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The SiteVisit
Leadership in construction with perspective from the job site. A podcast dedicated to the Construction industry. Construction professionals, General Contractors, Sub trade Contractors, and Specialty Contractors audiences will be engaged by the discussions between the hosts and their guests on topics and stories. Hosted James Faulkner ( CEO/Founder - SiteMax Systems ).
The SiteVisit
The Buildings Show 2024 | Recording Session 1 | Laying the Foundation for a Healthier Industry with Gianluca Pascale and Angelo Suntres
Did you know that 26% of the construction workforce is set to retire in the next four years, intensifying the industry's retention crisis? Or that one in three opioid-related deaths in Canada involves a construction worker? And did you know that construction workers are five times more likely to die by suicide than from workplace incidents?
In this powerful episode, Gianluca Pascale and Angelo Suntres join us to unpack these staggering statistics. We explore the crushing pressures construction workers face and the societal norms that silence crucial conversations about mental health.
As the conversation unfolds, we scrutinize the industry's traditional reliance on financial incentives for attraction and retention, revealing their inadequacy for sustainable workforce engagement.
We highlight the crucial need for proactive leadership and collective action in the construction industry to foster a healthier, more resilient workforce. By advocating for platforms like the Constructors Guild, we aim to unite innovative minds and drive forward the transformation necessary for the industry's prosperity. This episode is a clarion call for change, urging all stakeholders to move beyond private discourse and champion the essential reforms needed for sustainable success.
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All right, welcome everybody. Can you all hear us, okay? Perfect, I like the thumbs up. That's what we need at the end of this is a big thumbs up. Maybe we'll do the thumbs up if everyone agrees. I would appreciate the wave.
Speaker 2:The wave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need some density crowd density for the old wave, all right, so welcome, gentlemen. I'm James, host of the Sight Visit podcast, and we're coming in from Vancouver, sponsored by SiteMax, and we're going to talk today about mental health and construction, a topic that, according to my guests here, not many people are actually talking about openly enough. So today we have Giancarlo Pascali Is that how I pronounce Pascali?
Speaker 2:You're right on the first one. The first one is on the second. First one is Gianluca.
Speaker 1:Oh, gianluca, why do I have Giancarlo? I don't know. We'll take that up later.
Speaker 2:That's his stage name.
Speaker 1:It is Exactly. Do you know what I did here? Yeah, yeah, I have a friend of mine and this is probably the issue. And then we have Angelo Santarez, suntrees, suntrees, two for zero. We'll just double our speaking fee. Do you have a speaking fee? Yes, we'll talk about that later. I don't have the invoice yet. I haven't had the invoice yet. Perfect, no, we're going to get it. So we're talking about the mental health and construction, but first I'm going to do the intros first of all. So, angelo, you have the Human Side of Construction. So this is the HCOC, hsoc, yeah, yeah, and you are an author of the Human Side of Construction. This is the second edition, so he's written two books here and, um, this is all about helping people uh move through, uh, their careers and having more opportunity and being able to find themselves in the in the path of construction, um, by not being lost and being able to find purpose, being able to advertise themselves well, the brand of themselves in construction, making them be the best that they can be within their craft.
Speaker 3:Correct. Yeah, it really comes down to you know relationship-based, because anybody who's been in the industry knows that you know your relationships take success. But where do we learn about that right? A lot of it is technical training and it's really just about improving the human experience in construction.
Speaker 1:Perfect, thank you very much. And then we have Gianluca Pascali.
Speaker 3:See.
Speaker 1:Second time. So you, my friend, you have the Constructors Guild, yes, okay, and so you're helping companies transform with Unity, getting one to sort of look at these problems. So you've got like a seven step thing that I'm going from your website here. So I'm just going to read off some of these things here network, limited connections, innovation in general, skills enhancement and leadership growth. These are all the things that you do for companies.
Speaker 1:And we have been talking a number of times on the pre-calls that we've had. We've had a couple of heated ones. Yeah, I think you can get mad at me a couple of times. I think you've got a very feisty personality. So if there are any seat belts there, um, you might want to put them on. Um, yeah, because luke is, uh, very, very, would you say, um, passionate, passionate. So, and also, um, did we put an explicit thing here? And we might. There might be a few of those uh popping around for emphasis.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the site visit podcast. Leadership and perspective from construction with your host, james balkner, recorded live on stage from the building show in toronto. So let's just talk, get into um, this topic here. So, um, we talk about this a lot on the podcast the site, visit podcast. If you guys listen to that um, you will hear lots about mental health and construction. Um.
Speaker 1:So we had some points here, and the first one is we had been talking about mental health in relation to what that means to people in organizations, what the boundaries of that word is or that term is and on this trip on the way here, we kind of had this and I shared it with these gentlemen before we started is, when you talk about the mental health of somebody, you have to.
Speaker 1:Obviously, some people are on some kind of a spectrum which is a completely different thing. We're also talking about mental health in terms of just basics, of the lack or absence of peace, peace of mind. So many workers, so many people in construction have are redlining. They don't have any peace of mind at all. They have issues that could be from home. They have issues, financial problems, they have other life problems and those the uh, the absence of peace of mind is something that is a concept that I just shared with these guys, because I'd been pretty hard on this in terms of you know, maybe life is just hard for people and it's hard for people in general. We all have problems, so maybe why don't we just chat about that concept in terms of how we sort of, you know, get the conversation going about mental health in construction?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you've framed it pretty good there to start it off. And what's funny is you know the whole work-life balance thing. It's all part of a spectrum. There's no different like delineation between work and life. And in everybody's life inevitably stuff happens. Right, you deal with issues, things happen at home, at work, but what do you do with it? That counts, and so what we're talking about is just promoting. When it comes down to two things in my eyes empathy and compassion. Just caring about other people. Right, because at the end of the day, yeah, we are all workers, we have our uh, duties as employers, we got work to do, but we're all people and it's about connecting at like that foundational level and just supporting people seeing what they're going through.
Speaker 3:Um, I know in my career, looking back now, there's been instances where I have experienced mental health challenges. I didn't know what it was at the time, but looking back now it was literally a breakdown. But that was five years ago and that terminology wasn't in my uh, in my vocabulary. And I can think even further back than that in my 20 year construction career, talking to people and having shared experiences with them and not knowing at that time the tools to help them through that issue. So, um, I think one of the biggest problems is the stigma around mental health. That's kind of what we talk about Like as a term.
