September 22, 2025 • 53 mins
Dominique Gill is the Founder and Managing Director of Urban Core, a multi award-winning construction company generating $80 million in annual revenue, with offices in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. A pioneer in diversity and inclusion, Dominique leads one of Australia’s few female-led building firms, with women making up 50% of the Urban Core workforce.
In this episode, Mark Bouris speaks with Dominique Gill about how she’s reshaping construction through purpose-driven leadership and a 50% female workforce. They discuss industry challenges, psychological safety, innovation on site, and why construction remains vital in the age of AI.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the mentor. I'm Mark Boris Dominic Gill. Welcome
to the mentor.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Now, you're the founder of your co founder? I think,
are you a founder of co founder? You're a founder,
You're a founder of urban Core. Just give me like
half a minute. What's urban Core? So?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Urban Core is a construction company which I started nine
years ago with a view to change the culture of
construction to future proof our industry. I started because I
felt like there was probably a way to do construction
better than the traditional way. Before urban Core, I worked
(00:46):
for a builder for a very long time for ten years,
and I felt like the environment was sometimes a little
bit unwelcoming, and I wanted to create a company that
would be a little case study, maybe a success story
that you could have a more diverse workforce and a
more collaborative and transparent approach and still be successful. So
(01:07):
fast forward nine years. I've got fifty five employees and
I'm very proud to say I have fifty percent women
in my company at the moment and it's going well.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So does that mean help me out it? Because I
don't really know. If you're a builder, you're a builder,
you have a building license up resum. That's what it means.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I have lots of licenses.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
But to become a builder, what's the process. You have
to become a carpenter first, or you're a plumba or
electrician work.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's one of the ways. There's definitely one of the
things I'm very vocal about is the licensing system. It's
far from perfect, probably needs a lot of systemic changes,
in particular when it comes when it comes to you know,
working across states. Like you can build one thing in
one state and something different in another state, even though
you're the same person.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Can you do you take your New South Wales license
and building coinsland.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, but for commercial work there's no licensing in New
South Wales at all. How do you mean there's no
license for commercial work in New South Wales. You don't
have to have a licens, you don't have to have
a line. So I can oust a building company. You can.
You can build a forty two story tower in the
CBD if you win that tender.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Doesn't make sense to me, it doesn't, it did so,
But at the same time, you can have a builder's license.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yes, you can have a builder's license. So look I
love that you asked that question because I was I
you know, I started as a I mean, my background
is project management, right, I was a project manager for
a very large company. I understand risk, I understand budget,
I understand contracts very well. But this actually wasn't enough
to get a license, And in fact, I had my
(02:46):
original builder's license rejected a couple of times because I
didn't have the background in the trade as an experience,
as an as experience. But some of that experience is
quite minimal, Like you can be a laborer on a
site for two years and you will tick the inexperienced
box and you might be able to get a license then,
even though you may not understand risk and contracts and
(03:06):
budgets and program all the things that make you a
successful business person. So my take on this is, you know,
there are people out there that have licenses that probably
shouldn't not because they're not good at the trade that
they know. But they may not be very good businessmen,
and they are business people, and they and they might
be the people that undercut the market. They might be
(03:27):
the people you know that sign those contracts that shouldn't
be signed with unfair a location of risks, et cetera.
And there are people like me, you know, highly educated,
a lot of experience in managing you know, contracts and
risk who may not be able to get a license.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So I know that. I think my nephew has one.
But like I know, you can get university now and
get a degree in project management.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Or construction management or something like that, as it's.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
A bachelor of something. Roight. Yeah, but then you generally
speak and become a I think his process has He's young,
but his processes become like a ultimately let's call it
a supervisor on a site. Yeah, correctly, but you're basically
managing the job. But he wouldn't. He's not a carpenter
or any of the trades. He's never done any of
(04:16):
the trades. It doesn't necessarily mean he can get a
builder's license either, because he hasn't done enough of the
experiential part of it.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Look not necessarily. I ended up getting one, you know,
I had I appealed twice. I had the CEO of
the previous company I worked for who wrote to Fair
Trading and said, if you're not giving Domini Gill license,
you know, then no one should have a license, and
that that got me through.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
So when you so the core of what you do
in terms of being the builder but not being the
trades person. You mentioned contracts. I guess there's finance, there's planning.
You mentioned risk. In Australia, risk has become a big
(04:57):
issue more recently. We saw some of the stuff that
happened during the COVID period and we have sort of
buildings in all sorts of trouble. What does risk mean
If we're talking about financial risk, we're talking about something else.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, look, there are different types of risks.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
We can talk about safety, safety, hazard, safety risk. That's
one thing definitely for me is contractual risk that I
refer to mainly because we're in an industry, so I'm
a head contractor and in fact I talk about that
as well. You know, I like to call myself a builder,
but everywhere on paper, I'm a contractor. You know, I'm
defined to the developer or to the client or the principle,
(05:34):
I'm defined by the vehicle that I used to do
the work, not the fact that I actually create and
execute work. And then as a head contractor, I engage subcontractors,
which is also a language that you know, you can
object to because these people trades people, and they trade partners,
the delivery partners, but we call them subcontractors. And so
(05:54):
the industry has become incredibly contractual, and it's very important
to understand risk in in those contracts. So my again
very vocal about you know, fair location of risks. The
way tenders are structure. Generally, the principle of the developer
will come with their form of contract. They'll have plenty
of lawyers that have looked at that for many years
that have drafted in in the way that really stitches
(06:17):
up the builder. And sometimes the builder may agree to
those terms as long as they can push them down
the chain to the subcontractor, and then we end up
with contracts that are not really viable.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So it's just so, and our audience can understand this.
So the developer might own the land or and or
gets the funding from the bank to do the building,
but rarely unless it's someone like Murvak or one of
those sorts of organizations lend lease, et cetera, But rarely
(06:49):
does the developer build particularly jobs. So the builder then, sorry,
the developer, that's the one organizing all the dough and
that the one who can go bad a lot of
the times. The developer then sends out a enters on
a process core forate tenders, or might invite people like
(07:11):
yourself to tender on the on the project, or might
already just have already a business relationship with you, and
just said, I just I just like Dominic's work. I
want her to do all my work. But says to you, Okay,
here's the building, here's the design, this, this is what
I want built. Here's the approval council, prove whatever it is,
give me a price. You give them a price and
(07:33):
a timeline, and I guess you have an s curve,
you know, to sort of show when money is going
to be drawn down, because the job development needs to
know when you're going to be up for dough, so
they want to know when the cash calls are going
to be. Let's call it the drawdowns. Then you will
go out and find you're calling him subcontractors. But I
(07:55):
like the idea of calling them delivery agents. Are going
to deliver certain things dire, there's deliverables. They're going to hydraulics,
what electrical or electrical you know, all the fit out
a sort of stuff. So you go and do you
do you call forttenders for that or do you have
your own team legal?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I call pretenders as well.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, you just put it out of But do you
say you five there, you're plastering companies? Your company plasters
you five plasters I'm going to get I'm going to
give you the package. Or do you just put it
out into the ether somewhere? Do you? No? No?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I go to people I know. Generally, I'll have three
or four companies portrayed. A lot of them I've used
before I want to use again. Occasionally I'll throw in
someone's hat in the ring that I haven't used yet
who's been asking me to get on my books, and
then we'll give them a go maybe or we'll use it.
