking about what he's done in construction, like like that in itself is an example of what might happen if you just get into it and let it unfold and try and provide value.

Speaker 1: 1:00:44

And you need a bit of a plan yourself. You have to establish what your game is within everyone else's game and protect that, to kind of push yourself forward. But the opportunities are endless. Yeah, it's like because, like you say, it's never going away. It may change, but it's never going away so in the advertising of opportunities of construction.

Speaker 2: 1:01:07

When we see these internal communications, if you will, sometimes they get out and they get into the mainstream media. But about mental health and suicide and construction, okay, so big issue, massive Shout out to Josh Vitale in Chandler, arizona. Okay, who is? He? Started the Built Foundation? Okay, and he is there's a couple of podcasts ago I had him on and so he's creating some awesome stuff down there in terms of how to help with mental health yeah, it's not.

Speaker 2: 1:01:43

It's actually going to be launching in the next number of months, so, but just, everybody keep their eye out for and it's getbuiltorg, okay, and that's going to be coming out, so don't go there yet. But and we're in beginning of October for anybody to listen to this another time, so maybe it will be about the time to listen to this, but let's just talk about that a little bit, because it's hard for when those that information you need. Okay, so there's two parts to this. You need awareness, in other words, to create enough of a groundswell for people to invest in that, to make change. Okay, you need that. But when that awareness gets out to the parents of the kids, they're like what are we doing here?

Speaker 1: 1:02:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:02:30

So that's the part that I find difficult. We almost need high industry internal awareness, everyone in the community, yeah, and then let's kind of like not, because it's not helping anybody get into construction, right. So, yeah, that's something that I maybe I'm wrong there, it's highly likely I'm wrong when it comes to that. Maybe I'm wrong there, it's highly likely I'm wrong when it comes to that. But just from being an, you know, an ex-strategist when it comes to messaging and all that, I just go it's tough to square that.

Speaker 1: 1:03:03

How do you get the message right? Yeah, for sure I think in Canada I haven't seen a great deal of the messaging around substance abuse, stress, not talking. You haven't seen it. I haven't seen a huge amount of it here. I'm not saying that it isn't there Like internally in construction, you mean no, I just mean like In the mainstream media. Yeah, like that anyone could see back to that point of parents you know, being concerned that it's a stressful industry.

Speaker 2: 1:03:26

Well, they only see it when it's in a national newspaper. Yeah, you know online in their Apple News.

Speaker 1: 1:03:31

Yeah, yeah, in the UK there has been a massive push, I'd say over the last 10 years, to really break down that old school mentality of like shut up and put up, just crack on with it Because it's taken far too much of a toll. Like it's the construction industry I think it's double almost every other industry in terms of suicide and substance abuse. That's outrageous every other industry in terms of suicide and substance abuse that's like outrageous, considering how many people are in this industry.

Speaker 1: 1:04:01

Yeah, and the other side of it is as well. Some of construction is not only important but essential right, building homes, building the infrastructure that supports it, building energy plants, whatever all of this stuff that we do need to currently live and to improve how we live super essential. A lot of construction isn't actually that essential. It's just an economic opportunity, like from experience. You know, when I was working in offices mainly I like the people I worked with, I liked the company I worked for, but I got a bit bored of offices quite quickly, like it's quite. I just didn't see it didn't stack to me the importance of the office and then how stressed people working on offices were getting.

Speaker 1: 1:04:45

Like I had managers and colleagues having breakdowns and like I had times as well where it was really tough because everything. Just you know you're just not managing your time well or you're not managing your outlets well, um, but it's not that important, that kind of work is not that important. I had a sit down with an engineer, like who we worked with, um, and we were sort of chatting about how she was managing her team and she was putting a lot of work into that side of making a good environment for people like she would. I think they shut their servers off after a certain time at night so people couldn't be working like crazy hours in the morning. Yeah, yeah. So they're like guys, just we're going to manage your workload so you get it done in this time. If you don't have to like don't let it creep outside of that. And they would like you know if there was a public holiday on a friday or monday, they would give the other day off to give extended leave to just recharge.