Speaker 1:As a term, is it perceived as a weakness in a?
Speaker 3:tough world. Well, here's my understanding. Growing up, there was quote-unquote normal, which I've learned that there is no normal. And then there was mental illness, and the perception of mental illness was somebody in a street jacket being medicated in a hospital. Oh, the word illness, illness, ah. So maybe it's the first word. It might be a semantics thing, yes, but nobody wanted to be associated with the person in the street jacket. So you just bottle everything up and you pretend everything's fine, you compartmentalize and you try your hardest to be normal. Well, guess what, guys? There's no normal, it's not a thing thing. Everybody's dealing with stuff.
Speaker 2:So let's just talk about it instead of having it like a white elephant in the room, like the empathy and compassion is definitely a large part of of what our industry needs to adopt and implement. However, not just at the workforce level. We need to be doing it at the leadership level, at the ownership level and also at the client level. A client still possess, in large part, a lot of unrealistic demands and expectations and as I'm pretending that I'm no longer but I'm pretending that I'm a construction management owner, a construction company owner demands and expectations, I'm taking those and I'm passing them along to my employees so that trickles down.
Speaker 2:And in order to piggyback on what Angelo shared, our workforce, total workforce are struggling with other things, and one of them, economically right now, canada's. It's tough, it's tough out there, it's very expensive, there's a lot of uncertainty and with that springs a lot of fear. So that's one of them. There could be that someone's child is going through difficulty at school or maybe their wife is fighting cancer. You just don't know. These unrealistic demands and expectations. They get passed down and, like Velcro, they stick to our workforce on the way down. And you know the proverbial saying is shit flows downhill what it does, but by the time it gets to the workforce the ones who are on site executing the work that we've agreed to deliver for our clients. They are the ones that are, quite honestly, in my opinion, the ones that are brunting the biggest end of the stick, and that needs to change.
Speaker 1:So we talk about first principles a lot and like what are the main things? What are the things that are contributing to these in construction compared to other industries? So do we hear about, for instance, mental health in the advertising industry?
Speaker 2:Do we hear that you don't. But here's I'll give you an example. Do we hear of mental health in law, with attorneys? I'll tell you right now that industry alone it would make your hair stand up on end, the numbers that they are pulling with mental health difficulties.
Speaker 2:In the law practice In law, practice, wow, okay. So just because we're not talking about it doesn't mean that it's not existing. As Canadians, I'm going to shit on them, but you know what? I'm one of them, so I'm allowed to. We're passive and we keep sweeping things under the rug with the hope that one day it'll disappear or it'll fix itself. It's enough of that. We need to remove the carpet, throw it away and start looking at the elephant in the room and addressing it. The time is now, and I could talk all of your ears off, even everybody in this room. We're in a point of evolution within the construction industry that, if we don't do it now, god help us, because in four years, the total workforce of our industry is retiring 26% of which and with that leaves not 26% of the wisdom. What do we say? We start at 50 because wise people are sitting on gold. If we don't transfer that, that's more opportunities for more mental health problems to keep perpetuating themselves.
Speaker 1:If mental health as a concept is ubiquitous, as you said, in law in whatever other industries, is this just a state of the nation, or is it like because it's happening in other countries as well? Or maybe is it a Western thing?
Speaker 3:Well, we've done similar talks and conversations. There's somebody we connected with CSRA out of the University of Colorado. They do specific research on safety and construction and a couple of their studies were done on mental health. So we were talking to Sid, one of the doctors, one of the directors on the project, and he said you know what, guys, this issue isn't specific to construction. And I got pissed off at him. I said how dare you researcher come into my industry and tell me it's not a problem? He goes no, no, I'm not saying it's not a problem, but it's not specific to construction. And I started thinking. I said you're right, because people are people and there's shit that happens in all aspects of life, every industry. But we are not helping the situation in construction, specifically with trade workers, which, when you look at the volume of people, that's where the biggest numbers are.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of project managers, estimators, fine, fine, but the largest and most at-risk population, I would say, are the people on the tools in the field in the field, yeah yeah, and and there's, there's one of the first principles there in in, in construction specifically, is it is a physical job and also the having to prepare yourself to get to a job site, this travel, involved, project, move around, it's not, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a static thing.
Speaker 1:It's very dynamic in that way. So you're going to see a lot of change and sometimes the change when you have things going on in your life that are pressures, that change isn't sometimes not wanted, um, or you can't handle it because it's like, if you know, if I'm a, if, if I'm a, you know a fellow who has, you know, I've, I've got a, I split with my spouse, I have financial problems I had since I was 19 years old. Um, I am on on the weekends, I am partying on the weekends and who knows? I mean, I know this is some sort of stereotypical archetype here I'm I'm referring, but if you were to take that kind of person and then on top of that, they have to do this physical activity, I think the first principle here is why it's different in construction is because there is a physical element.
Speaker 1:And it also helps, there's a why should I push through when it's hard to do Right, definitely, but it also helps to when it's hard to do Right, definitely.
Speaker 2:But it also helps to understand why people turn to drugs and alcohol in order to be able to push through. Ah, okay, yeah. And that's not just pushing through, the unrealistic demands that I shared earlier that trickled down from the owner, then to the client and then to the owner of the company, who, unfortunately, agreed to them. But there's everything else that's tied to it. There's the stuff that's happening at home, the stuff that's happening with the individual, that they are not sharing because they're afraid to be perceived as someone who's weak. It's just not right.
Speaker 2:Like Angelo, I too have had my difficulties or my experiences with mental health, and a few times. I will tell you straight up, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy and I don't share that for pity. I share that for clarity and for transparency. We need to do something about it and the time is now. I attended a mental health webinar last week and, um, the first portion of it was dignitaries tapping themselves on the shoulders saying that how well things have gone and how much traction they've got and and how, uh, it's a lot less stigmatized within the industry. And I saved my. I saved the next words because I would probably be kicked off the podcast platform, but I will tell you right now there's nothing that's happened. As a matter of fact, we've fallen behind. We are three times worse with our mental health in Canada than pre-pandemic, and it's 26% of Canadians right now are experiencing mental health struggles. And the numbers just keep rising.
