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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
Exploring Construction Tech, Resilience, and Mental Health with David Hernandez, Managing Director at Elecosoft
Join us for an insightful conversation with David Hernandez, Head of US for Elecosoft, LLC, a provider of innovative planning and scheduling solutions for the construction industry. Together, we explore how Elocosoft's strategic US expansion has enhanced their footprint across seven global regions.
We discuss how project managers can sift through a sea of options by focusing on meaningful, personalized interactions. As we chat about the evolution of construction software, you'll gain practical strategies for integrating people, processes, and technology into your workflow.
We also dive into the deeper themes of resilience, leadership, and mental health within the construction industry. From the importance of safety and motivation to the societal challenges of diversity, this episode sheds light on fostering empathy and understanding in today's workforce. Learn how the merit-based culture of construction can be both a strength and a challenge, as we emphasize the need for open communication and mental health support. Whether you're a seasoned professional or new to the world of construction, this episode offers valuable insights to help you navigate the industry's unique challenges.
PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH
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You are calling in from where today?
Speaker 2:From.
Speaker 1:Philadelphia Philadelphia in a Hilton.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nice and cold.
Speaker 1:Nice and cold. How cold is it there?
Speaker 2:It's 12 degrees here 12 degrees.
Speaker 1:So what is that in converted?
Speaker 2:12,. That's cold.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really cold, All right.
Speaker 2:Below freezing none of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, way below.
Speaker 2:Guess what.
Speaker 1:Freezing is 32, right 32, right below freezing. I know that yeah, yeah, way below. Guess what? Freezing is 32, right 32 right, yeah so you guys, you're down, way down there, holy smokes.
Speaker 2:Houston we actually have snow, which is where I live, and we don't get snow I think we've had. It's the biggest snowstorm we've had in a century in about a century so so what are you doing there in Philly right? Now we have a conference, for it's a CPM conference, with our core. Our core product is scheduling, planning and scheduling. So CPM is Critical Path Method, so it's a scheduling conference that we're here, we're one of the sponsors.
Speaker 1:Nice, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So we're going to talk about you and your journey and also, you know, about AlicoSoft. That's how I pronounce that right, alicosoft, yeah, alicosoft. Do you remember CalicoVision? Do you remember that? The old video game.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes Okay.
Speaker 1:Calico, yeah, nice. Kind of reminds me of an ode to CalicoVision, alicosoft, calicovision. All right, all right, let's get down to it. Welcome to the Site, visit Podcast, leadership and perspective from construction With your host, james Falkner.
Speaker 2: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 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. We can get the workers in. We know where to get them. Once I was on a job site for a while and actually we had a semester concrete and I recorded, like a Korean-Finnish patio out front of the site show I was down at.
Speaker 1:Dallas and 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 Favour Connect platform on your guys' podcast. I own it, crush it and love it, and we celebrate these values every single day. Let's get down to it. David Hernandez, how are you today?
Speaker 2:Great James. How about you?
Speaker 1:I am doing pretty good. I have to say it's cold in Vancouver because it's like 33.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:It's one degree, but we're on the ocean, the Pacific Ocean, so it makes it feel colder because it's one degree, but we're on the ocean, the pacific ocean, so it makes it feel colder, makes it because it's right, it's moist cold, not dry cold.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you're um nice breeze off the water yeah, nice breeze.
Speaker 1:Exactly all the floors are cold, everyone. A lot of heated floors around here, so in philly right now. So that's really. And yeah, so you're there for a convention. You were saying for um yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So this Texas boy is in Philly at 12 degrees here, so it's a little bit outside of my comfort zone.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's just chat a little bit about um, about you and Alico soft, and how you got involved and you've been with the company, or you're, and how you got involved and you've been with the company, so you're head of US. So just maybe take us through the sort of hierarchy or structure of the company head of US. So did this start somewhere else?
Speaker 2:So head of US is. So it's managing director president, so I run the US entity. So we're owned by a company called Alico out of the UK.
Speaker 2:And then there's seven regions across the globe that we have leadership roles in, and I'm head of the US and North America. We've got some Canada presidents that we're trying to expand, so I was hired two and a half years ago to grow the region. We set up the LLC business unit in 2021. So we've about three years. We've been in the market for a little bit longer, but primarily with resellers and was being managed by the UK, but we wanted this to be a US-based business with US-based people.
Speaker 1:Cool. So let's just chat a little bit about the product that you're responsible for growing. So a critical path, project management, schedule, figuring out. So what is the key competency there of the platform? And then, what kind of customers do you guys serve, like? How big are they? So?
Speaker 2:the core product we serve in the US is called Ask the Power Project and it's planning and scheduling so it is very much involved in the project delivery all the way from design to the end of the project. We serve all sizes of contractors. I think probably our USP would be that we have the ability to be super complex on multi-billion dollar projects but we're easy to use even on a small custom home type project and everything in between. We have a pretty good contingency of the ENR 400 here in the US. We have quite a bit of ENR 400 across the globe that utilize Asta. We compete with a couple other products like P6, and Microsoft Project are probably our biggest competitors. So I feel like we sit in the middle. We have the complexity that P6 has, but the ease of use of Microsoft Project, so they get the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1:Right. So do you guys have a desktop component to your software? Then we do. Oh, I see.
Speaker 2:We have a desktop and a SaaS component as well, so it's a hybrid that you can do either or Cool yeah.
Speaker 1:So what did you do before this company?