Speaker 1: 1:05:36

So that company and a lot of other ones are putting a lot of effort into how to create environments to minimize that stress, but it's still there, like the stress in project management and lots of other construction avenues.

Speaker 1: 1:05:52

It's like it's always there Because you have so many things to do and it's always against time pressure, it's always against cost pressure and it's always against the quality pressure. So you're like up against it all the time and it's it's not just construction, like my girlfriend works in advertising, she's just a project manager called something else. She manages the same metrics time, quality, um, cost and managing external consultants like herd and sheep. Basically, yeah, but she's stressed. Sometimes she gets, she's, she's pretty good at it, but she has had periods of of elevated stress for sure, like I have, like any other pm you talk to will have had. And it's just we tell ourselves that it's worth it because we get paid and maybe because we um give credence to the opinion of other people. But it's not worth it internally, like if you don't feel great, if your body's super tight and you're not sleeping and you're not eating well and you're not drinking and you're not moving no amount of money is worth that really right, like I don't know.

Speaker 1: 1:06:51

That situation might change if you have kids or you have certain financial situations. You've kind of got to work for that. But I feel like that balance we're just we're losing, we're losing a reasonable grip on it. Sometimes I, I, I get you. I mean, I think it's different if the work that you do you're really motivated by and it doesn't feel like work, because you can work 20 hour days and be like what, what a day. I love doing that.

Speaker 1: 1:07:15

The majority of us probably aren't that fortunate. We don't. We're not fully consumed by the work we do. We appreciate it, we want to do it well, but we're not in love with it. We're here to get paid, to travel, to look after our kids, whatever it might be. So I think if you allow it to get to a point of importance that outweighs how important it really is, your body and mind starts to tell you like hey, you need to do something about this in construction. Going back to this and and a lot of males, particularly they're, we're not very good at having that conversation like hey, this is too hard for me. Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of men just can't do that, particularly on a environment like a site where you might have a hundred guys rebar workers, steel workers, all tough guys, right. Nobody wants to have that conversation, but I guarantee that almost all of them are having that conversation internally, right, whether they're not externalizing and sharing it. They're, they're struggling, they've got something going on. There's, there's no doubt in my mind so.

Speaker 2: 1:08:15

So there's, there's so many tentacles to this. So we've talked a lot about field workers and people on site and mental health and construction and substance abuse, okay. But then when we talk about the office yeah, it seems to be, and this is an office job. So, no, I know you're raising your eyebrows To steel man the other side yeah, just for a second here. Sure, we're trying to do two things at once here. A, we are in the new world of trying to push average life expectancy past 90. Yep, okay, so that. Managing your 90. Yep? Okay, so that. Managing your stress? Yep. So you're going to have the older generation saying, well, when I was young, there's that conversation, totally, totally. And how resilient people are. I mean, if you go to Ukraine and you go to Russia and you go to some of these other places, they're just more resilient For sure, in general, the culture as they've had to be, that's just the way it is. They're tougher. I mean even Israel, they all have to go to military school. They have to do their time.

Speaker 1: 1:09:26

They have to do all this in their service, right.

Speaker 2: 1:09:28

So I think we're in a time right where these are all relative to the sort of zeitgeist of what health is, because we have the luxury to think about this detail. So, because Alvo said so, if there's, let's just say that there is the bifurcation between life problems, as you were saying, some people have to work, some people have managed their life in a different pattern, sure, and so the people that have to work and they've not from their, but just have made silly mistakes over the years, but at the time they didn't see them as silly yeah, of course.

Speaker 2: 1:10:16

Unfortunately, they've got themselves into a life position that's hard to get out of. It's a bit of a hole. So those individuals, they're going to need some special attention. The question is what I would say who pays for the people's unfortunate decisions of the past? Yeah, yeah, do you see where I'm going with this?

Speaker 1: 1:10:38

Yeah, I mean it's an individual accountability.