Speaker 3:Well, to put it into perspective, I just want to circle back. Yeah, of course, there's a stat I came across, and it varied between five and six, but what I heard in construction you're five times more likely to die by suicide than any other workplace fatality combined. It's six, actually. Five or six, whatever. It's a big number, right? So imagine falling from heights, electrocution, confined space, all these other workplace deaths. Five times more likely construction workers are to die by suicide. If that doesn't paint the picture, I don't know what does.
Speaker 3:So, going back to the factors that are specific to construction, the physical labor is one thing for sure A lot of times work conditions are unsafe. Oh, you know, I don't feel comfortable doing this. Well, you got to get the job done, figure it out. You got a first, second year apprentice sitting there being like, if I don't do this, I'm going to lose my job. They're probably going to not work within the Green Book guidelines to get it done. How does that play on your mental health? There's job instability you mentioned. If you work on a big project, you know layoffs are coming. Your kids might be in university. You got big mortgage payments. Now that's going to play on your mental capacity. There's all these different factors, but let's peel the onion back even another layer. Thank you for that.
Speaker 3:Let's get to the core here. Because let's look at now there's a huge focus on schools getting younger demographics into construction, which is awesome. That didn't exist 5, 10, 20 years ago. I got into construction by a fluke. A lot of people, especially on the trades, got into construction because they felt stupid, because they didn't do well in school, they didn't get good grades, and they said, oh, I guess I'm a fucking idiot, I'll go work in construction.
Speaker 3:So you're coming into an industry with that mentality, thinking that you're less of a person, second class citizen. Then you're put on a job site that doesn't have a clean washroom, hot water to wash your hands or a table or a chair to eat your lunch at. You're treated like an animal. How does that play on your mental health? It further suppresses you. And then you've got the unrealistic dominance and you've got to get this done. You've got to get this done Liquidated damages, penalties.
Speaker 3:So all this pressure, pressure, pressure builds up and what do you do? Add on I don't want to get into gender politics, but it's a male-dominated industry and I won't use the word toxic masculinity because that's very charged. I see some people smirking. But let's say masculine norms yeah, on average, guys are less likely to go to the hospital if they're injured or sick. They're less likely to talk about their feelings. They're less likely to talk about their feelings. They're less likely to open up and be vulnerable, because that's not allowed when you're a guy, especially on a construction site. So you're dealing with all this pressure and all this shit's building up. So what happens? That's why people resort to substance misuse, unhealthy coping mechanisms, drugs, sex, whatever, gambling, all this stuff. Sorry guys, I got a little worked up there.
Speaker 1:No, that's great, that's great, but I think you know toxic masculinity. I mean, there's just a reality to things that there will, even though there's an increase in women in construction and that is great, but it's still going to be mostly it's never going to be. Paired it just so. We just need to go. Okay, that's the way it's going to be. So now we have a how do how do the the dynamic between men and women? How does that work? What does that feel like to the person, as you said, who has had their self-esteem been hammered because of the job site condition in terms of it might not have been plan a or plan b or plan c of their life. They didn't put their hand up that. Maybe we do see this. You know the. What do you want to be when you get older? You put your hand up. Maybe we do see this. You know the. What do you want to be when you get older? You put your hand up.
Speaker 1:If your parents were in construction, maybe you might say that I want to be a builder like my dad. I want to be a developer like my mom. You might say that, but most of the time it's not the plan A. It's like I want to be an astronaut. What was the other one? Firefighter, police officer? Yeah, police offers all of those things, and now they want to be youtubers.
Speaker 1:So that's that's another whole, yeah, complex, uh, complex thing. That's a different show. Yeah, and there's some other websites that you can get very popular on that we won't talk about. Yeah, um, but uh, but what do you think about that in terms of? Do you think? Think before the podcast, john Lukey, you were talking about the fact that not a lot of people or companies are actually really talking about this Like it's. You know, you'll see it here at the trade show and we're here talking about it here, but then, after this, you know, the, this place will close up and you know, people just go about their, their, their daily activities again. Why is this something that is sort of this, this ugly thing we don't want to talk about? Um, limiting belief, which limiting beliefs? Their own limiting belief? Oh, their own, but what? But which?
Speaker 2:one. The common ones is you know, this is how we've always done things. You know. Know you're going to have to work with what you got that runs deep in our industry Rather than starting to. You know, we always talk about innovation. We're going to talk about innovation throughout the next three days here at this show, and more often than not it's always something related to technology or software.
Speaker 2:But the reality is, our most precious and valuable innovation is our people. Why aren't we teaching our people how to communicate with each other right and how to deal with uncomfortable situations, how to build relationships, how to negotiate? These are the things we do such a great job in the last 30 years of having changed the health and safety side of things in the industry. I think we should all look at all of the way Very positive Leaps and bounds, yeah, but now it comes a point where we need to insert the mental health and wellness into that and I feel, among the many things, is investing, innovating in our people and teaching them what a lot of people will call it soft skills. I, I prefer not to. I find nothing soft in those skills. I think, if anything, um, those are are just human skills, and in it.
Speaker 3:They are uh, they are not present in our industry, and it's a shame oh, if I can add to that yeah because, like I think, the reason that people aren't doing more about it is because it's uncomfortable and it's not an easy thing to do dealing with this stuff, which is ironic because there was a stat here. So what is the?
Speaker 1:uncomfortable part. Unpack that, it's okay. Why is it uncomfortable?
Speaker 3:to talk about. I will in a second. So there's just some stats. So KMH Center for Addiction and Mental Health are based here in Toronto. These are stats from their website. Okay, so anybody.
Speaker 3:So by the age of the year 40, the average Canadian is going to 50% of the average Canadians are going to experience mental health illness by the time they're 40. So that means either you or somebody close to you has already experienced something or is going through something right now or will. So, since it's so ubiquitous, why aren't we talking about it? Why is it uncomfortable? So, since it's so ubiquitous, why aren't we talking about it? Why is it uncomfortable? Because it really cuts to the core of, like your human essence and existence and suffering. People don't like to suffer, people don't like pain. So if I come to you with an issue, I am unloading, I'm giving you some of that burden. So you on the receiving end probably don't feel comfortable taking that on, not because you're a bad person, but you've got enough shit to deal with. You've got your own things to do.