Depends what the job is again, depends what the risk is,
and depends, you know, what we're after. Like I tried
(08:47):
to find the right trades for the right projects. You know,
I want to just yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
But when you say risk on it, do you mean
when you say risk, is that risk for you as
a contractor to deliver to the developer the job that
you tended on or is the risk are you saying
you manage the risk relative for the developer.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yes. So generally what happens is you there are three
categories of risk. One is design risk, so you know,
you mentioned you get a set of drawings and you're
going to price to build it. A lot of the
time the principle will push on you the design risks,
so that design that they give you may not be complete.
It might be fifty percent, it might be seventy percent complete,
(09:28):
so you still have thirty percent of design work that
need to be done. That might increase the overall cost
of the project, and that becomes your risk.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So they call that construction drawings.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yes, exactly, So you get tender drawings and then you
might have the responsibility to take those drawings from tender
to approve for construction, and sometimes that can be a
ten percent and twenty percent increasing costs. Sometimes it's the
other way around. You might find some good ways to
you know, value etioneer, or there might be things that
make it easier. The other big risk that is often
pushed onto the builder and we always fight back on
(09:59):
is latent conditions. So you might actually be working on
a site that already has a building there part of
the building is being kept, or you might be doing
a fit out in a tower, and there's you know,
things you're dealing with that you may not be able
to see at the time of tender. And then you
get onto the site, so it's a fit out, you
pull down the ceiling and you realize things above the
ceiling aren't at all what you expected them to be,
(10:20):
and that becomes your risk because it's a latent condition
if you have accepted to take the risk on that.
So obviously these are you know, some of the examples
where we try and push back. But then you know,
principles can play the card of well, I've got to
build a ready to sign on the dot A line
here they've accepted the contract as is. We don't want
any departures. And then you know, you've got to look
at how much how much money have you got in
(10:41):
the job? Is there enough margin to cover all those things?
So and then also you need to try as much
as you can. Well you need to try. I don't
like to do it, but a lot of builders will try.
And then push that down to the trades. You know,
can you like the electricians, can you finish the design
the electrical services design and own whatever the come of
that design is and still deliver the job for that price,
(11:04):
you know. So these are the type of things that
we're trying and look forward to make it more fair,
like I believe, you know there are there are sometimes
where it's absolutely warranted. Like I'm the builder, I'm the expert.
I should take the risk on certain things. Now, when
a client purchases an asset, it's their asset. I don't
think I should underwrite that asset. You know, if there
is a best loss in the ceiling or there's contamination
(11:27):
in the ground, I don't think that should be my problem.
It's not. It's not my site, you know, it's not
my asset. So some of those things are hard to navigate.
And of course occasionally, you know there's a tender you're
hungry because it's very lumpy that what we do.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So obviously it's project based, a lot of jobs at once.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So a lot of jobs at once, a lot of
jobs finish altogether suddenly, or like okay, I've got two
teams ready, I've got this tender where you know, I'm
not the lowest price, but if I drop a little bit,
I could win it because relationship. But then you take
a slightly bigger risk and then that might end up
really badly for you.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You might just help us out here on the importance
of keeping your team together. So let's say, on the
exemple just you just raised, you might have two jobs
on the go. They're both going to finish at the
same time. Let's say you've got you know, two teams
of all the trades on each job. Then they're all
(12:18):
going to finish around about the same time. And then
another tender comes up from another developer who you've already
doing work for, and you think to yourself, if I
don't win this job, I'm going to well, maybe I'll
put another way. How important is it for you to
win their job in order to keep your team together?
And why is it so important to keep your team busy? Yeah,
your team of contractors, your subcontractors, your delivery Mtical dens partners.
(12:44):
Why is that important?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Tell the audience, Look, it is important because you know,
I have some trade contractors who like the turnover of
their business eighty percent comes from urban core, you know,
and that means I'm paying their mortgages, feeding their kids
and their workers, and paying their people, you know, So
that matters to me. You know, if people rely on
the continuity of my work for the continuity of their business.
(13:08):
Of course I care what happens. That's quite rare. Most
trade contractors will work for more than one head contractor.
So if I'm a little bit quiet, they might be
able to go and get work from another builder, or
they might be able to sit tight for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Do you worry about that work for another building? I
mean you concern they do.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I have to accept it. Yeah, it happens.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
What's the risk of that to you.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Well, it's a risk of tender. So for example, when
they tender for me, and I know that they're giving
their price, which is a really good price to their
other builder, I know that that's a price I need
to go in on at that trade because for that trade,
because obviously that price exists in the market and everyone's
going to use it, you know. But I have a
lot of trades that price for me only you know,
(13:52):
and or you know might give different prices to different
builders depending on who they would like to help them win.
But then of course there's my fee, my own fee,
as you know, my preliminaries and my staff and my team,
et cetera, which also counts in the balance and of
course the margin that I apply. So it's always, you know,
it's always a little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Of a do you worry if if if they go
to another builder that you might not get them back again,
and particularly if they're very good at what they do
in terms of both price and quality.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well, lots of the trade tell you what the Generally
what happens is when they come and work for me,
they want to work for me again. I look after
my trades very well. I pay them on time, I
respect them. I keep talking a lot about the nobility
of construction, how important the work is that we do,
and I think they feel very very valued. And what
(14:42):
I'm finding is, rather than not wanting to come back
to me, is they don't want to go back to
the other builders they were working for. You know, we
have a saying at Urban Core. You might record during
during COVID we were talking a lot about, you know,
thanking the teachers every day and thanking the nurses every day. Well,
at Urban Core we say thank construction worker every day.
And actually I've got a fridge magnet to give you
thank you, And that's because that's because I'm trying, like
(15:07):
my life's mission is to try and change the perception
of construction. You know, I want people to choose construction
as a career, to realize that it's viable. You've spoken
about that recently in an interview on two GB, and
that really resonated with me because that's what I spend
my life doing. You know, I want to change that
perception so that more young people join the industry and
(15:29):
that we can have a more sustainable industry, more diverse industry,
because people don't realize, you know, there's a lot of
money to be made. What we do is really tangible,
is really rewarding, and also we enable lives. You know,
you and I right now we're sitting in a room.
I don't know how often you worry about the slab
falling on your head or the rio in the lab
(15:50):
that we're you know, standing on. We're not heart surgeons,
and I get that a lot. People will say, you
know what about medicine and law, that's what we want
the kids to do. We're not heart surgeons, granted, but
we are actually a lot more than that. You know,
the heart surgeons they can't do their work on less
than in the hospital, and these hospitals built by us
so I feel like this is a really important point
(16:13):
to make around the perception of the industry.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I think you hurt me talking to ben Fordham or
toog with them. I think construction is is a great industry,
and I wish more kids and parents would actually talk
with the kids into it. I definitely would got grandsons
and granddaughters just born, but I would definitely be encouraging
them to if they said that that's something they're interested,
I would definitely be encouraging them to do that sort
(16:38):
of stuff. Equally, I'd say, if you want to become
a doctor or a lawyer or accountant or whatever, I'd
equally say that too. But but I definitely wouldn't be
thinking ones better than the other. If we could just
go back, because the point I questioned you for about
making sure you look after however you do it. You
explain how you look after your workers, your partners by
(17:00):
thinking of construction worker every day, and you do that
sort of stuff at Urban Core. But it's also about competing.