Speaker 2: 1:10:41

Thing right it is, but the problem is, is that's the thing making the stress? Yeah, so you can only handle so much, yep, if your life's pressure is at a boiling point, like seriously, and then the super comes to you and just puts another piece of pressure on him, yeah, because the pm has come to site. And the reason the pm has come to site is because the client has come totally, and it's just, uh, that's exactly how it happens all the way.

Speaker 1: 1:11:09

Top down pressure. It's just a, it's a translation of pressure that happens all the time it is.

Speaker 2: 1:11:13

It's a handoff of pressure.

Speaker 1: 1:11:14

I don't want this hot potato.

Speaker 2: 1:11:18

But at the lower strata of the people who are doing the work. Yeah, it's too much, yep, right so. But so let's just say that we, we can't swear on this, can we?

Speaker 1: 1:11:31

No, yeah, you can. Okay, so there's a, there's the same. I'm sure you've heard of it, but shit rolls downhill. Yeah, I think it's. I think it comes from the military right. Like these guys make decisions up. Construction is the same, right. It's a transfer of passion too. Yeah, for sure, that's a much more charming way of saying what I said, but, uh, yeah, I think that you definitely. What you just described happens so regularly in construction, right. Somebody way up top with pull and and less life problems for sure for sure, maybe not all, yeah I don't know.

Speaker 2: 1:12:04

But even at the top it could be those guys man could be going through a divorce.

Speaker 1: 1:12:07

Yeah, we're going through something. Same thing internally might have been you know, like same thing.

Speaker 1: 1:12:12

They might look flush, they might have a beautiful suit on, they might be always on time, look polished, they might look great, they speak calm, but you never know. You just never know like behind scenes they might be just about holding it together, but anyway, their ability to to perform and and do their role. And I think the point is like how do you manage it? And it? For me it goes back to the difference. But anyway, their ability to perform and do their role. And I think the point is how do you manage it? And for me it goes back to the difference between leadership and management. For me, that's the only thing that I can say with certainty. There's loads of other potential solutions in terms of how do we pay people, how much time do we give people off? Could we bring in shift rotation to give people better recharges? There's lots, there's lots, there's lots, but they're all impacts and for me, the difference between management and leadership is very clear and I think the the impact of it is huge. A manager just wants to get things done. A leader cares about what's getting done and how it's getting done, and I think a problem I see is middle management often fall into that saying yes thing. They just want to appease, they want to be good for their company totally, but they're not thinking about what that does to them and what that does for the people working below them.

Speaker 1: 1:13:26

I don't like putting work on other people. That's another reason why I moved out of. You know. That's another reason why I moved out of. That makes sense. You know that's another reason why I moved out of the progression I was on to go from project manager to senior project manager and project director. Because now you're managing people More and more. You're managing people and I love working with people and coaching and mentoring, but I don't really love telling them what to do. And that with people and coaching and mentoring, but I don't really love telling them what to do. And then that is a part of that role and I think the people that get into not always.

Speaker 1: 1:13:57

I've had incredible leaders, like rugby and work. I've had people who just got it. It was just naturally in them to lead rather than manage or know when to do to do which. But managers will just say, yes, they're just conduits like. This person above me needs me to do this, so I'm going to get this person below me to do this and, as you described before, that's going to go all the way down the chain to somebody who is actually building the thing on site. Yeah, and I don't think people have the vision of that, particularly if you're not spending time on site because you're not making that calculation. You're not making my scene.

Speaker 1: 1:14:26

My project director told me we've got to get to this part of this project in three days. You're not thinking about the lads on site or the people on site who have got to do that. You're not thinking all the way down, you're just thinking that's a task that I have to get done and I want that task off my plate because my plate's full, so I'm going to tell someone else to do it and not think about how does it actually get done, though, are we giving enough time to the people who actually have to do the work? That's the construction side on site, but also in the office. Same thing. Oh, I need this budget from a gc in four days and it's a 15 million project.

Speaker 1: 1:15:01

Yeah, like that's ridiculous. Yeah, I got you. Like that's crazy unrealistic it is, but it passes downhill, right. So then you need people who are in the middle, who have the wherewithal and the presence to say I get why we're trying to do this, but I think doing it like this is risky, dangerous, whatever. And to be able to buffer that workflow so it protects people downstream for me that's a leader, right. You're protecting people behind you, below you, whatever, and you're trying to push them on rather than push them down like that.