Speaker 3:But let's take it a step further. What can you do? Okay, let's compare mental wellness, like you were saying, to physical health this evening. If somebody came to you and said James, I fell, I broke my arm. What would you do? You'd probably point them to a hospital. Say go see a doctor, you've got to go into the emergency room. They're going to fix that. Let's take. So use the the analogous example of mental wellness. Say, somebody comes to you and says I'm having a hard time. You know, I feel like sometimes I just want to kill myself. What would you do? Well, you'd probably do that you'd freeze because we don't know how to deal with that shit. But it's the same answer mental illness, mental pain, mental suffering it's the same as physical. It has to be dealt with by a professional. You you see a lot out there like buddy systems, peer support, yeah, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Like one part I find, and many business owners and people leading teams probably have this. Obviously, somebody coming to you says, hey, I might want to end this. That's a clear statement of hey, we need to you know, so and so needs.
Speaker 1:We need to figure something out here because it's figure something out here, because it's. But the spectrum underneath that of um, my rent just went up five hundred dollars a month and now I have no money for food. Okay, and that's the problem they're dealing with is, is that stress their mental health all the way up to I want to end it. At what point is is there this? It stacks everything. I know I to end it. At what point is there this? It stacks. I know it stacks, but at what point is it the problem of the construction industry? And at what part? We're pretty exasperated.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's going to depend on the individual. If the individual comes in with struggles and they're already loaded enough, we're the straw that broke that breaks the camel's back. I get that. However, there's the other side also, that it may be a very healthy, mentally, well uh, individual that comes in and just maybe is not. It's not that they're not capable, but they're just not wired core values or principle wise to take that type of just not wired core values or principle wise to take that type of fucking abuse.
Speaker 1:It's abusive, which is abusive, like our industry is oh, I say okay, okay and another.
Speaker 2:Another reason why, as it relates to um, the limiting beliefs, is because our leadership has under failure. They fail to understand the return on investment. You know, for them it's all dollars and cents and the truth is, for every dollar that you spend in mental health and wellness in your company, there's a $3 return. I don't know about you, but if somebody gives me three to one odds, sign me up.
Speaker 3:Why do I pour my money? No, and I kind of want to touch on that too, because you're right, james, it's not our responsibility as leaders or employers to solve people's problems, but I think we have a responsibility to equip them with the tools to deal with it, even if it originates at work or at home, whatever, because it's good human principle is to help people out and, like you were saying, it's going to help your bottom line, because if your people are thinking about other shit and they're stressed out, they're not going to be productive. If they're on the tools, they're going to be a safety risk to themselves and those around them. All that stuff amounts to time and money. So, yeah, it's not my problem that inflation has gone up and somebody's asking for a raise because they can't afford the rent. Sorry, buddy, I can't help you out there, but I might be able to provide you with some financial literacy not to be condescending or some other type of tool to help them work more safely and more productive. What do you think?
Speaker 1:of the marketplace of talent in general. When I say talent, I just mean workforce. The construction industry, from my observation in the field, worker economy leads with how much money you can make. That's the that's, that's, that's, that's the flag. It's like come into construction, you can earn X, y, z, and that's the reason. But and if that's just one second, but if that's the reason, then that's what we trade on all the time. Yeah, we're trading on the money. Yeah, right, right. And then when the money isn't enough, that's the problem.
Speaker 2:I want to throw a few more entities in there. The government's doing the same and the education is doing the same. Up until recently, a couple of years ago, construction industry was persona non grata. We were grease monkeys. Now go to the construction industry. You can make a hundred grand.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have no onboarding process. You know, we're Back of the ranch. Well, I mean, that's what it is, right? We have no onboarding process. Our industry's mental health is hanging by a thread. There's a drug and alcohol epidemic going through our industry and nobody's talking about it. And we're bringing kids into this, like now. Kids here in Ontario can leave what is it? From grade 11 onwards. So 15 or 16 years old can go straight into the industry and start their apprenticeship yeah, pre-apprenticeship. And Angela will share what those stats are as regards to how many of them finish apprenticeship. But I can tell you right now the rough statistic is that whoever comes into our industry is a maximum two years and then they head back out. You know, you take back into the account that 26 of this total industry is going to retire in four years.
Speaker 3:We're up shit creek. Well, let's, let's go back to that, because that's good and you bring up a good point too. First off, on the on on drugs and substance misuse, remember seeing a stat one in three, three opioid deaths in Canada are construction workers. Yeah, so 33%, like that's. I don't know what that's like compared to other industries, but so are we just talking? Oh, okay. So two issues that we had in construction before attraction and retention. We've done a whole lot of work on attraction. There's big neon signs, government and companies saying come work here. There's big neon signs, government and companies saying come work here, there's lots of money, lots of opportunity. But what are we doing on the retention front? Because I remember seeing stats. I won't get into all the numbers, but on average there's going to be 40,000 people retiring over the next 10 years in construction, just based on the age, presumably, if they're 50 now, they're going to retire by 60, just in Canada.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Okay. So how many apprentices are applying every year? On average, 80,000. Okay, which is great. Right, that's awesome. You got 80,000, maybe 40,000, but wait a minute, how many people actually finish? Yeah, and stick around? Yeah, in Canada it's lower since before COVID, but it's at about 20%. Let's say 25, just to make it easy math. Okay, so you got 80,000 coming in. 25% are finishing, that's 20,000. You need 40,000. We're halfway there. And are they going to stick around, even those people? Because what they're finding, like you said, we're competing against other sexier industries tech, ai, finance, all this stuff, high-profile things and I think what's going to happen is the government's going to say what do you want from us guys? We funneled a bunch of people in the industry. You guys couldn't keep them. It's on us now to change the way we think, change the way we operate to keep these people.
Speaker 2:The other very important point of contention is that the poster children for our industry, the ones who represent us, are either I refer to them as the big boys, I don't need to name them but the big corporations that people think drive the construction industry With pro-D budgets. Right, and let's just pause there. That is false. They don't drive the construction industry. The reality is that small to medium enterprise pull the aggregate volume of this industry's work in dollar value. Okay, people too. Yeah, and people too.
Speaker 2:So how is it that we're being represented by the big boys and also the other rep that I have and I love them, but they get too much airtime is the unions, the schools, the governments.