Speaker 2:So prior to this, I worked for a startup company selling safety software. So I was the head of sales for a company called Emod. They've got a really cool safety software that they sell. Prior to that, I worked for Viewpoint. So I fell into construction tech. A rainbow construction company out of Houston sold my partnership in 2018, 2019. Yeah, 2018, 2019. I figured I would get to just kind of go fishing. My wife said go back to work. So I was lucky enough to fall into construction tech and I enjoyed construction tech because we grew our company pretty quickly without the right technology. So we had a lot of pain points, a lot of pain and mistakes that we made with zeros because we just weren't tracking things properly. So construction tech made sense. I still get to embrace the industry that I love, but from a different perspective. Now.
Speaker 1:That's cool, that's really cool. Do you find that the construction software business has changed over the years, like, do you find it's become very hyper-competitive now?
Speaker 2:It's changed dramatically and I think you know I painted a kind of a. It was a good picture for my boss. We were in London at the DCW, which is a very large tech, construction tech show, and I told him to look around, you know, and you know hundreds of vendors and thousands of people at this event and it's just a lot of chaos and noise. So this is what our customers are fighting. They have all these options and a lot of noise, and I said our job is to help filter this down and make it quiet for them and help them make decisions. And you know whether that's whether that's us, which we'd love it for, vs, or if we at least help them with bettering their processes. So it was a. It was kind of a good, a good picture for him to kind of understand. Like, yeah, they're the con, it's that construction tech fatigue right there's. So they're getting hammered all the time by by this software, by that software, and how do you know which one's the right one? So it's very much a challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I can feel for the project manager that's getting a number of phone calls over and over and over again. So to defend the construction software business to some degree, it used to be where you would see maybe a banner ad somewhere, or you would see an email that maybe caught your eye, or there'd be something on a pre-roll video that you would like. There'd be something on a pre-roll video that you would like. Those are the easy days of advertising, a solution for something that can help their business. But now it's not the construction software's problem, it's the digital advertising problem in general, because they're tuned out and so what happens is is that, um, business development and sales people realize.
Speaker 1:Well, I just gotta talk to these people on the phone because the only way I can actually have a conversation, because if they, if they search, if the customer were to search, they're going to get whoever pays the most for the top five spots in Google or Bing or wherever they're searching, and that's what they're going to get, and so the ones who are going to pay the top amount per click and this is just as information for any contractor, because this is why they keep seeing the same thing so there's a bit of a myth out there that the ones that are going to pay the most for the clicks are the best ones. Well, that's not always the case.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and that's why we're here. I mean, that's why I'm in Philadelphia. At this event we found that if we can do conferences that are a little smaller, a little more intimate, that you get an opportunity to sit down and talk, and our approach yes, again, we want people to buy our software, but we, you know not to be cliche, but we really talk people process technology First, let's make sure you have the right people in place, or the right people that you could move into place. Let's talk about what process you currently have, because if you have a bad process, just because you bring in a technology, it's not going to solve that bad process. Just because you bring in a technology, that's not going to solve that bad process. So we try to look at it from a kind of a holistic approach and then our software will help with the process. But again, there's more to it than just buying a technology and solving a problem. So that's why I'm with you Phone calls, face-to-face conversations, it goes a lot further.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it can be a little bit uh frustrating when uh keep getting phone calls over and over and over when they're trying to work too. But the interesting thing about construction is it, unless you're an owner, it does shut off. At 4, 30 or 5, like like that it's off. So you know, in podcasts like this this is considered a niche podcast because maybe people will listen to it on the way to work.
Speaker 1:Maybe, Maybe on the way home from work, but they're not going to sit all weekend and listen to a construction podcast, like they want to go fishing, as you said, or they want to take, you know, go do something with their family. Or they want to go, as you said, or they want to take, you know, go do something with their family, or they want to go they got a bunch of other hobbies and then they. That's the one thing about construction. It's very concentrated work and when you're working you're working. You're not really thinking about much else, because it's so, especially in the field, it can be very taxing as well. So, all right, so let's just um, something I thought would be kind of interesting and you and I kind of we are for people that can't see us. You and I are probably the same generation Gen Xers. I always hear this stuff about Gen X and how we're very hard. How we're very hard.
Speaker 1:I think I've been told that I'm an absolutist. That's my favorite one. I'm like, what's an absolutist? Does that mean I kind of draw judgments on things and just say that's the way it is? I guess, yeah, often I do, but I do think about it first. I don't just, like you know, have some strange thoughts, and then you know, decide well, that's just the way it is.
Speaker 1:It's not how I do it. Actually, I think about things, and I would think that you're probably the same, and there's a term that you and I have discussed and that is the word resilience. And let's talk about that for a bit, because resilience is a very interesting concept that a lot of people are struggling in different ways that they would consider what do I have to be resilient against? What do I have to put a Teflon cloth on? What do I have to put a Teflon cloth on? I got to put it somewhere. So what you might find that you don't is natural to you and me that we go well, you don't need to be resilient for that because of X, y, z, whereas younger generation might have be more vulnerable to in that case. So maybe let's just chat about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think you're right. You're right. So definitely, gen Xer. My resilience comes from the fact that if we didn't figure it out, we had to do things ourselves. So for me, when I think of resilience, it's the ability to navigate when things are uncertain or things are tough. But ultimately, to do that, I think you have to make sure that you have kind of what that long-term goal or whatever it is you're driving to. You have a focus on that first, because if you're just trying to just push against stuff and you have no destination, it really kind of becomes a challenge. So for me, I think it's the ability to navigate uncertainty. When things kind of hit you, you don't lose focus and I use the word fail forward. So that way when, like I shared the analogy if you're going on a trip and you come across a roadblock, you don't turn around and go home because of the roads closed. You find a different way to get to your final destination and that, to me, is kind of, I guess, an analogy for resilience.