That's partly because you're competing with a maybe even a
diminishing pool of contractors because we're not getting enough here,
and a straight from what I'm hearing anyway, and therefore
you've got to add off of something extra, not just
(17:21):
be prepared to pay the price that they're quoting or
be able to continue to give them more work, but
you're also building up a program whereby you're building a
brand around urban COREP. Maybe would you mind explain to
me what you think urban Core's brand values are?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, of course. Look, we're definitely a purpose driven business.
You know, we do want to build, and we want
to deliver on time and on budget and high quality.
And that will be what every single builder tells you
if they're a developer, that's yes, Well, I mean they're not.
Don't just build for developers. Obviously, we build for lots
of commercial entities like your DEXes and Charterhall and they're
(18:03):
not developers or such. Others refers a bit more to
RESI work in my world anyway. So principles, Yeah, principles
the owners.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So but that's for the developer. What about your brand
relative to your subtractors?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
How long have you got? So? Look, I'm I'm all
about you know, purpose driven, as I mentioned, you know,
values driven. We don't want to We're not just here
to build and execute. You know, the fulfilled the minimum
requirements under a contract. You know, we're here to execute
someone's dream in someone's space, something they've imagined, something that
they want to execute the way we tackle things at
(18:45):
Urban Quarries. Obviously, we offer this diverse workforce. You know,
we believe that we should be a reflection of the
public we serve. So that's the first thing that is
a very strong selling point for us to tell our
clients who are become more and more female. Anyway, because
there are fifty percent women in the world, there's fifty
percent women in the workforce, so a lot of our
(19:06):
clients are female. They like to to relate to us
and be able to see themselves in what we do.
That makes us more generally, more approachable, more transparent. We really,
we genuinely see the benefits of diversity in the business,
and not just upstream to the kind but also downstream
to the subcontractors. The subcontractors that we have are incredibly respectful.
(19:29):
They believe the same values. Because what's really interesting, Mark is,
you know, we talk a lot about construction being a
boys club and being you know, all heavy, ugly, dirty, bullying, harassment,
all of those things. The reason women don't join construction
is the exact same reason many many men don't join construction. Okay,
construction really just needs to we really need to change
(19:49):
the image and the reputation of the construction industry, not
just for the women, but for men as well. And
once you have a more diverse workforce, something magic happens.
You create psychological safety, okay, and psychological safety is what drives.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
People to be more productive the men on site.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, on site as well, absolutely, you know when the
side office is filled, you know, with three men three women. Firstly,
what happens is all my trades whenever they have a
female apprentice or a female worker, they happen to come
to my sites, which I love.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
The other day I saw a female still fixer. It's
quite rare. You know, a lot of females are more
like electricians or painters, are cleaners. And they say, oh,
you have to go to the open core site, you know,
because there's all these women in the side office and
all these women on the team, and the guys like
it as well, you know, they like it because they
feel safe. And what happens when you have a diversity
of identity, so people who are different by identity, like
(20:40):
you're a man, I'm a woman. You're old, I'm young,
Just kidding, I'm all too. You know, you've got age,
you've got education, background, you've got you know, religion, sexual orientation, everything.
What happens if you're in a room and everyone looks
different when the first person speaks, the second person feels
comfort disagreeing or having a difference of opinion. There's not
(21:03):
that sort of tendency to go for group think where
you go hang on. You and I were both middle
aged white men. If you think a my instinct to
fit in is that I should probably agree with you.
And so when I asked, what do I think I'm
going to go well to fit in this group? Sounds
like I need to think like what the first guy said.
So in a room where everyone looks the same, so
no diversity of identity, you're going to have someone says
(21:26):
let's go plan A, and everyone go, oh yeah, plan A, Okay,
plan A, plan A. When you have a room when
everyone looks different diversity of identity, you get diversity of cognition.
The first person will say let's go plan A, and
the second person will say, well, I'm a completely different person.
With a completely different view background and looks anyway, I'm
going to go with B. Then the third person might go,
(21:47):
I'm going to go with P, and then green and
then frog. And then we become way more creative in
a group where we don't all look the same. And
when you become more creative, you have a better debate,
you have better decision making, which is the most important,
and collaboration, creativity, innovation, et cetera. So for me, that
social innovation, which is my one point of difference at
(22:09):
urban Core, This fifty percent women has had this really
sort of virtuous effect, you know, to the rest of
the teams, Like my subbies want to work for me,
my clients want to rehire me, and those things is
you know, proof is in the pudding. I've been here
nine years. I keep growing every year. I've had a
bigger year over the previous year, and I have you know,
many people knocking on my door wanting a job with
(22:30):
urban Core. I think those things are working.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
You know, is there any risk of inefficiency as a
result of having I mean, I know you're making a
crazy example, but id a id b id peri idea, green,
idea frog? Is there any risk of having it like
a talk fest or inefficiency as a result of that,
(22:55):
And if so, how do you manage that?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, look, I mean there is always an inherent risk,
and I think you know that's the cost of innovation, right.
Innovation is an investment, and that's something I acknowledge, and
I think part of the reason why the construction industry
is quite slow and innovating is because they don't invest
enough in innovation. And I know why because the margins
are too slim. You know, you need to be able
to afford trial and error. You need to be able
(23:17):
to try something and it doesn't work. In my view,
the upside of having that really productive conversation is far
outweighs the risk of just going, let's do it the
old way, Let's do it the way we've always done it.
Let's follow that one single idea. You know, I think
that carries a lot more risk than having the original debate.
Another thing that's quite important is you've obviously got to
(23:40):
have the skill to make the decision, and you need
to have people on the team who are team players,
and the team players are the people who will a
rally to the decision once it's made. Even if that
wasn't their preference. So being you know, that's eight players
for you, you know, trying to find someone who's able
to say I think we should go be But then
when we make the decision that it's A, now I'm
(24:02):
going to support A and I'm going to work as
hard as I can.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
How do you build that culture? That's a cultural thing.
You do You have to sort of sit in on
the meeting is what did you find it difficult? Not difficult?
Did you find that you had to sit in on
the meetings to build that thought process initially and now
it just probably flows? But did you have to do
that yourself? Do you have to push that a little bit?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah? I push it every day. I mean I read
books like I'm obsessed with books with leadership. I love,
you know, Jim Collins. I was just reading other moment.
His latest will be two point zero. He talks about people,
He talks about building, you know, a team of like
a players. I read you know, Patrick lang Cherney and
(24:43):
the five Dysfunctions of a team. And I have a
national meeting every fortnight. I had one yesterday every second Monday,
where I passed that knowledge to the team. You know,
I'm always there going, oh, this is the book I've
been reading, and this is the exercises that we're going
to do. And I try to also really cultivate empathy.
Some of the things we've been doing at Urban Core
(25:04):
is we do a raw swap so for example, because
what happens is you have people in the office contract administrators,
project managers. They're working like dogs. They're trying to make deals,
they're trying to get you know, variations approved, they're trying
to get trades on board. And then you have site
site is the guys who supervise and you know, do
the safety et cetera. And we have some days where
(25:26):
we ask the site manager or the foreman to take
the meeting minutes of the client meeting, and then we'll
have the contract administrator to do five inductions, you know,
so they can really understand that actually, these guys aren't
just sitting in the office, you know, drinking coffees and
these other guys are just twiddling their thumbs in the
side office. Everyone is actually working really hard and doing
(25:48):
a job. Because inducting five people, you know, when they
show up and they don't have their white card and
they don't speak English and they need a translator, and
you know, it's actually a really hard thing to do.