Speaker 2:I'm saying they're pushing the trades, but everybody's being pushed to go into the unions. The union can only do so much. I went to the concrete show this past February and I went by a union booth again, it doesn't matter who it is, but had great conversation with them. But the alarming information that was shared back to me is that in February they were already full. Till November they were turning people away. So what is it that we can do and must do to help educate, because there's a lot of fear and uncertainty in the small to medium enterprise the one that pulled the aggregate volume of the industry on how they can get a piece of that pie and, more importantly, how they can get representation. What fails in this industry is that the small to medium enterprise do not have a seat at the table, and this is a perfect time to say I'm interested in that seat.
Speaker 3:And whoever's listening to this, come and talk to me. I think that's they're the ones who are gonna be hit the hardest too, and I know this is all. We're kind of circling around mental health here, but it is kind of all related. It's all related it's all causal.
Speaker 3:At bigger companies, you have more people. You have more of an employee base to draw from, so you have, so you have a bigger base to draw from, so you have, you have, so you have a bigger, bigger base to draw from, so you have more experienced people that you can put in a mentorship type role to help other people have. Small to medium they might have two or three key guys. Once they're gone, that's it. Where are they going to go to to get to? And so how does this impact mental health? Okay, so let's go back to the numbers. Okay, like I mentioned, we're, we're we're getting half the people we need to backfill the roles that are retiring, and that's assuming it's a one-for-one replacement, which it isn't, which you touched on.
Speaker 3:Schedules are getting tighter. I think anybody can agree. Nod your heads if you've been on a job that had way too much time in the schedule Doesn't happen. Budgets are getting tighter. Owners are getting smarter. Contracts are getting more onerous. We're losing the workforce, so we're going to have to do more with less at a time where people are more frazzled and fragile than they've ever been. Am I, is this a problem? Am I the only one that sees like we're done and, yeah, the next 10 years are going to be super interesting, man, but not to be all doom and gloom. What it does open up is a lot of opportunity for folks like you who care about these topics and come listen to his talk and john luca and myself and the work you're doing, james yeah, because the work is. He needs to get done. We got to build these hospitals, we got to build these roads. Somebody's got to do it. So the people who step up and wanted to work a little hard put the effort in the sky's the limit.
Speaker 1:So what do you guys think about the in? We kind of see this in most industries, but it's really really in focus every single day on the construction site is that you have a developer who it's their passion, it is their purpose to see that project through. What you're seeing is is people being paid transactionally on the field level to live out someone else's purpose, and which is soul-sucking, because you're like I, and especially here's. The worst part is when you are working on a project that you know and maybe it's not even a luxury project that you know, even though I built this sucker, I will never be able to afford to live in it. That is a horrible thing to be able to think of and it's going to create animosity too. It's going to create that.
Speaker 1:Why can't I get where I need to go? I'm stuck. I've got this ceiling. I can't break through it and it hurts every day, and in Canada it's cold. I've got to get this stuff done and, as you were saying, like schedules are getting crazy tight. The expectations are super high and yet I'm living out someone else's purpose.
Speaker 2:One of the things that exasperates that is the fact that the industry overall and I'm not picking on the big boys or the unions or anything the industry overall finds it convenient and comfortable that we keep the way of the status quo in our industry because we can keep manipulating, leveraging, taking advantage of our workforce to keep meeting these unrealistic demands and expectations. If it was in the 70s which it isn't now I remember my father telling me stories where you know if somebody didn't work out, you're gone and there's a lineup on the sidewalk. Those days will never come back because people are a lot more educated. I hope they continue educating themselves. If anything, that I would.
Speaker 2:I would offer everybody's live life by way of your core values and principles and you will avoid a lot of this stuff, meaning that if you find yourself in a situation that you're being taken advantage of and that you just don't feel right, you don't feel like you belong. Get out of that situation immediately. As scary as it may sound to you that you're not going to be able to find something else, I promise you. For every negative situation, it's taking up the room or energy of two or three other situations.
Speaker 3:I'm going to offer up a reframe because you guys are making me depressed here.
Speaker 1:Well, can we just go just one a little bit deeper, just for a second here A lot we've talked about the field worker, but this pressure all the way through the construction stack, like a PM or an assistant PM is going through some crazy pressure to be able to keep the minute. I mean, I've known this the minute that a construction project changes is the minute that the ink is signed, like the second it happens is a delay. There's something that's going on a permit, or I mean material prices or something. There's a change order ready to go. So we're at a time now where the thing that is untenable is the pressure of the entire stack. Because you talk about a mental health issue or a mental health crisis. I can tell you now the developer that has that when the interest rate changes, they're sitting on a project they cannot complete If you don't think that that is a mental health problem.
Speaker 1:Where they're going through, they don't even know where they're going to get the money from, so it's all the way through. So we're in now an economy. We're in an investor economy now, where we have to endure dysfunction so that funds can make money and so that people's earnings can continue to pay them dividends. I know that's very macro, but that is. It drives everything down. You do all the stuff here so that people can just not actually produce anything.
Speaker 3:But that's going to keep.
Speaker 1:It's going to keep happening, but just systemically. It's going to keep us in the same spot, though it is demoralizing. Well, we're never going to change that top element of people's investments making money for them. No, that's never going to work.
Speaker 3:But it is demoralizing, and I agree that construction has just become purely transactional. And what I see and you know because I've been doing this almost 20 years, I've dealt with a lot of different people there's a lot of focus, more and more focus, on the administrative side of things the contract, the drawings, the change orders, the paperwork, emails, this and that but what about the people actually doing the work? That's where the risk is. That's like all that other stuff is risk management, risk mitigation, but the people turning wrenches and hammering bolts on nails on site, that's where the risk is. That's where all the pressure is. So let's start providing them a little bit more attention, right? So just going back to the, I think we need a bit of a mindset shift because, like you were looking at it, if you're looking at it like, oh fuck, I'm just slaving away here and I'm never going to be anything, that's like one way of looking at it. Or it reminds me of a story, if I can tell for two minutes Two bricklayers working on a site a couple hundred feet apart, somebody goes up, asks the first person you know, do you like your job?
Speaker 3:The guy looks at him and says no, I hate my job. You know I'm here, the weather sucks, brick after brick. I feel like I'm never going to get done. I'm just trying to make my mortgage payments and put food on the table. I hate my job. He's like okay, thank you.