Speaker 1:You just you're going to find a way to get there. There's some things you said there that I think are pertinent to this and how I can understand how the younger generation in general has been brought up and in a way that they see things a little bit differently and keep in mind this is our fault, we did this to these kids, right? So you can't say, look've done, you know you're a certain way, just because of the universe. It's not we did this. Or or baby boomers did this, depending on their age. But uh, I think when you say pushing through to find to your destination, these days the timeline is so compressed that they don't have the patience to think about that long. So they go. Why am I pushing through for this little chunk? They don't necessarily see.
Speaker 1:I mean, we were brought up with Freedom 55. You do this and you retire, and that's how things go. You watched your parents do it and you know that was. You have two to three jobs in your life major ones and then you know you get the pen or the tie or the watch at the end and and that's it, whereas today, um, you know we're in a we're in an economy where girl sleeps with 1057 guys in a day and makes 3 million bucks this year. Yeah, like it's weird.
Speaker 2:So, we're.
Speaker 1:We're in a very weird we and we can't expect predictable, great forward thinking, efficient behavior from such a bizarre world right now. Yeah, you know, so I can understand where you know. I was listening to another podcast the other day about this guy. They started the NELC. You ever heard of NELC before?
Speaker 2:I've never heard of NELC.
Speaker 1:You ever heard of NELC before there were these any of these young guys? And they were. They were. They were YouTubers, but they were doing pranks and Okay, yes, yes, yes, I'm familiar.
Speaker 1:So, but but they were doing, they were the outcasts, anyway. So this this guy's like. They did a. They were demonetized from YouTube because of the content of their videos. So they didn't make any money from any of the traffic and any of the ads, any of the pre-rolls, none of that. So they said, well, if there's no way that we can make any money by that, then they're going to do product drops. Anyway, their most successful product drop in three hours they made $30 million.
Speaker 1:Wow uh, drop, in three hours they made 30 million dollars. Well, so I say this because, first of all, there is a sense of resiliency there from that generation. I think the young, young, young generation is different, like my daughter's, 16. She's very resilient, like, pushes through, and I think, maybe because there's been this bit of a sea change. But you know, and, and that, and you know that guy, you know he wasn't crying to YouTube. Oh, you know why am I getting demonetized? He's like, okay, fine, we can do this, I'm going to do something else. So that's cool, resourcefulness, push through. So, in terms of where does this theme of resiliency come through? How has this manifested itself for you to be like, yeah, maybe we should talk about this. Has there been some examples in the past?
Speaker 2:You're like why this is important. Yeah, and I think, just looking at I think I shared with you, you know, for the call. You know my journey has been one that's kind of been all over the place. I grew up in a construction, blue collar family. Parents said go to school, get your degree. It's the only way you're going to make any money when you grow up. I wasn't.
Speaker 2:School wasn't really my forte. I couldn't sit there and do the whole, sit down and behave myself. So I tried school, did school, but what I found was the more that I could, the more that I could, I more that I could love consuming knowledge. So for me it was like trying different things. So, but with that, sometimes there's there's some challenges and failures that you that you go through.
Speaker 2:So I could have easily just said well, it's, you know I'm not going to make anything myself, I'm not going to do anything because you know I don't want to go to school, but I don't want to do this. No, I figured I learned quickly. Ok, I don't want to go to school, but I don't want to do this. No, I figured I learned quickly. Okay, if I work hard, if I overcome obstacles, I'm proactive, whether that's learning, whether that's problem solving, whatever that, whatever that looks like. I always was proactive. Hate being reactive. Things started happening and doors started opening, and so then, obviously, the education came along with that journey, but it was a different. It wasn't the school setting type of education I was able to do certifications and do those things but it was that real-world experience.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, school.
Speaker 2:Hard knocks, I guess, is what it is. So for me, I watched my parents probably similar to you watch my parents work really hard. There's times when my parents were working two jobs. So I'm like, okay, if they can do it, make sure they raise, you know, four kids. You know I can do this, and so I never, I never did the whole poor me thing. Um, there are times obviously when you, when you, you have struggles and doubts but I'm like, nope, we gotta, we've gotta push through. Um, but I was a young father too, so I'm like I have to make sure I take care of my, my who.
Speaker 2:Now I have multiple sons, but so that was that was a big driver as well, was that? It wasn't just when I stopped and thought about, it wasn't just about me. Now I've got others that rely on me and then that obviously manifested from being a parent, manifests into as a leader, like there are others that rely on you and if you just sit back and give up, you're letting them down as well. So, like my mentality has always been like, okay, I need to make sure that I control what I can control, which is my attitude, my behaviors, my activities, things that I do, but also making sure that I'm helping others, and whether that's elevating them or being there. So those two things really, really helped me kind of get that mindset.
Speaker 1:Nice that is. I think Jordan Peterson said that you know you don't actually mature of a man until you've had a child. Very true, yeah, that's interesting. You know that kind of yeah. Having to be responsible for something else you brought into the world is definitely a thing, that's for sure. There you go, that's for sure, there you go.
Speaker 1:All right, let's chat a little bit about like pressures that face construction teams these days, like you know, delays and bottlenecks, like the stress that people go through. You know I did this really successful trade show thing in Canada where we were on stage and we were talking about mental health and construction and this thing's kind of gone pretty viral on Instagram. And you know we were talking about mental health and you know you hear a lot about this stuff from the field. But in the office there's a lot of pressure. I mean the minute the contract's signed.