And taking mid and meeting minutes of a client meeting
super important. These documents are pulled up all the time
whenever there's a dispute what happened in that meeting, what
was minuted. So just trying to make people understand, you
know that where the what everybody else in the team
(26:11):
is doing and being able to then you know, have
that creativity I suppose in their own work. You know,
when they write a contract and a scope of works
for a subby, are they thinking, oh, hang on, that's
going to be really annoying for my site manager that
I gave this part of scope to that trade. When
they're working in that area, maybe I could, you know whatever,
I'm making things up. But it's very important that they
(26:31):
have that understanding what everybody else is doing in the team.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
If we're finding most of the females working in the
business like are they in store in like internal like admin,
administrating like contracts, et cetera, Or you're getting an even
balance between that and on site like on site project
manager on female su advisors.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
So I've got definitely where I'm lacking women is in
site supervision. It's very difficult to get a site manager
or a for foreman, you know, person really that should
be called as as a female. Obviously, I would love that.
I do have a very good ratio of on the
project management side, project manager and contract administrators, and I
have a fifty percent ratio in leadership as well the SLT.
(27:16):
But when it comes to support roles, I have more women.
So the way I have my fifty percent is I
have fifty to fifty in project admin, more men in
sight supervision, fifty to fifty in leadership, and then more
women in support roles. So and actually I can tell
you that story. But you know, I'm quite proud of
my fifty percent diversity, right. I've worked very very hard
(27:38):
for that. I have recruited many women from different industries.
I've spent a lot of time with them. I've trained them,
a lot of my people, I've spent time with them.
You know, it didn't happen overnight. And we do it
because we believe in it. You know, this is this
is my life's mission to show that it works. So
I'm doing that. But then then because I like, you know,
(27:59):
I like to do brag about it and it's a
global first, and I had, you know, a little bit
of media coverage about that, and what was disappointing for
me is there was an article about how urban Core,
you know, achieved fifty percent diversity, and yet they're really
focused on my gender pay gap because of course the
site supervisors, they earn more than the support roles in
the business.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
So but that's an industry thing.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, well, it is an industry thing. But what I
mean is, you know, I have this amazing achievement, I think,
you know, which is very special, and he's proving you know,
he's making a point that I've been trying to make
for years, and that became immediately overshadowed by the new
trendy metric of gender pay gap, you know, And that
was a bit disappointing for me. And it's not because.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
They're blokes as supervisors, because.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, it's just a supervisor earn more. Yeah, that's just
that's just what it's like. But but you know, I
looked into this a bit further and I actually found
a loophole and it turns out that if I increase
my salary by three point two million, I can close
the gender pay gap at Urban Core. Now that's a
drick get that.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
No I didn't, but three two million sounds like a
lot of money.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I know, that's what I mean. But that was the point.
You know, you're trying to close the gender pegap. You've
just because I'm a woman, right so if I pay myself,
but therefore it doesn't make sense. No, therefore it doesn't
make sense. It's not a good metric, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
You've got to pay at the end of the day,
You've got to pay market anyway. So if a site
supervisor gets more than someone inside the office administering or
contract so that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's what it is. But of course the site supervisor
earned more than an office manager or an accounts person,
et cetera.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
So that's why, generally speaking, if I could just maybe
get your views on your industry, generally construction and this
whole difficult conversation that seems to be being had around
the country about productivity and one of the areas because
construction industries are is probably one of our biggest industries
(29:54):
in Australia. If more than likely it's either one or two.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I think it's second biggest employer and third biggest contributor
to the GDP.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, so yeah, so they're from not surprise. So but
it's right now. It's apart from gender issues, it's under
resource in terms of new recruits. Recruit is really difficult,
and usually it starts off that at the side. Part
usually starts off with an apprentice. What's the deal? Why
(30:24):
why are people joining up? Why can't plumbers go and
get themselves an apprentice or electricians going to get themselves?
What's the issue with this?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Well, look, like like I was saying earlier, I think
the construction really suffers from a reputation problem. It suffers
from an image problem. You know, people will people look
at construction and they think it's heavy, it's dirty, it's ugly,
it's bullying, it's harassment, it's not diverse, it's not inclusive. Yeah,
and c I mean, obviously it gives it gives a
terrible example. But I want to unpack this for a second.
(30:56):
You know, I think what I love about construction and
what people often don't realize is there is a lack
of diversity, but there's definitely not a lack of inclusivity.
We are actually the most inclusive industry on the planet
because there's zero barrier to entry. Zero. You can be
a homeless person and get a job in construction. You
can be an ex prisoner and get a job in construction.
(31:18):
There's not many industries that give people a second chance
at life. I think that's really beautiful, and we forget that.
The problem is because we welcome this really vulnerable layer
of society, we also have you know, the people who raff,
the people who bully, the people who harass, etc. So
we then suffer from this from this image problem, and
people don't want to join up. But if we change
(31:41):
that perception, like I said before, if we try and
increase the make people understand that what we do is
really noble, that we save people's lives, that we protect
people's lives, that we enable people's lives. If we try
and were able to remind people that the work we
do is so important. When I walk on a site
and I see a trade person and I say, excuse me,
(32:02):
what is this or what are you doing? They often
will say, oh, I'm just a carpet layer, like I'm
you know, I'm no one, or I'm just the steel fixer.
What would I know? And I always try and remind them, like,
don't call yourself just this. What you do is so
important these people. You know that the carpet you're walking on,
this is someone's dream, someone's living room, someone's classroom, whatever
(32:23):
it may be, you know, and just reminding them how
important it is. The other thing is people don't realize
how much money you can make in construction, and I
think that's a real shame because we get paid really well.
You know, we can get paid really well. Obviously it's
based on hard work, results and performance as well, but
the potential is there A crane driver, really experienced crane
driver can earn up to two hundred k a year.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Is this the guy or girl who's seeing in the
top of one of those things it goes about the building?
I got freaked me out of things out? Yeah, how
did they get up there?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That's really there's a ladder. I climb to crane myself.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
They climbup a ladder. Ven if it's a windy day,
I have think got some sort of harness.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
On the way up there with it depends depends.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
They can Sometimes some of these things in the city,
they're like like skyscrape scrapers, as well.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
I've got a crane on one of my sides and
I climbed up that crane on in November last year.
And yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Is the ladder on the inside of the things on
the inside.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah you can. You know, every ten meters you have
a platform, so the highest fall is ten meters, which
is still really high.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And they set up there all day.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, well they have no that breaks. Yeah, and they
have a relief person sometimes or they just take a
break care.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
But a special type of people, like individuals.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I think they're pretty smart, but are a special style
of character. Like who's happy to sit in the side
of the glass box? Yeah, pretty much on their own.
Yeah they're getting they're talking through something.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Like yeah, of course, yeah, it's a big deal. It
is a big deal. Yeah, it is a big deal.
But also you know, it pays quite well and so
nice view from up there, and you know you feel
you're contributing and making a difference. And that's what's beauty.
It's so tangible. You know, the day you you crane
up the tree because you topped out, you know, that's
a good day I think for the crane driver included.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
That's the day that the top of the buildings reached.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, the last lab yeah yeah yeah, put a planted
up the top of the tree. Generally, yeah something so.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
But going back to apprentices, why why are we having
so much difficulty getting these apart from the image? Yeah,
a kid saying or a parent saying, the kids outside
the image they're saying, listen become a blah blah you know,
or is it ignorants?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it is. Well I think, you know,
my you know, I have a not for profit outside
of urban Core where we go and talk in schools.