Speaker 3:Goes down another person laying bricks doing the exact same job 100 feet down and he asked the same question. He goes do you like your job? And she goes oh, I love my job. It's like, yeah, I'm out here and it's hot in the summer and it's cold in the winter and sometimes it feels like I'm never going to get done. I'm just doing the same thing over and over again, but I'm building a cathedral. So it's seeing that bigger picture. So, yeah, you may never live in that condo or you may never that heating line you put in, that plumbing system, that toilet, that shop drawing you process. That was part of a bigger picture of something that's going to contribute to society and it's going to serve a community.
Speaker 3:I had a moment in my career where I built a hospital with all of Stan that's where I was previously from Latina and I was walking out one day and I looked at the hospital and I saw an elderly person going in with a walker and a woman going in with the baby stroller and I said, holy shit, we built something that's going to live longer than any of us. It's going to be here for a hundred years. People are going to come in here to have their kids. They're going to come here to visit their parents. They're going to die. Whatever Sounds morbid, but it happens. So that's the message we've got to paint, not you can make a drawing to in in person people using it it's. I'm shaking now because it's such a good feeling. You know it is a good feeling.
Speaker 1:It might be added the two coffees I had before too, but I think that you're you know in general, uh, your outcome has been good. Not everyone's outcome is good, and I think that it gets pretty insular when somebody's like, yeah well, it doesn't matter what I work on, I'm just not happy in my bubble, and maybe those are the other life pressures that are doing that, which leads us to this other point here of the correlation between suicide and construction. I've got an organization I'm dealing with in Chenna, arizona, that I'm helping out with on that front, and what's the correlation between substance abuse and suicide?
Speaker 3:I don't know the exact science behind it.
Speaker 1:I guess what I'm saying is is this the let's just take a scenario. We have somebody who's been on the tools for maybe 20, 30 years had a back injury. The doctor prescribed an opioid and then it kind of you know, unfortunately you either have that gene or you don't. You know, I was, luckily. I broke my leg badly. I was given Percocet in the hospital. I was given leg badly. I was given Percocet in the hospital. I was given morphine. You know, I had a month of Percocet given to me by the doctor and when it was done I'm like, okay, I guess it's done, that's I'm lucky. I'm lucky I have that gene, I can just go, I don't need it. Some people don't have that. Some people go through that back injury and it is like the prescription might have ended or I'm just on it all the time, and then it's a coping mechanism at that point, to a point where depression sets in.
Speaker 2:I concur with your share that there is a gene. However, we are not immune to the possibility of becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Speaker 1:Nobody is.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not saying that I'm special and I'm not correcting you, james. I'm just saying that you know there are other contributing factors that make it a lot less likelier that you grasp and you clamp on to drugs and alcohol and then it becomes a problem. And then, when life starts getting slippery and sliding all over the place and you can't make headway, you feel like you're always losing and you're hitting bottom and the bottom keeps getting deeper and deeper. Well, one of those days I hope it doesn't happen, but at the very least suicidal ideation does in fact come to light, and it's happening. I'll give you now a story.
Speaker 2:I have a friend who works as a recruiter in the construction industry. She called me at the beginning of the year and needing somebody to talk to, and automatically I not only heard but I felt that she was overwhelmed. So I held space for her, allowed her to you know, regain composure and share the reasons why she reached out and needed a friend to talk to. She appreciated to share with me that she had three separate conversations back to back to back with three construction company owners, each of which sharing with her that they had experienced suicide within the ranks of their company. And in getting the information. She also found out that it was within the same two-week time span.
Speaker 2:Now, I, I trust you would agree that three suicides in two weeks is a lot for our industry, but here's the reality was actually five. One of those company has had three people die by suicide in the same two-week times. This is what's happening in our industry. Yeah, and I I, although I'll I'll show up for every opportunity to talk about it. We can't just keep talking about it. Here's something alarming that I didn't know. Maybe someone in the audience, maybe Angela or you, james, know about this, but I found out last week that mental health has not been written into law. Uh, in, I found out last week that mental health has not been written into law in our country, so it's not funded because it's not law.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Canada's spending roughly 6.3% on health care. That includes in there a chunk of that 6.3% for mental health. We are among the bottom of all industrialized nations. We've got a massive problem and we keep looking away and concentrating on shit that just doesn't make a fucking difference. Pardon my language, but it has to be said like that.
Speaker 2:We've been doing that for way too long and it needs to change. And conversation helps, but there needs to be some action. One of the actions that I'd love to see is that our industry, our medical association, which includes, you know, organizations like CAMH and the like, and the therapeutic industry as well come together and find out what can be done immediately. And one needs to be open source to all of the industry Not, you know, texas Hold'em, where people keep their cards close to their chest and say, oh, I've got solutions but I'm not going to share with you. That can't happen. And our industry, not only with regards to mental health, the industry overall needs to open source a lot of their knowledge, because we're sitting on a massive amounts of knowledge within the industry. We may not have the knowledge on how to treat mental health, but surrounding ourselves with like-minded, right-fit people, we'll be able to come to some traction to this.
Speaker 3:I think the biggest problem is and just to go over another quick number to frame it so 12 people die by suicide every day in Canada. Just let that sink in. It's pretty heavy. The problem, I think, is there's no magic bullet. There's no magic, there's no special sauce, there's no EAP program or some resource you can. It's going to save everybody, cause if you have a hundred different people, they're going to experience the same problem a hundred different ways.
Speaker 3:But where do you start? That's the thing. And right now we're just in an awareness phase. I think the whole world is because we're just talking about things like this is becoming more normal and more accepted and people are opening up, which is good. We're making progress in that regard, but what are we doing to actually fix the problems? I don't know. I don't know what the next step is, but I know what it does. Start is, just like I said, compassion and empathy, being there for people, holding space, not making them feel like they're crazy quote unquote crazy for coming to you. These problems are feeling these feelings just because it's part of the human experience.
Speaker 2:Making them feel heard and understood, validated Validated Humanizing them, holding space for them. You know this all comes down to communication and how to be good humans. We may be in construction, but our true business we're in a people business. The minute we start figuring that out and taking ownership of that, things will start changing immediately. So one of the best ways to do that is start saying no to unrealistic demands and expectations. Tell our clients, no, that's not how it's going to work from now on, because we love our people and we need our people in order to execute these big projects. And these projects in construction are not getting any simpler. It's getting more and more difficult. So instead of being bobbleheads for, yes, we need to stand firm and reclaim a lot of the powers that we've.