Speaker 2: 1:15:32

That, to me, is so so a lot of these pressures. Let's just talk about money for a second. The big dirty word money, yeah. So if you try and fix any of this stuff with money, what's the result? Yeah, it's very short term. No, it's not. The result is inflation.

Speaker 2: 1:15:57

Yeah, I guess, if you look in economically, yeah, yeah, so if you raise wages yeah, you raise wages, you have more programs like nothing's free, yeah, and unless the government's going to pay for it, which actually also, they need to borrow the money to even put in these programs yeah, some tax is going to come back for us, you've seen that in the UK.

Speaker 1: 1:16:17

now, right, we gave a lot of bailouts, furloughs during COVID, so people that weren't working, we gave them whatever a week or a month. People were like this is amazing. I had a mate who was out golfing every day he's like this is class, it's the best time of life and you're like mate, you're gonna pay for this man like it's, are they asking?

Speaker 2: 1:16:32

for the money back.

Speaker 1: 1:16:32

Oh yeah, like just taxes are going up and they're finding ways to reduce child care or, you know, increase or decrease tax brackets to get like they've got to pay it back.

Speaker 2: 1:16:42

It's checks and balance right, so the money has to come from somewhere. For any program like, let's just say, we're attacking this um, you know, mental health and suicide and construction, okay, yeah. What I think it needs is is something free, okay, and the free is a mindset change. The mindset change. Yeah, we got to spend a little bit of money in terms of deploying this new paradigm of a mindset change, but I think what we need to do is find out what we can do to change attitudes, sentiments, behavior, et cetera, to make the job site a place that has less stress. There's there's programs, not programs. There are things that you can do, just exactly what you were talking about with the middle manager, for instance. Rather than obfuscation, you can essentially have more of an accountability. Where it's the culture of accountability and compensation is around. How much accountability is there If they push off stuff that gets?

Speaker 2: 1:17:41

I mean if you have a bonus based on the fewer amount of negative or perceived negative change orders let's say because the project was as smooth as possible, because no one at any point was losing any project consciousness along the way. Sure, yeah, so that right there. It doesn't cost money, it's just free. It's just whether or not you're paying attention or not. Yeah, so I think that there is some things that we can do here, especially in a place like Vancouver or some of these places that real estate is very expensive. Yeah, keep in mind. Let's just say that you deployed because of programs to address all of these things, that it added, let's say, another 3% cost to a building project yep, okay. And let's say it's homes for sale that are a you know it could be considered affordable homes. Okay, they're going to be more expensive yep, so you're essentially pushing, you're just kicking the ball down the field, it's not getting anywhere right, so we need to find out you're not enacting change, you're just changing how it already is.

Speaker 1: 1:18:50

Well, it just pushes it up.

Speaker 2: 1:18:51

It just pushes it further away. Yep, and the way that business is is business is looking for profit yep, and it's looking for the margin, right. So if you take away the margin, it just pushes it up again, yeah, so, which is creates an inflation within construction. So I'm interested in how do you change language? How do you, how do you um make change that is free? Yeah, so, because otherwise it's just making it more complicated.

Speaker 1: 1:19:19

So, anyway, this is just a lot, a lot to work through, and it'd be so interesting to see if other countries, cities, companies, industries are working on this. Because the problem?

Speaker 2: 1:19:32

but we're working on it right now. Right, okay, even this conversation yep, yeah, I guess yep is is moving along. What josh is doing, totally he's not. He's not trying to make everything more expensive, yep, he just. He has a thing which is called um, tough enough to talk, okay, and tough enough to talk is a perfect example of you know. It's just a mindset change. It's not tough enough to talk. I'm going to give you an extra 10 bucks an hour Totally. It's tough enough to talk, as in, it's cool to talk about this. Yep, and you know what You're actually.