Speaker 1:I've said this thousands of times on this podcast. But the minute the contract's signed is when it changes, because it just does, because this is a terrain that is susceptible to weather and it's a constantly changing terrain and you've got businesses showing up at a business to do business, up at a business to do business. Everyone's got different incentives and different motivations and yeah, and everyone has to mesh at the same time for things to be on schedule and on budget and it's typically never that hopefully it's not crazy over. You know, if it's under it might be longer.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's been on time and exactly on budget, it's at the day, yeah yeah, it's always funny to hear that phrase right, well, you know, guarantee on time, on budget. Well, you know you, obviously it must be your first project, but I think you, just you, I think you hit the nail. Probably the one of the, obviously mental health. But there's this, this factor of you, multiple businesses working with multiple businesses, and you have business owners who are working with other business owners, so it's becomes very it's not like it's. I think, early, early in the construction world, I think it was just like I'm the superintendent, you're going to do what I say and like it or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm the superintendent. You're going to do what I say and, like it or not, I still think there's obviously there's a hierarchy when the prime is in charge of the project. But there needs to be this respect factor and I think that we're seeing that more and more with some of the different ways that some of these contracts are being written up and you know they're giving a lot more investment and opportunities for the trade partners to kind of be more of a financial partner versus just you're just going to show up and be my subcontractor. So I think when you're dealing with multiple personalities, multiple companies, that's huge right. So you've got to learn how to you can't be a manager.
Speaker 2:You do have to manage, but you need to be a leader and I think that that's a hard definition. Sometimes People think as a leader, I'm a boss. A leader is somebody who's leading people on how to do things. So sometimes you have to show them and you have to have the patience, because you know if they're messing up or whatever, it's easy to quickly just get frustrated and then you have emotions escalating and then people not being respected. So that creates a lot of problems. You do have safety concerns.
Speaker 2:Right, there's companies out there that obviously do safety a lot better than others, but I do think that safety you know somebody gets hurt on the job that's their. You know, some people are one injury away from bankruptcy, right, I mean, that's just their livelihood and they can't work. So what do they do now? Yeah, so I do think that there's just a ton of pressure and, like I said, if a project, most of the time projects are behind or there's something that's delayed it or something that's causing issues, like there's a pressure to kind of get it back on, back on track, and the field is being managed, like I said, from the office. So there are different struggles and I sometimes I don't think that they necessarily they're not going to share that right. Um, you know they, you know it's, it's just all.
Speaker 2:We don't tell people about our emotions, so, um, so I think that there's a, there's a responsibility in the field for a lot of people. I think you know, obviously, whoever's driving that project. Most of the time it's your superintendents, project managers, to be to be mindful of, like, okay, I need to kind of be this 360 degree leader sometimes. Sometimes, sometimes I do need to be pushing from behind, sometimes I need to be steering them from the left to the right, sometimes I need to be in the middle of doing work and sometimes I need to be out front protecting them from the stuff that's coming and you know and that's. I think we're seeing more and more of that in the industry, but it's still not near, I think, where it needs to be. So that does create a lot of, a lot of pressure when you're, when you, when you have that, when you don't have that mentality on a, on a job site for sure.
Speaker 1:I think also like the, you know, what makes construction like a high pressure industry is is also the, the fact that often a developer has their dream of what this building is supposed to be and they have a huge passion about that because they're going to make good money on it or they love the design or whatever reason is they're doing this, and typically it's if they're lucky it's both of them. The construction is a transfer of passion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really I love that phrase. I'm still that phrase, actually. That's great. So, and the transfer of passion yeah, that's really I love that phrase.
Speaker 1:I'm still that phrase, actually that's great and the transfer of passion is sometimes gets so diluted at the end. So the developer doesn't have to do that project, whereas the field worker sometimes has to do that job to pay for his family or whatever, sometimes has to do that job to pay for his family or whatever. So if you expect that person to be just as passionate as the developer, it'd be great, it'd be awesome. But you have to level, set the opportunity for construction in general as a whole and make it safe enough, uh, make it uh. Those people feel that they're valued because they are. They're the ones making it right, you know.
Speaker 1:So I think that there's a, there's a very interesting, you know waterfall of you know what little estuaries and creeks. And does this main big waterfall of passion from the developer, does it turn on, just turn into these little dribbling creeks of passion here and there once in a while further down the hierarchy? And secondly, I think that there is an element of when human beings need to be kept safe. There's an inherent hierarchy that needs to be in place. Typical to an army mission. Yeah, and not all generals are good generals.
Speaker 1:Some of them are just being general-like and not necessarily inspiring their corporals to go out and take a bullet for them, or take a bullet for the project essentially what is what it is, or risk a bullet for the project, and I think that that's kind of where we're at right now, where things are very complex, is I'm not sure what it's like. Uh, you know in Texas where you're from, but you know in the it might be like it in Austin, but where the expensive real estate markets are, the people who are building the even modest condo or multifamily buildings can't afford to buy them. So that's going to kind of feel terrible, right, like you think. Oh, oh well, you know this, I'm doing this for the, the better off, and I'm just gonna rent forever because I don't know if I can ever get enough money to for a down down payment at a thousand dollars a square foot or eight hundred dollars a square foot.
Speaker 1:How am I gonna do that? So there's that can provide a sense of it's a betrayal, almost. It's a feeling of you know why do I? It's not a good start. You know what I mean. It's not going to feel that good.