Speaker 1:And it's not acting for the people right now.
Speaker 2:So May I. This is a very important share. The same friend that Angela shared earlier, sid from the CSRA at the University of Boulder, or Colorado Boulder campus, shared with us that they did a study to find out what were some of the major stress points in construction in the US and in Canada, and they segregated the results for obvious purposes, because they wanted to in the US and in Canada. And they segregated the results for obvious purposes because they wanted to see the difference. But then they married them together.
Speaker 2:Having said that, the number one reason for people's stresses in construction today it's its federal leadership, specifically to the individual, that's leading us right now, and I'm not shitting you, I'm being very honest. This is documented proof through a study that our prime minister is one of the primary reasons why people are stressed on construction sites. So you can just imagine if people in construction are stressed by the shitty leadership we have in Canada, who else in Canada is thinking about the same way? So much like what I said earlier that Canadians are passive that we can only show canines. We need to stop barking and start biting.
Speaker 3:I didn't agree to be on a political podcast here, Jace.
Speaker 2:It's not political, it's just fact. We've been skipping and dancing around this shit for nine years Enough already.
Speaker 1:Yep. So in terms of the other things that the government can do, whoever is in power, I think in terms of policy, you know what you're saying there. If you are that example you shared of, we're not going to do this because we care about our people and we're going to put a red line there. We're not going to do that there, we're not going to do that, okay. Then the developer says, oh well, okay, I guess, if you're not going to do that, I guess we're going to have a delay here and I guess, well, the bank's not going to give me that draw. So we need actual support from the top down of when there are issues that there is coverage, because otherwise, it, just it.
Speaker 3:I don't even think that would happen. I think they'd say okay, see you later. Next, and there's next and then somebody's going to come in and do the job.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't happen, because these types of conversations need to be had at the very forefront. The number one thing that I hear in the industry is that we can't do that. It just won't work. How do you know that it won't work? Well, it's never been tried. If you don't try something, how do you know that it's not going to work?
Speaker 2:It leads to two words, what I said before Lead your life and lead your company and the industry by way of core values. If we all did that, or at the very least those who want to sign on to that type of leadership, the industry will split in two One ecosystems for those who appreciate their people and want to do well and want to prosper, and then all of the others. Because, right, we're all in the same melting pot being painted with the same brush. As soon as I walked in, when I was an owner of a construction company, I was looked at as if I was the next one who was going to bend the owner over the barrel and give it to them. But that's the reality. Because of bad actors even just saying that it gives me flashbacks, but just because of bad actors, everybody gets a bad reputation. Right, we've got to differentiate ourselves. Stand firm.
Speaker 1:So how do we, in a last point here, how do we dovetail change here? I think you mentioned a few little pieces here about holding space for people and doing things that are free, pieces here about holding space for people and doing things that are free. But what we find right now is there is being added costs to construction, all the time new things, and we have a price per square foot problem in this country, in Vancouver, in Toronto. So the price per square foot, if something costs more to build the people that we are trying to make a margin on. Let's just think about this for a second.
Speaker 1:When somebody's making X amount of dollars per hour on the field, you're trying to keep a margin on that labor, because that's what that is. There's a margin on it, especially if you're paying X and you need to be billing out X. I've seen it on invoices and it's part of your job costing you. It's costing you x and you're you're billing it out at y. So in that case, if the, the dollar amount is not going up at the same amount that the price per square foot is, if it keeps doing this, we're just not getting anywhere. We're spinning our wheels, constantly spinning our wheels, so you end up with okay. Well, now my rent just went. Yeah, I earned money at my job because I've now got flushing toilets, but I can't afford the rent. It's who's going to take this first step? Who's going to do this? Who's going to take this first step? Who's going to do this? Who's?
Speaker 2:going to make some change. It's going to take. There's not just one individual, there are many individuals out there. They're probably hiding in the shadow because they're afraid to step forward. Uncertainty springs fear, but there are.
Speaker 2:I'm very confident that there's enough people out there in the industry. We just don't need to find them. So hence the reason why shameless plug but that's the reason why I founded the Constructors Guild is to find these individuals right, crowdsource the genius so that I can open source the genius and have everybody start working and living and leading a life that'll be, that'll be prosperous for everybody. And then one thing that that'll have, that that'll spur, is the clients that did get taken advantage of or that they've made some mistakes and are grown up enough to understand the mistakes that they've made and own them. They're going to go.
Speaker 2:I don't want to pick from this pool. I want what these guys are serving and I love what these guys represent. It's not going to happen overnight, right, but we're working on the same foundation on which the construction industry was founded and we're stacking all of these major requirements and requests from the industry on a very small footing and foundation. It's time that we widen it, underpin it, strengthen it for the future, because the kids that are coming in. That's our future of the industry and I don't know if anybody's been paying attention, but society prospers because of us. You took a train in because of us. You drove in because of us. You're in a building because of us. I'm sitting on a stage in a chair that was manufactured because of us.
Speaker 1:So can I ask you a question? So let's just say there's an institutional build for a hospital, okay, and um, you are a uh leader. Uh, let's say you lead us. Uh, you're, you're doing a um, something's out for tender and you're a specific sub trade and your personality as a leader is this irreverent. Talking about the current government, all this kind of stuff, and you have this persona out there you're this leader, you're this one who's gonna push the charge and help society and do the thing and and inspire everyone, and are you gonna get picked for that institutional project or are you a risk? No, you won't get. That is a problem so here's, here's a.
Speaker 3:I want to reframe the question in a way and I heard this on a webinar yesterday, so I'm going to steal the analogy. Newton's first law. Who remembers high school physics? Anybody high school physics a body at rest will remain at rest, or a body in motion will remain at motion unless it's acted by upon by an external force, right? So in this instance we've got all this momentum in the construction industry is going the way it's been going. What is that external force that's going to change that inertia? Anybody, anybody, have any ideas. I hate to say the government, because I don't want to get john luca worked up again, but there's got to be somebody that says look guys, you got it. I don't know if it comes from within, if it is, it comes from every direction.
Speaker 2:But if we're going to stay on the government for a little while, well, you can't.