We go and speak to girls and boys about careers
in construction because it's my life's mission to change the
culture of construction, increase the number of women. What I'm
finding difficult if I get in front of the kids,
they're all like, wow, my god, we didn't all these
(34:51):
jobs existed. We didn't know we can make so much money,
We didn't know how much fun it was. We love it,
you know. And I start every presentation with who is
considering a career in construction? Generally I get no hands
go up. Sometimes a couple of mercy hands on this pool.
She you know, she came here to talk to us
we might pretend we're interested. Then I do the presentation
for like thirty minutes, and then at the end of
the at the end of the presentation, I ask again
(35:13):
the same question, and I'll get sometimes thirty five percent
thirty thirty five percent of hands go up. But what
has the difficulty is generally getting to that classroom, calling
a career advisors in a school, private schools, public schools,
and saying, hey, I want to talk about construction. Generally,
I don't that don't get a lot of interest. People
are like, well, We're had a lawyer come and speak
(35:36):
to us last week, we have a surgeon coming to
us next week, we have you know, Macquarie Bank coming
to speak to us, and we're not really sure we
want our kids to do construction. So that's the barrier.
There's a lack of there's a there's a need for
educating the career advisors. They need to understand what are
the opportunities that exist in construction. Then it is the
parents as well. You know, I do a lot of
(35:58):
career showcases. You know, I go to school, I set
up a table, I said, do you want to work
in construction? And the kids come after school with their parents,
and the parents will say, oh, keep walking, keep walking,
you know, let's go to gap year in London, you know.
And I'm sitting there going, guys, why don't you want
to hear about construction? So there is definitely a very
big important piece around educating the parents and the career advisors.
(36:20):
But I have some good news I want to make
this is this is a new release material. I haven't
really spoken about this a lot yet, but I'm gonna
talk about AI for a second, because what is happening
with AI. You're I'm sure you're well across. You know,
the rate of adoption of that new technology, it's unprecedented.
You know, everyone's using TOADBT, Everyone's using AI. It's faster
(36:44):
than the rate of adoption of the Internet or the PC.
All these industries are getting disrupted. All this white collar
jobs that the parents have been pushing the kids to
go for and go to unifour are being disrupted. And
guess what's left. What is one industry that is historically
very slow at adopting to technology and is also being
(37:06):
slow at adopting AI construction? Right, So suddenly, what I'm
finding really interesting is we live in a world where
we are more and more disconnected. You know, we have
AI agents doing jobs for us. We're working from home, isolated,
and construction is this one industry that might well end
up being the last truly human industry where you need
(37:31):
physical work. You need to do things, You do things,
and you need to be there. Local presence. Physical work
is so prevalent in construction and it makes your job safe.
You know, suddenly we're thinking, remember all these kids that
we're going to stand for doing computer science. You know,
look at Atlastian. Atlastian made two hundred people redundant two
weeks ago because AI. That hasn't happened in construction. We're
(37:54):
not seeing that. I think we should embrace AI. I
embrace sed open core. I've got all my gbts doing
everything I do as much as I can with it.
I use it to supplement and augment what I do.
But it's not replacing. It's not replacing anything or anyone.
It's we're still quite a few many years away from saying, hey,
Tad DiPT, can you well this metal? Can you pour some.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Compte and have to build a robot first?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You're going to have to build a robot exactly, and.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Some people are starting to try it. But I agree.
I mean, like right now, you know, kids could go
off and get an apprenticeship, but it's because the apprenticeship
is doesn't pay much. I mean, is there some government?
Are you happy with the governments the way governments address
these things?
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Not happy at all? I'm not happy at all. I
think the government could be doing way, way more. The
first thing the government could do better is advertising for construction.
You know, what I see is a lot of advertisements
for the Defense Department, for the Navy. You know you've
seen those ads. You know, leave a dream worth living for,
or you know someone in a uniform cradling a baby
and a fire, and they make it all so attractive.
(38:57):
In twenty twenty three, the Navy had the high rate
of intake ever based on all these money they spend
on advertising for the Navy. The reality of working for
the Navy is sometimes seven months on a ship, you know,
in the hall of a ship. And yet if you're
going to look for a career in construction, say you're
a young person thinking I'm thinking about construction, You're going
(39:17):
to google it and go, oh, I wonder what would
happen if I join construction. What do they see. They
see highest rates of insolvencies ever. They see public projects
with you know, three years over time and three times
over budget, and tax payer money is down the drain,
and someone will go, well, maybe I'll go and create
all the baby in the fire and join the navy instead,
(39:38):
you know, And that's such a shame, like the government
could be doing more to advertise this industry that we
all rely on. I mean, it's insane that we're looking
down on the one industry that everybody relies on, you know,
it's unbelievable. And then the other thing they could do,
and this is me, This is very personal, and I
don't know if you have any people in politics listening
to this podcast, but someone like me who is trying
(39:59):
so hard, you know, to change the perception and have
increased the number of women in a male dominated industry,
which is something the government keeps talking about, you know,
something they care about. Why can't I get you know,
I don't know, payroll tax exemption or some real incentive
to keep doing what I do because right now, all
this training of women who come in from horizontal, horizontal industries,
(40:21):
and the time I take to recruit and I generally
pay more my recruiters for women over men to make
sure they find the right woman for the job, et cetera.
That's all coming out of my own pocket. And yet
they have on their agenda that they want people like
me to do what I'm doing. But where are they
incentivizing me?
Speaker 1 (40:38):
You know, it's encouragement but no incentive.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah, that's right, that's right. It's a big guest, but
I feel like it should be rewarded, you know, and
then more people will do it.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Where my main businesses at the moment. It's funny, I've
been seeing a lot of female It's it's in the
city in chiefully, but I send a lot of female
trades people. More recently, I've noticed noticed a lot, like
a lot as opposed to just seeing females stand there
with those go stop stop goho signs which you often
(41:09):
see outside construction sites. But I actually quite a few,
And I was only thinking about it the other day.
I thought, I think to myself, how did you to
the particular individual, how did you decide to become my
donal trade they're doing? But how did you decide to
do that? Become a trades person like who wasn't in
your family that said to you become an electrician or
(41:29):
a plumber. Are there some trades that you don't You
very rarely see women do it, like, for example, plumbing,
because I always sort of a plumbing. Plumbing be a
pretty bad I reckon that'd be a tough trade to do,
because I can imagine the old dude plumber be saying, okay, Mark,
you climb under that house there and toilet and there's
rats and snakes and whatever in there, and you go
(41:53):
on and plug that like and the gaps is big.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, but why should men do that more than women?
You know, it's a bad both, right, I mean, but I.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Can see why woman or a man, thank you, I'm
not doing that? Is because is it to something Sai?
Construction is a bit hard?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Yeah, well, look of course it is. It is. You know,
there's I mean challenging. Look, with the advancements of safety,
there are no real tasks that are outside of the
physical ability of anyone.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
You know you.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
I could be a plumber, I could be a concrete
I could be a still fixer. You know, we we
don't let people carry one hundred killer beams on their
own anymore. Ever, I mean, unless you know, you're out
regionally somewhere with a one man band and they have
no systems in place. But the reality is there are
no tasks outside of the physical ability. But that's a
myth that needs to be debunked and people don't know that.
(42:44):
And a lot of the girls, when I presented the
girls school schools and I say, why aren't you thinking
about career in construction, not being strong enough comes up.