Speaker 1:So I think we're in an interesting time where once I think that the government of the United States and the governors of the states, and here in Canada, the prime minister and the premiers understand that these are the people who are building our countries. There needs to be better programs around. They're just inherently different than other industries. I'm sorry we can't have people who are going through mental health struggles, who are going through all these things, and the reality is that the companies, like your customers, sightmax's customers they can't keep paying more. As customers, they can't keep paying more. It's not this endless, you know supply of money, because the reality is it just ends up in the bottom line of how much per square foot every time, like the cost just gets passed on.
Speaker 1:So if you want flushing toilets on site, okay, well, that's an extra 50 cents a square foot. Now, okay, well, if you want you, you want a mental health person on site in the site trailer all the time to be chatting about everyone's problems, okay. Well, that's another dollar a square foot. So the government needs to have programs, because we pay the taxes anyway and if we actually look holistically, those programs will create more efficiency, we'll have more output per minute from our workers and everyone will be happier and everything will be better. Yeah, we'll see if that works. That's my master plan.
Speaker 2:That's a great plan, and I think, too, there's some things that I've talked with I don't know even my last role, but even at this role, now that I have some control over it we've talked about, you know, what are some other ways that we could help in that space, and there are some opportunities for these construction tech tech companies to hire injured workers from construction that maybe they can't do. They can't do the work on the site anymore, but they understand the industry so well that they would be such a value to a to a construction tech company like ours or others that are out there, because they they've lived it, they've worked the field. So I do think that there's some responsibility that we can take, take on that as well to kind of help people when they're. You know, like I said, they're not able to do that anymore.
Speaker 1:That's really awesome, david.
Speaker 2:You know that's a, so it's almost like the construction veterans, like that, correct, almost like the construction veterans like that, yeah, and I mean because they're, like I said, their, their, their values and measurable. You know what they would when you can, when you can have a conversation with the prospect or customer on the phone that you've sat in their seat, it's. It's just a different conversation than I'm. I'm selling you a technology or software. So, and there are some people who have left the industry and kind of become kind of the champions for the industry that are out there talking, you know whether it's around lean planning or better safety. So they're out there and we just need to kind of help. You know whether it would help champion their message or partnering with them as well. So, yeah, but I like your plan as well. You can solve the world if we can get some of these things passed.
Speaker 1:You can solve the world if we can get some of these things passed. So I was watching your new president yesterday and the speech and it was pretty interesting. From Canada here, which hasn't been conservative, to be our, you know the republican version of in canada here. Um, you know, without you, you know putting your ass on the line here, you know getting political here, because I know that's probably something your company doesn't want you to do. But do you think that there? Let me put some words in your, in your mouth in a way, just so you don't have to say it yourself I think that there has been somewhat of an attack on the multi-generational white male.
Speaker 1:Frankly and I don't think it's necessarily we have to say the word white male, just because that is how it's been labeled. No one feels that way. I don't know about you, I don't feel any different than any other color. That's not what I'm getting at, but it's been labeled that way. Oh, you're a 45, 50-year-old, old-school white guy. You don't count, right? 45, 50-year-old, you know, old school white guy, you don't count.
Speaker 1:And there I think what's interesting about that is those people are not don't look any negatively the other way.
Speaker 1:They just have been attacked for no reason and they're sort of this scapegoat of progressivism that everyone's blamed and I don't necessarily think that's fair when we're at now and I think that this speech is, I think some people in America might be like whew, okay, well, maybe things will be back to the way of common sense, where we can actually breathe a breath of fresh air, and that there won't be this feeling that when I go to work, that people think I suck and I should be replaced, because I think that that creates a lot of animosity, that you know there's some other program that's going to replace me, or you know I can't get a job because I didn't tick a bunch of boxes you know, Because what I find is quite interesting about especially people who have been in the construction industry, for you know, 20, 25 years, their output per minute and their knowledge is so high, it's very high, you know, and you're like, yeah, well, we don't want that person because they don't check a box.
Speaker 1:It's like, uh, okay, well, 1500 bucks a square foot then for no efficiency, because you gotta take you know what I mean like why don't we use? It's almost like if, if you have a power drill, the one goes a certain amounts of uh, you know rpms, and then you got one that's a lower rpm, you're like, no, let's use this lower one, just because, what do you mean?
Speaker 1:just because? So I think that you know we're. We're in a time now where you know we talk about resilience and conquering adversity and pushing through and all of this, but if you don't feel value, you don't feel like doing that right. What are your thoughts about that? You don't. You don't have to talk political, no it's actually really good.
Speaker 2:So I think so I think ultimately it comes down to. There's one thing that my parents instilled in me. You know like we grew up and you know we weren't rich and grew up in a pretty, pretty rough neighborhood, and one thing my parents taught me from very early age is you respect people, because it doesn't matter who they are, where they're from. You respect people, yeah, and until they give you. Well, my mom's thing was until they don't give you a reason to, but that was for other reasons. But she's like you don't know what their journey is, you don't know what their backgrounds are. You know you judge somebody immediately by where they look or something they've said, and you have no context. And so I share this with my boys. It's kind of a life lesson.
Speaker 2:People will quote the Bible quite often. I'm not getting religious, I promise. People will quote the Bible quite often. They'll take a quote, but I always tell my kids read. Promise, people quote the Bible quite often. They'll take a quote, but I always tell my kids read the paragraph before and the paragraph after. That provides the context of what that quote was really trying to say. I said that's life If you look at things from just a very small snippet, that perspective gets skewed.