Speaker 1:You can't kick people out of the tribe for speaking up, and that's really what's happening.
Speaker 2:you can't, but we are. That's already. That's already starting. We're not going to go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:But, having said that, the way we govern ourselves no longer works. Look at the Ontario place which we're next to it 1.5 billion already over and they haven't even put a shovel into it. Like I don't understand how people don't realize that they work for us. It's not the other way around. So we need to start putting a lot more pressure. We need to start having people that represent the industry more. So I want to reaffirm that I'd love to have someone represent the small to medium enterprise in the industry and things need to change. And if they don't like it, it's tough beans. But I'm also very confident that there's going to be a shift.
Speaker 2:Everything has a shelf life and the way we've been doing business it's coming. And it's coming fast because, as I mentioned earlier, 26% of the total workforce in Canada is retiring. In four years you had zero game plan to bring anybody in zero. So once we hit but over tea kettle and we, we work ourselves into um, our recession, we may just pull 7.8 of canada's gdp, but if we go down, all the economy goes down, because we make the economy prosper Without us paving the roads, building the transit, et cetera, everything comes to a stop. I just don't understand how our leaders are not understanding this. They're just worried more about getting reelected than they are about making the right decisions. I'm willing to make the right decisions.
Speaker 1:Are you willing to make the right decisions? I think everyone's starting to get there. I mean, I don't want to speak for everyone.
Speaker 2:No, it's not just that, it's just now.
Speaker 1:I'll point straight to. These are the martini conversations that everyone's having at the cocktail parties.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but enough of the martini. Now we need to put action. We're at that point.
Speaker 1:But everyone's talking, but no one's talking publicly.
Speaker 2:That's reality, nothing's going to change and I want to take a quick moment to thank everybody who showed up and stayed. For as long as you've stayed, you mean the world to us and hopefully you can go home. You know, reprocess and share. The biggest thing you could do is share, because if the word gets out, it's like that. It's that Fabergé commercial from the 80s and I told two friends and I told two friends it's about finding each other. The good people will find each other. Good people stick around with good people.
Speaker 3:I think the industry is at an inflection point. Like we were talking, there's a generational shift happening. I turned 40 this year, so I'm an elder millennial. I'm feeling old, but you probably look at me like I'm a baby. I'm an elder millennial, not just a millennial. I have to put the elder part in One of the first ones.
Speaker 3:But this is exactly, but this, like it's my generation that's going to take the reins in the next the big companies, small companies, leadership and our mindset and the way we live and the way we aspire is different than the way it's been. It is Now I. There's a chance that the people who have been in those companies and have been groomed for the future leadership have been brainwashed and they're going to continue operating the same way, but I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 1:I think things in the next five, ten years are going to be very different in the construction industry in a good way so one thing that we, that we, uh that I a comment I made before we started recording is is it seems, you know, perhaps for the last nine years and I'm going to get political here but if we have been, when you talk about the paradigm of the hunter and gatherer we've been so stuck in gatherer mode we forgot to be hunters, and I think we're going to be in the hunter economy and because we're going to be hunted by our neighbors down south if we don't get our act together, that's already started's. We're going to be hunted by our neighbors down south if we don't get our act together. That's already started. Well, we know. But you know, canada it's a great place and we got to. We have awesome people.
Speaker 2:We got to actually start to fight and to expand on that wonderful analogy. If we're going to embrace being hunters over the next foreseeable future, we need to have the places where, or at the very least the support from our governments, all three levels, to support that type of mindset, entrepreneurial spirit, because right now Canada is not open to business. It's not, and it's as plain as the nose on your face.
Speaker 3:There needs to be massive change. I think that's the key word that popped into my head as we were talking. We call it hunter, but it's an entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3:Like thinking outside the box, being innovative, being open to change. We need more people like that, and I think that's what the younger generations bring and that's what the older generations don't like, because when you ask a guy who's been doing it the same way 30 years, why do you do it this way, they're going to tell you to shut up and don't speak unless you're spoken to.
Speaker 2:So, Ang, what you shared, I concur. I'll offer just an addition to it. I concur that the millennial and younger have this different mindset. They've got visionary capabilities. I love hanging around them because it's just, it's addictive and inspiring. But what I'm afraid of is that the wisdom that it's going to leave with that 26% of the elders they're veterans of this industry. If all of that or at the very least some I would prefer all of it is not transferred, the older millennials and younger can't take with that and do what they wish.
Speaker 2:I don't want. I'm a gen z I don't when I get the time to hang up my skates. It's not that I want to start passing down, I'm already started but pass down my information because I want them to do it like I did it. Do what you want, man. I'm going to tell you some things that you I I hope you do you avoid because I learned the hard way, either by extreme pain or the ones that are not as favorable as paying dearly in cash. But the rest of them is do as you wish. If I give you something that you feel you can manipulate or change for the times, by all means do so. But it's that knowledge transfer that we're not concentrating on and if we're not passing down the knowledge, it's feeding the fire on the mental health and illness problems that our industry's facing.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much, you guys. We are at time now. Congratulations. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Can we have a round of applause for our guests here today, thank you. Thank you, jamie, and you're very welcome. So just LinkedIn where can people find you?
Speaker 2:Yes, my only online presence is LinkedIn. That's it Actually. I lie, I mean for the Constructors Guild. You can find us there. We have a LinkedIn profile for the Constructors Guild, not as active because I've been told as the head of the organization, I'm the one who's supposed to head it, but then we still have presence there. We can be found online and effective as of yesterday, you can also find me at GianlucaPascalelive. I am open to do more of these conversations, public speaking and keynote speeches, and Angelo where can people find you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, my website angelosuntriescom. Instagram is probably the best and the most entertainment human side of construction and what I like. Just quickly on the differences I'm on LinkedIn too, but I find LinkedIn you got your picture and your company and your real name and you always say, yes, I agree, this is great and you get. But on Instagram you get somebody hiding behind a picture of Donald Trump and a handle Thundercock69. They tell you what they're really thinking and there it is. They tell you what they're really thinking and that's where the good stuff comes in, and so I would check it out on Instagram. I'm on TikTok too, but that's just weird.
Speaker 1:All right well, but you chose to sit with us, so thank you very much for your chat, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks, james, thank you.
Speaker 1: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. 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.