You know, I'm not strong enough, and that's the first
thing I say. Well, you know, we're here. We can't
have people break their backs from carrying and you're not
going to do that. I'm not going to do that.
We're not going to put you in a confined space
if you don't fit in there. And you know, so
(43:06):
people need to understand that whilst it's a slow adoption
of technology, systems have improved, you know, and they are
getting a lot more sophisticated, and we are trying to
reduce the number of incidents. You know, safety is a
very big deal in construction. And I can have plenty
of things to say about safety as well, because but anyway,
so we talked about a lot of things for a
(43:28):
very long time, yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Where okay, don but where do you see Where would
you like to see urban core in I'm not talking financially,
but where would you like to see urban core? And
you've already got fifty to fifty urban core in three
years time. I'm not to them from an economics point
of view. I'm talking about as a representation of what
can happen in this industry.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Well, look, it's three years is tomorrow right, I'm going
to snap my finger is going to be three years?
I think for me, longevity of the business is really
thing that's important to me. So I didn't build a
business to sell it and you know, be done with it.
I wanted to last not three, not ten, but fifty years.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I love seeing companies that celebrate one hundred years. I
think this is you know, really really great innings and
I'd love to be part of that. What's really important
to me is to maintain that fifty percent diversity and
maybe you know, hovering over fifty percent because you know
it can hover a little bit. And I still want
(44:30):
to have some growth like in revenue, in turnover, because
I want to get to a critical size where I
have really made a dent you know, like say fifty
percent diversity. If I was it was me and my husband,
that's fifty percent. You know, that's not really proving anything, right,
I feel like to be able to really inspire and
(44:52):
show Look, guys, urban Core is doing it. They're turning
over over one hundred million, and they've got fifty percent women,
and they've got repeat work, and they've got great credentials
and everyone's coming back to them, and all these people
are knocking on their door to work there. I want
to inspire others to do the same, you know, I
want to change this industry. It's not about me. I mean,
(45:12):
I would just want to lead the way and show
a good example and show that it works, because as
far as I can see, everyone talks about it, but
nobody's doing it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Has anyone else adopting.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
This, No, not that I know of. I mean a
lot of people talk about diversity and increasing the number
of women in construction, and look, it's getting better, don't
get me wrong. And there are great initiatives out there,
and especially the bigger players, the tier ones, you know,
they have the developed the culture standard recently. They have
lots of good initiatives. But you know, ninety eight percent
of businesses in construction are small businesses, you know, and
(45:43):
we need the small businesses to come on board as well.
You know, we need everyone to agree that this works,
that this, you know, is good for everybody. It's not
about ticking boxes, you know. I hate when people say, oh,
diversity and inclusion tick the box. It's it should be
a business priority. It's a strategic move, you know. For me,
(46:03):
it's better productivity, better happiness. I mean, we haven't even
started on mental health, but my people have psychological safety.
They are better in their heads than if they had
less diversity. That means maybe fewer days mental health days,
and less burnout and more enjoyment, and that creates productivity,
you know. You know what I mean that the trade
(46:24):
off is incalculable.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
But do you think therefore there needs to be some
sort of task force formed by the government sort of
to address this, as opposed to governments talking about it
or having it in there sort of overall agenda, yeah,
and maybe having a few minuteses appointed into various portfolios
and talking about it. Do you think there needs to
(46:46):
be some sort of task force that oversees this in the.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Industry, look and there is one, and I think unfortunately
they're about to wrap it up because they had the
CC which is the Cultural Industry Task Force for construction
or construction industry tasks, and they're the ones who ruled
out that culture standard and that worked well. They took
five projects and they had you know, a minimum of women.
They had five days a week government projects, yes, two
(47:10):
in Victoria, three New South Wales, a mix of vertical
and horizontal projects and that was an overwhelming success. But
then it's done. So they're just like, well, now we
have the proof that this is good, but yet to
see you know how they pushing others to do it.
Because I remember putting my hand up and saying, oh,
I want to be part of these. You know, this
is all I stand for. But it was all only
(47:30):
big jobs, you know, it was all only tier ones
and I feel like the big construction Yeah, like you're
Lendley's John Holland you know whoever they are, So yeah,
multiplex and be six what packe, et cetera. So they
get involved and obviously they have a lot better balance sheet,
they have a lot more margin that they can really
you know, expand onto those experiments. Like I said, innovation.
(47:54):
It's about trial and error and spending money. But the
problem is, like I said, ninety percent businesses are small businesses.
You know, what are we doing for them?
Speaker 1 (48:00):
You know?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I feel like I'm a voice for the small businesses.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
So I think what you're saying, I think we're saying.
I want to give that. It hasn't that that initiative
good initiative hasn't led down into the smaller.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
It's not that I constructed businesses, not that I can see,
except it's got a really shiny, glossy report that says, hey,
we did this and it worked.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
A final question to you, do you do you feel
like sometimes you're out there on your own beating the drum.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Sometimes you get frustrated.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
At what point do you say stuff this?
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Well, look, I did feel a little bit. I do
feel a bit like that sometimes. And then I don't know.
I got this invitation to speak on the Mirk Boris podcast,
and I thought, this is the start of change. It's
coming because people like you.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
I mean, I've sent in another industry. But you need
to get reassurance every now and then, and you need
to get that little injection of adrenaline. I'm talking in
a business. It's a little injection of adrenaline to make
sort of convince you that you are on the right
track and hopefully you I'm hoping that this will help
you out today. But I mean I when I said
(49:04):
to Ben Fordham on that that on that day we
weren't do about females and business, but I was talking
about apprenticeships and career is in construction. Generally, some of
the wealthiest people I know, outside of people who inherit
the wealth some when I say, probably the majority of
the wealthiest people I know have made the money out
of building fantastic.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, that's right. Well that's a great message.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
And to go to the southern, southern, Southern, get the
shire and all of these ten fifteen, twenty million dollars houses.
Admittedly there might be you know, they've been in the
business for twenty thirty years, but that equally applies to
any other industry. By the way, but I don't see
too many surgeons out there.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, true, you know.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
And all lawyers. Lawyer sounds like a great idea, but
it very rarely does is to make you a lot
of money unless you're like even you become a judge
then you don't make a lot of money either. In fact,
judge they are underpaid. So but the construction, the plumbers
who build up a team, the electricians to build up
a team in the plaster, the plasters, the tilers like recently,
(50:12):
I had an excise admittedly was during COVID, but of
building a building up, in building a small building up
and morder in New South Wales. Tylers were charging me
then one hundred and sixty bucks an hour a tyler.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, what the hell?
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Mike Countant only charges undred and sixty bucks an hour
and he's been around the many years, so this is
good man.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yes, there is good money.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
I was prepared to pay because no choice and.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Mark once you reach you know, eight hours your time
and a half, and on Saturday and Sunday your double time.
And you know, my electricians, my trades make more money
than me, like some of them, not not all of them,
but some of them, you know, And it's very possible
and very likely. You need a little bit of business acumen.
I think that's the only thing that sometimes I feel is,
you know, they give builders licenses to people who probably
(51:02):
aren't so good at running a business, and that is
actually hurting the industry. But those who can you have
a little bit, you know, a little bit of that
money minded or money making gift. You know, they can
do really well.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
And there's no shortage of work.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
There's no short no, no, no, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
In fact, there is shortage of workers. You know, we
need more. That's why they get paid so well, because
it's so hard to find the trades people that you need.