Speaker 2:What's the paragraph before? What's the paragraph after? What's the context of this person, their personality? We've gotten away from, you know, civil discourse to be able to agree, to disagree. I think some of that's coming back, because I do think that people did get kind of tired of, you know, things being divided however you believed. But ultimately, I think it just comes down to just respecting people and loving people. And you know, even if they don't give you a reason to love them sometimes, that part of the resilience is, you know, even if they don't give you a reason to love them sometimes, that part of the resilience is, you know, you got to work with these people, so we got to figure out a way to coexist, and so I would say that I thousand percent agree that things are.
Speaker 2:Things have gotten kind of like off track. I'm hoping that things get on track, but it's not going to be solved by, it's not going to be solved by a president, it's not going to be solved by the government. It's going to be solved by a president. It's going to be solved by the government. It's going to be solved by us as individuals. Getting back to loving people, listening to people, and it's just like don't get upset because of the way somebody thinks versus you. I mean, we used to have these conversations as kids and you know, I like this player and you like that player, and they don't like each other. So we're still friends. So I think that that's where we've got to get back to.
Speaker 1:When you say that a president is not going to fix this. The political leaders we have are emblematic of who we are as a culture.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. I'm not saying they're not going to have an impact. I'm not saying they're not going to have an impact. I guess my point is you know, you can have somebody like Donald Trump up there saying what he wants to, whether it's the next president. If people aren't open-minded enough to say I'm a Democrat, so I'm not going to listen to Donald Trump, or I'm a Republican so I'm not going to listen to the Democratic president, whatever, that is nothing. We'll just kind of stay in this cycle of this constant turmoil. So I think that it's yes, the civil leaders need to have the responsibility and help kind of solve some of this discourse, but people also need to take responsibility to just say you know what I'm going to love people, you know and respect people.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so I didn't try to mean to say that he wouldn't have any impact.
Speaker 1:I mean he wouldn't have any impact. Would you say that things have changed over the years in terms of you know the typical, the typical construction. You know you could say blue collar, I don't know why, but why is blue collar? Blue collar? It'll sound like factory workers to me, like blue collar was means that you, you have a blue shirt. You have a uniform, right, it's a uniform, yeah, which has never been a uniform on construction, so I don't know where blue collar comes from, but yeah, maybe brown collar.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things I, one of the things I think I've always appreciated about construction is every site that I've ever been on, anytime that I've been a part of, it's been very colorblind. I think that when you've got a group of very eclectic, racist backgrounds people and on the job site, it's kind of like. You know, I kind of equate it to playing sports. My sports team was very diverse as well, it didn't matter, you had a job to do. Go out there and do your job. As long as you do your job well, we got you back. If not, you're out of the game and somebody else is in.
Speaker 2:I think construction is similar to that. As long as you're doing your job and you're doing it well and you're not causing problems, you're not a problem. They don't care what you look like, who you are man, woman, whatever you have a job to do. We have something to build, we have something to do. I think it's when people start to bring in just personal biases, that's when things just kind of get off the rail. But I think construction has been pretty resilient in that fact. But again, you're going problems, you know, on some, some, some companies, and not others. But yeah, I would say construction's colorblind typically when it comes to the project.
Speaker 1:Yeah for the most part well, I thought I found, um, you know, in in what I've seen over the past number of years, is often where the money comes from can change a lot of things, especially larger projects. You can have political initiatives knitted in with the construction process. Yeah, construction process, yeah, it could be well.
Speaker 1:We're going to hire x amount of diversity for this project because it fits the funds, esg, uh quotas yeah so it's we, and the weird thing is is that I think construction is the culture of construction on the field level, is 100% merit-based.
Speaker 1:It is because they have to live in an inherent situation of merit, because you either turn around after your day's work and you either built or erected or changed, switched. There was a physical transformation that happened or it didn't happen. It's either there or not. It's like the proof is right behind you when you walk away from your day's work. It's not subjective whether or not it's done. The definition of how well it was done, yes, but done as in terms of you know, this is what we need to achieve today. Based on the schedule, then, yes, so I think that the field um kind of, has gotten into this cultural. They've always been a meritocracy um based kind of society or culture on the job site, and what's happened is on some of the larger projects. You see some of this. Well, we, you know it's not just about merit all the time. We need. We've got some other check boxes to deal with here, and this is where you see this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:This uh conflict it's? It's basically a conceptual conflict.
Speaker 1:It's it's basically a conceptual conflict. It's like when people I've always found this is that when people work in an organization and working on the job site is the same thing is when you see somebody who kind of sucks at their job. It is like a mirror. Yes, because you go. Well, why am I here then? Why am I at this place when they just hire crappy people? If they hire crappy people, then am I crappy? Do they even care that I'm good at what I do? Because if they value someone crappy, then they obviously don't value someone good. So that mirror thing makes people think, well, maybe I should just go somewhere else. So there's this on the fence feeling all the time of maybe I should jump ship, and that creates a whole nother thing. You get recruiters in now when you've got a tight job market. I mean you look at la, for instance, these la fires, this whole rebuilding stuff. You think that they're going to just have thousands of construction workers that are just ready to go there, when they've been told that they can have shortages.
Speaker 1:And they've also been told that they can't charge over what traditional costs were. Well, who's the arbiter of traditional costs? Is what I would like to say, and who also is here's. I'll give you an example of something that is crazy, that I don't know if anyone's even thought of. You go, okay. Well, there is the, let's say, aluminum, for instance. Okay, the amount of aluminum that Quebec in Canada exports to the US. Now the US wants a 25% trade tariff Okay, great.