Speaker 2: 1:20:01

Your prestige as a person will actually be uplifted by the fact that you are open, yeah, by the fact that you were open, yeah, those kind of things, vulnerability always attracts people, right? Vulnerability is a tough thing for people to be considered I don't want to say masculine, but considered tough. I mean, that's kind of like a persona that's very prevalent on a job site. You show up in the big truck and you do the big thing Totally, Because it signals capability.

Speaker 1: 1:20:26

Yeah, exactly, it's probably hiding insecurities that we all have right like odd. Like I'm very open as a pm that I don't know it all, and if I don't know something I just say hey I don't know vulnerability but I'll figure it out.

Speaker 1: 1:20:37

Oh, I'm pretty confident I can ask this person and they will know for me. I think people have a problem with that, and definitely in construction, pulling a bit of truck, having the boots on you for whatever reason. We don't want to say we don't know, yeah, but like that's so inviting to say I don't know, as long as the next sentence is but here's how I'll find out. Like that's, that's how we should all be operating, right, if we don't know something, obviously it's great if you do and it's helpful. But yeah, I don't think there should be this stigma around not wanting to admit when you don't know something. That sounds crazy to me, like then you would just be pretending that you knew everything, yeah, which makes no sense you know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 1:21:14

it's in trouble. Yeah, exactly yeah exactly.

Speaker 1: 1:21:15

And then things become more expensive when you pretend you do know something because you've got to rework the mistake you made, rather than just saying, right, let's ice this for a second, give me two days to figure it out and we'll come back and do it right the first time. Then there's no rework. Right, there was just a little vulnerability, but you can see it right. Anytime you're in a heated moment on site in a meeting, the second that someone offers that little bit of vulnerability, it's like oh, I'm not really sure you can see everyone else in the room come down a little bit, because nobody wants to be the first one to be like I don't know this thing, but you can see, you can see it in body language.

Speaker 1: 1:21:52

The majority of people I mean some people will see that as a like a wounded animal and go for it. But like those developers, they'll do that. But most people in the room don't want to jump on that person. They want to be like okay, well, we'll see what we can do to help you out, and they know that it's like a ripple effect. Right, they might go into their next meeting and, as a result of seeing someone admit they didn't know something, they might do it in the next one, and maybe that's that change that you're talking about, just by action. There's no money in that, there's no uh, there's no program, there's no advertising of that. That's just a person in a moment going yeah, I'm not 100, not 100%, but I'll try and figure it out and if any of you guys can help me, I'd really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 1:22:33

That seems like a good end. I don't know. That was awesome. Yeah, all right. So how do people find out about you on LinkedIn?

Speaker 1: 1:22:40

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not doing a huge amount of advertising at this point, no, but you're on there. Yeah, but I'm on linkedin so people can get in touch if they're just working with you steven walls on on linkedin um. Swpm is the? Is the um? Not very creative name for the business right now, but I think as I was setting it up I wanted it to be as simple as possible. My whole thing about setting this all right, very simple. People were like is this a direction thing?

Speaker 1: 1:23:04

like southwest and I was like nope, but I just I didn't want barriers to stop me getting going. Like, I spent a bit of time on the website, which I did myself business cards registering, but I didn't want to be doing so much work that I wasn't actually doing work, doing business. So I just wanted to bang it out and if people are like me you're, you need to change that name. I'll change it eventually, that's okay. I just wanted to get going, you know okay well, good on you, man.

Speaker 2: 1:23:30

Um, this has been a pleasure.

Speaker 1: 1:23:31

Yeah, thank you so much for having us on. This is. Uh, this was something I was. I was, I was trying to achieve a bit of a goal and something new and something I was curious about.

Speaker 2: 1:23:39

So I'm really glad that you guys invited me on yeah, you're a good conversationalist yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1: 1:23:43

Yeah, thanks, man, I enjoyed it too. Thank you, well, that does it for another episode of the site visit.

Speaker 2: 1:23:48

Thank you for listening. Thank you Well. That does it for another episode of the Site Visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystemscom slash the site visit, where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the Site Visit podcast and Sitemax, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.