And they know, especially right now with the housing crisis
and trying to densify these areas and really push for
I can't remember how many homes they want to build.
A one point two million, you know, it's.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Five years, so it's like, yeah, a couple hundred thousand
a year, and they're way off the target.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
And the shortfall is more than three hundred thousand workers
I think in the next three years. You know, how
we what are we doing about that?
Speaker 1 (51:45):
I don't understand. That just doesn't turn the light on
for parents and all those who can influence their kids
a lot and say well, hang on, there's a huge
demand there and as a result that they are always
going to have a job. Money. You should always have
a job, assuming your competent.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Job security, job security.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
And that's sort of as a parent, that's the most
important thing job security, Like you know what this thing me.
But there are millions of lawyers graduates, kids graduating from
law degrees left right center, and they're all struggling to
get a job.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Oh and AI. AI is big time over to paralegal.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
I think that probably will have another role in some
type of role, but it would be more like supervising
in the AI, because a I can can do some
weird things. But but look right now, you're right, there's
one industry that is not disrupted by AI is the
physical industry. Any physical industry which you know you're not
going to get AI do your plumbing for you. And anyway,
(52:41):
maybe maybe they get some sort of little lum body
out of the time, but that's a long way off
and the adoption of that process will be a long
long way off. But so I think parents should be
thinking about this. I think parents, if you've got a daughter,
you should be thinking about this. I've got a I've
got a granddaughter and her mother she's only through so
but her mother is a project manager on site fantastic
(53:02):
and she's construction engineer. So so there's a perfect example
and I wonder whether, if you're listening to me right now,
daughter in law, whether you would encourage my granddaughter, your
daughter to one day become a trade or just get
involved in the construction industry generally, because I know she's
(53:23):
had a pretty good experience with it, so fantastic. It's
a great business. And I really appreciate you putting yourself
out there, and I absolutely hope that you achieve for
urban Core what you set out to achieve. And you're
gonna have a lot of bumps in the road, don't
worry about it.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Any bumps in the road.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
That doesn't matter. I never give up though there's no
point giving up. Just keep going.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Nice talking to you. Cheers,
Welcome to the mentor. I'm Mark Boris Dominic Gill. Welcome
to the mentor.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Now, you're the founder of your co founder? I think,
are you a founder of co founder? You're a founder,
You're a founder of urban Core. Just give me like
half a minute. What's urban Core? So?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Urban Core is a construction company which I started nine
years ago with a view to change the culture of
construction to future proof our industry. I started because I
felt like there was probably a way to do construction
better than the traditional way. Before urban Core, I worked
(00:46):
for a builder for a very long time for ten years,
and I felt like the environment was sometimes a little
bit unwelcoming, and I wanted to create a company that
would be a little case study, maybe a success story
that you could have a more diverse workforce and a
more collaborative and transparent approach and still be successful. So
(01:07):
fast forward nine years. I've got fifty five employees and
I'm very proud to say I have fifty percent women
in my company at the moment and it's going well.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So does that mean help me out it? Because I
don't really know. If you're a builder, you're a builder,
you have a building license up resum. That's what it means.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I have lots of licenses.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
But to become a builder, what's the process. You have
to become a carpenter first, or you're a plumba or
electrician work.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's one of the ways. There's definitely one of the
things I'm very vocal about is the licensing system. It's
far from perfect, probably needs a lot of systemic changes,
in particular when it comes when it comes to you know,
working across states. Like you can build one thing in
one state and something different in another state, even though
you're the same person.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Can you do you take your New South Wales license
and building coinsland.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, but for commercial work there's no licensing in New
South Wales at all. How do you mean there's no
license for commercial work in New South Wales. You don't
have to have a licens, you don't have to have
a line. So I can oust a building company. You can.
You can build a forty two story tower in the
CBD if you win that tender.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Doesn't make sense to me, it doesn't, it did so,
But at the same time, you can have a builder's license.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yes, you can have a builder's license. So look I
love that you asked that question because I was I
you know, I started as a I mean, my background
is project management, right, I was a project manager for
a very large company. I understand risk, I understand budget,
I understand contracts very well. But this actually wasn't enough
to get a license, And in fact, I had my
(02:46):
original builder's license rejected a couple of times because I
didn't have the background in the trade as an experience,
as an as experience. But some of that experience is
quite minimal, Like you can be a laborer on a
site for two years and you will tick the inexperienced
box and you might be able to get a license then,
even though you may not understand risk and contracts and
(03:06):
budgets and program all the things that make you a
successful business person. So my take on this is, you know,
there are people out there that have licenses that probably
shouldn't not because they're not good at the trade that
they know. But they may not be very good businessmen,
and they are business people, and they and they might
be the people that undercut the market. They might be
(03:27):
the people you know that sign those contracts that shouldn't
be signed with unfair a location of risks, et cetera.
And there are people like me, you know, highly educated,
a lot of experience in managing you know, contracts and
risk who may not be able to get a license.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So I know that. I think my nephew has one.
But like I know, you can get university now and
get a degree in project management.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Or construction management or something like that, as it's.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
A bachelor of something. Roight. Yeah, but then you generally
speak and become a I think his process has He's young,
but his processes become like a ultimately let's call it
a supervisor on a site. Yeah, correctly, but you're basically
managing the job. But he wouldn't. He's not a carpenter
or any of the trades. He's never done any of
(04:16):
the trades. It doesn't necessarily mean he can get a
builder's license either, because he hasn't done enough of the
experiential part of it.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Look not necessarily. I ended up getting one, you know,
I had I appealed twice. I had the CEO of
the previous company I worked for who wrote to Fair
Trading and said, if you're not giving Domini Gill license,
you know, then no one should have a license, and
that that got me through.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
So when you so the core of what you do
in terms of being the builder but not being the
trades person. You mentioned contracts. I guess there's finance, there's planning.
You mentioned risk. In Australia, risk has become a big
(04:57):
issue more recently. We saw some of the stuff that
happened during the COVID period and we have sort of
buildings in all sorts of trouble. What does risk mean
If we're talking about financial risk, we're talking about something else.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, look, there are different types of risks.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
We can talk about safety, safety, hazard, safety risk. That's
one thing definitely for me is contractual risk that I
refer to mainly because we're in an industry, so I'm
a head contractor and in fact I talk about that
as well. You know, I like to call myself a builder,
but everywhere on paper, I'm a contractor. You know, I'm
defined to the developer or to the client or the principle,
(05:34):
I'm defined by the vehicle that I used to do
the work, not the fact that I actually create and
execute work. And then as a head contractor, I engage subcontractors,
which is also a language that you know, you can
object to because these people trades people, and they trade partners,
the delivery partners, but we call them subcontractors. And so
(05:54):
the industry has become incredibly contractual, and it's very important
to understand risk in in those contracts. So my again
very vocal about you know, fair location of risks. The
way tenders are structure. Generally, the principle of the developer
will come with their form of contract. They'll have plenty
of lawyers that have looked at that for many years
that have drafted in in the way that really stitches
(06:17):
up the builder. And sometimes the builder may agree to
those terms as long as they can push them down
the chain to the subcontractor, and then we end up
with contracts that are not really viable.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So it's just so, and our audience can understand this.