Speaker 1:And now LA needs to build a bunch of stuff Okay. And now that builder who? Their aluminum cost just went up 25% because they were dealing with these preferred vendors from whatever, and now they can't actually charge that because it looks like price gouging. So price gouging does not work in a dynamic uh thing where you're getting materials from all over the world and you have the difference of um the currencies to deal with, whatever shipping costs change like, come on. So I think that we're going to be dealing with another whole thing there. Uh, in terms of you can't control the market. Let the market do its thing, it will work it out. There's going to be bad actors, but then the good actors will come out and the bad actors will fall by the wayside. That's just how it goes. But if you try and keep them out, nothing gets done.
Speaker 2:Yeah and it's been done successfully in the past. You're right, the bad actors are going to be few and far between. I do think people want to make money, but they're not trying to rip people off, especially in a scenario where they're rebuilding people's livelihoods when the entire community is gone. So, yeah, it's interesting. You're right. I wonder how many people are sitting back and thinking about that. I'm sure companies that are doing work out there are already checking material costs or thinking what are they going to do.
Speaker 1:I mean maybe the labor costs can't change per hour or whatever it is. I mean, that's obviously the first thing, but the materials is what it is right. But it can't be like well before the wildfires and materials were this Like yeah, well, also. Time moves forward. Everything gets more expensive Just in time in general, forget about other political changes. But so how do people you know with resiliency, how do people bounce back from it Like, as a community, how do you help other people?
Speaker 2:so for me I guess it goes back to you know, looking at back to you know, respecting and loving people right. So when you have when, so when you're, when you're dealing with things, my way I've always kind of I've always dealt with it is, you know, more than I kind of been, I only keep reading control what I can control, right. So that and that's my attitude sometimes is a problem. And then being intentionally curious and helping other people, what I have found is the more that I am involved in helping other people, they tend to want to kind of reciprocate that and kind of help you. So when they see that you're going through something, they're there to help you out. And so I look at that from a team dynamic with my team.
Speaker 2:As they know that, you know I've got to carry quite a bit of the load when it comes to the stress and stuff. But my job is to protect them. But they also know when I'm getting hammered, sometimes they want to step up and make sure that they protect me, and sometimes that's just simply doing a little more at their job to kind of take some pressure off, or you know. But I also want to make sure that I'm not, you know, pushing my, pushing my, my problems on them as well. So that's kind of that self-reflection, but I do think that you can't, you can't do, you can't do life alone.
Speaker 2:We're not built to do things alone, I think. Naturally, I think people want to solve problems by themselves and they want to work through it, but it is. It is a lot easier to have a conversation, just a little conversation like this, that you learn a little nugget or something that you know. Maybe I didn't think about that. James said you know what that's going to trigger a different thought process. So for me it's I have somebody that you can have, that you can lean on, whether it's a team or just an individual.
Speaker 1:Um, do not try to don't try to fight through things. You know yourself all the time. The uh I there was a tech CEO the other day that that uh, that said I don't want your real self at the office, and I was like, okay, well, that's kind of of an interesting. I kind of see what he was saying, but I think what it means is don't bring your home problems to work. Keep those at home, because we can't, the home problems I.
Speaker 1:I think this is kind of interesting in a number of ways, because if you I think it's all relative to your support group that you have of friends If you have no friends and your only friends are the people you've met at work, well, maybe you're going to, you know, ask for a coffee after work to chat with someone, or hey, can I go to a game with you? Or or whatever it is, and you know the they might ask you about. Hey, ask you about. Hey, did you get that stuff resolved on the weekend? And that happens at 8, 8.15 or happens at the coffee break or whatever it is. So sometimes there needs to be exceptions to that rule, because it is a community of people. So I'm wondering if some other industries are a little more trite than construction.
Speaker 2:I would think, yeah, I think nobody wants to deal with other people's personal problems. But again back to the common theme of if we want to love each other and respect each other, sometimes it's okay to say, james, you doing okay today, like that's back to being curious, like is everything okay, is there something like you said? You know, hey, want to go to lunch and just have a chat or, after work, catch up. I do think you need to be mindful that people go through stuff, you know, and yeah, you don't want to hear them screaming at their wife on the phone at work and all that. I understand all that, but people are people, right, and we're emotional creatures. So sometimes that is going to creep into the work environment. I think it's it's it's kind of having an opportunity, having a kind of an environment of communication that, hey, it's okay to. You know, I need a mental health day. I just need a lot of stuff going on. I just need, I just need a day, you know.
Speaker 2:And but I think, especially from a leader perspective, you know, and I get it as your organization gets big, it's hard to. If you have 300, 400 people you can't be in tune to all of them. But if you train your other leaders to make sure that, hey, you're intentional with your people, make sure everything's going good. If there's something that we need to assist with or have conversations, have an open door policy that they can talk to you about some things. Have an open-door policy that they can talk to you about some things, because if their performance at work suffers, your business suffers. If their performance is suffering because of something personal, how can we? We're not counselors, but is there something we can do to maybe make them feel not as much pressure? Because a lot of times if they're failing at home, they're failing at work. Then it just starts to kind of snowball.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's. I can think of a few different scenarios where you have somebody who's typically very good at their job and, you know, it seems like they're struggling. It's sort of it's uncharacteristic of their past behavior, and then someone says, hey, hey are okay, and they say, well, I just need a day. So I've been saying this for a while that the mental health that term might work in other industries, but in construction it's such a heavy word for people to admit because it makes tough people admit that they're weaker or vulnerable or whatever it is. So I think, in my opinion, that whole thing needs a rebrand, for construction needs a different word. In my opinion, that whole thing needs a rebrand, for construction needs a different word.
Speaker 1:But let's say, you have somebody who's very good at what they do and, as I said, they come and they're like I need a day. I think most people will be well, if that person gets that day, then they're going to be able to get back to that great kind of performance, performance they were. But what about another scenario where you've got somebody kind of good at what they do and they go, I need a day. And then, okay, well, I need another day. And then I need another day and the work quality is still not great. Yeah, what do we deal with that?
Speaker 2:because I think there's a lot of that there is, and so for me also one of the things and I I always don't like to be big brother, but there there's there's metrics in place for a reason so that we can measure some stuff. And so, you know, things start to dip. There's cultural moments. So for me I hope that, like I said, I'm not perfect, but I hope that I try to identify some drops and drop some productivity pretty early so that we can just have a conversation it's usually a coach like is there anything I can help you with, assist you with? And I would like to be pro and get back to being proactive. I would like to think I want to be proactive. Before we get to that, I need a day, I need another day, I need another day. But the only way to do that is to have some type of measurables or communication or something in place as an organization that can quickly identify if there's a drop in productivity.
Speaker 2:Construction, it's all measured by productivity, so you can see the metrics, but there's so many different moving parts. Your bricklayer might be the one that's causing problems. How do you identify that one small part? So that's a little more challenging than an office environment, but for me, I think it's about being a proactive leader. You have to communicate, you have to have some things in place and also have to know capacity and capabilities of your team, right? And so, like you said, if their normal performance dips, what is their normal performance? So if you don't know that, how would you know if it dips? So it's easy to just hire somebody and say here's your job, go, and then you're off doing your own thing. I think you just need to be intentional with your team at all times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think definitely there's different stratas of individuals on the job site. You have some highly skilled workers that know some things that are just unbelievably cool, like they just can go in there and slay it. Um, they have, they have their core competency. That's just they're bringing it. They're basically snipers. They come in and like, yeah, I can nail this, and there's lots of those people.
Speaker 1:But you do have the others who are. They got their job because they knocked on a site trailer and they're like I need a job, I'll sweep the site, I'll do whatever. And sometimes those can stay there, ish, and just move around companies and there's hundreds of thousands of people who are doing those kind of jobs. And I think what's interesting is that, unless we take care of those people, let's just say that they're that scenario where they're okay at what they do and then they have a day I need a day, I need a day, I need a day, and there's lots of that. They don't have anywhere else to fall. And that's where I think that construction is and this is where the government can get involved in a positive way is it needs to be able to empower the construction industry to be able to do the right thing for society in that way. Get booted out of that. Where are they going to go?
Speaker 2:It's going to be a crappier and crappier job and then a whole bunch of a host of other things can be on set at that point. Yeah, this is where and I'm not getting salesy on you, but I think this is where one of my visions for technology actually comes into play, because I equate construction technology to very similar. I think they've used a bunch of analogies. I'll use another one. So, like autopilot for an airplane, right, the pilots are still doing the critical work, they're doing the takeoffs, the landings, anything that happens in an emergency.
Speaker 2:Technology for construction should be the same way. It should do kind of these normalized, mundane tasks like administrative things, and take a load off, whether it's the superintendent, the project manager, whoever it is, so they can do more critical things. And if they had more time to do those critical things, they would be able to pay attention to a worker that's maybe not performing as well, being able to identify problems on the site when it comes to personnel. But right now they get inundated with just paperwork and admin stuff and reports and all this other stuff. That's where their technology could kind of maybe take some of that off of their plate and allow them to be more people-focused, and that's kind of one of the things that I see technology can help in the industry. I'm not trying to self-plug there, but I do think if it's the right process, that's how it should be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that right process. That's what that's how it should be. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, that's cool, all right, so, um, yeah, what? So? What other? Have you learned any resilience lessons? Um, by observing different industries? Like what do you? You got any like sage advice? Did I say, yeah, I did so for me.
Speaker 2:So I guess for me it's. You know, failure has always been this word that scares everybody, you know, and in looking back at some of the most successful people in history, they got there because of failures. So it's a. It's a that phrase I use fail forward. I say fail quickly, and then one of my colleagues says I like fail forward better. It's that phrase I use fail forward. I used to say fail quickly, and then one of my colleagues says I like fail forward better. It's kind of the same thing. Like you know, it's okay to try new things and if you fail, like, don't stop and go backwards. You know, fail forward and learn from it and move forward.
Speaker 2:So for me, you're going to have failures. Life is tough. I mean, you're always going to face things. It's how you handle them, moving forward. I think that allows you to continue to grow. And so to me, like I said, my number one motto is control what I control, and I know that's going to keep saying I should get a tattoo, but it's so easy to say and so hard to do because we just want to get involved in things that we have no control over and then we allow it to frustrate us. We allow it to. You know, bring us down. We're like wait a minute, I can't control that part of it, let me just let that go, and it's kind of freeing, and then you have the ability to continue to move. So those are probably two of the most important lessons that I've learned.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool man.
Speaker 2:Well, we've covered a lot of stuff and I think that was good. I enjoyed that. You got a lot of great things to say on a lot of these subjects, so that's pretty cool. So what's next for you in AlicoSoft You're at in Austin next week. It's a one day event and then we've got a couple other events, but for us it's just we're trying to get out there and, you know, let the, let the market know we're here. I think that's probably the most important thing that there's another solution out there that does a lot of what they're looking for. And then, yeah, just keep pushing growth in the US.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, that's awesome. Best of luck to you. Appreciate it and this has been pretty good, so thank you very much. So how do people find you then? Alicosoftcom.
Speaker 2:Alicosoftcom, linkedin as well. We're on LinkedIn, yeah, so those are probably the two best places to reach us.
Speaker 1:Perfect, yeah All right.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. You're welcome. 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.