So the developer might own the land or and or
gets the funding from the bank to do the building,
but rarely unless it's someone like Murvak or one of
those sorts of organizations lend lease, et cetera, But rarely
(06:49):
does the developer build particularly jobs. So the builder then, sorry,
the developer, that's the one organizing all the dough and
that the one who can go bad a lot of
the times. The developer then sends out a enters on
a process core forate tenders, or might invite people like
(07:11):
yourself to tender on the on the project, or might
already just have already a business relationship with you, and
just said, I just I just like Dominic's work. I
want her to do all my work. But says to you, Okay,
here's the building, here's the design, this, this is what
I want built. Here's the approval council, prove whatever it is,
give me a price. You give them a price and
(07:33):
a timeline, and I guess you have an s curve,
you know, to sort of show when money is going
to be drawn down, because the job development needs to
know when you're going to be up for dough, so
they want to know when the cash calls are going
to be. Let's call it the drawdowns. Then you will
go out and find you're calling him subcontractors. But I
(07:55):
like the idea of calling them delivery agents. Are going
to deliver certain things dire, there's deliverables. They're going to hydraulics,
what electrical or electrical you know, all the fit out
a sort of stuff. So you go and do you
do you call forttenders for that or do you have
your own team legal?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I call pretenders as well.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, you just put it out of But do you
say you five there, you're plastering companies? Your company plasters
you five plasters I'm going to get I'm going to
give you the package. Or do you just put it
out into the ether somewhere? Do you? No? No?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I go to people I know. Generally, I'll have three
or four companies portrayed. A lot of them I've used
before I want to use again. Occasionally I'll throw in
someone's hat in the ring that I haven't used yet
who's been asking me to get on my books, and
then we'll give them a go maybe or we'll use it.
Depends what the job is again, depends what the risk is,
and depends, you know, what we're after. Like I tried
(08:47):
to find the right trades for the right projects. You know,
I want to just yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
But when you say risk on it, do you mean
when you say risk, is that risk for you as
a contractor to deliver to the developer the job that
you tended on or is the risk are you saying
you manage the risk relative for the developer.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yes. So generally what happens is you there are three
categories of risk. One is design risk, so you know,
you mentioned you get a set of drawings and you're
going to price to build it. A lot of the
time the principle will push on you the design risks,
so that design that they give you may not be complete.
It might be fifty percent, it might be seventy percent complete,
(09:28):
so you still have thirty percent of design work that
need to be done. That might increase the overall cost
of the project, and that becomes your risk.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So they call that construction drawings.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yes, exactly, So you get tender drawings and then you
might have the responsibility to take those drawings from tender
to approve for construction, and sometimes that can be a
ten percent and twenty percent increasing costs. Sometimes it's the
other way around. You might find some good ways to
you know, value etioneer, or there might be things that
make it easier. The other big risk that is often
pushed onto the builder and we always fight back on
(09:59):
is latent conditions. So you might actually be working on
a site that already has a building there part of
the building is being kept, or you might be doing
a fit out in a tower, and there's you know,
things you're dealing with that you may not be able
to see at the time of tender. And then you
get onto the site, so it's a fit out, you
pull down the ceiling and you realize things above the
ceiling aren't at all what you expected them to be,
(10:20):
and that becomes your risk because it's a latent condition
if you have accepted to take the risk on that.
So obviously these are you know, some of the examples
where we try and push back. But then you know,
principles can play the card of well, I've got to
build a ready to sign on the dot A line
here they've accepted the contract as is. We don't want
any departures. And then you know, you've got to look
at how much how much money have you got in
(10:41):
the job? Is there enough margin to cover all those things?
So and then also you need to try as much
as you can. Well you need to try. I don't
like to do it, but a lot of builders will try.
And then push that down to the trades. You know,
can you like the electricians, can you finish the design
the electrical services design and own whatever the come of
that design is and still deliver the job for that price,
(11:04):
you know. So these are the type of things that
we're trying and look forward to make it more fair,
like I believe, you know there are there are sometimes
where it's absolutely warranted. Like I'm the builder, I'm the expert.
I should take the risk on certain things. Now, when
a client purchases an asset, it's their asset. I don't
think I should underwrite that asset. You know, if there
is a best loss in the ceiling or there's contamination
(11:27):
in the ground, I don't think that should be my problem.
It's not. It's not my site, you know, it's not
my asset. So some of those things are hard to navigate.
And of course occasionally, you know there's a tender you're
hungry because it's very lumpy that what we do.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So obviously it's project based, a lot of jobs at once.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So a lot of jobs at once, a lot of
jobs finish altogether suddenly, or like okay, I've got two
teams ready, I've got this tender where you know, I'm
not the lowest price, but if I drop a little bit,
I could win it because relationship. But then you take
a slightly bigger risk and then that might end up
really badly for you.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You might just help us out here on the importance
of keeping your team together. So let's say, on the
exemple just you just raised, you might have two jobs
on the go. They're both going to finish at the
same time. Let's say you've got you know, two teams
of all the trades on each job. Then they're all
(12:18):
going to finish around about the same time. And then
another tender comes up from another developer who you've already
doing work for, and you think to yourself, if I
don't win this job, I'm going to well, maybe I'll
put another way. How important is it for you to
win their job in order to keep your team together?
And why is it so important to keep your team busy? Yeah,
your team of contractors, your subcontractors, your delivery Mtical dens partners.
(12:44):
Why is that important?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Tell the audience, Look, it is important because you know,
I have some trade contractors who like the turnover of
their business eighty percent comes from urban core, you know,
and that means I'm paying their mortgages, feeding their kids
and their workers, and paying their people, you know, So
that matters to me. You know, if people rely on
the continuity of my work for the continuity of their business.
(13:08):
Of course I care what happens. That's quite rare. Most
trade contractors will work for more than one head contractor.
So if I'm a little bit quiet, they might be
able to go and get work from another builder, or
they might be able to sit tight for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Do you worry about that work for another building? I
mean you concern they do.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I have to accept it. Yeah, it happens.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
What's the risk of that to you.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Well, it's a risk of tender. So for example, when
they tender for me, and I know that they're giving
their price, which is a really good price to their
other builder, I know that that's a price I need
to go in on at that trade because for that trade,
because obviously that price exists in the market and everyone's
going to use it, you know. But I have a
lot of trades that price for me only you know,
(13:52):
and or you know might give different prices to different
builders depending on who they would like to help them win.
But then of course there's my fee, my own fee,
as you know, my preliminaries and my staff and my team,
et cetera, which also counts in the balance and of
course the margin that I apply. So it's always, you know,
it's always a little bit.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Of a do you worry if if if they go
to another builder that you might not get them back again,
and particularly if they're very good at what they do
in terms of both price and quality.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well, lots of the trade tell you what the Generally
what happens is when they come and work for me,
they want to work for me again. I look after
my trades very well. I pay them on time, I
respect them. I keep talking a lot about the nobility
of construction, how important the work is that we do,
and I think they feel very very valued. And what
(14:42):
I'm finding is, rather than not wanting to come back
to me, is they don't want to go back to
the other builders they were working for. You know, we
have a saying at Urban Core. You might record during
during COVID we were talking a lot about, you know,
thanking the teachers every day and thanking the nurses every day. Well,
at Urban Core we say thank construction worker every day.
And actually I've got a fridge magnet to give you
thank you, And that's because that's because I'm trying, like
(15:07):
my life's mission is to try and change the perception
of construction. You know, I want people to choose construction
as a career, to realize that it's viable. You've spoken
about that recently in an interview on two GB, and
that really resonated with me because that's what I spend
my life doing. You know, I want to change that
perception so that more young people join the industry and
(15:29):
that we can have a more sustainable industry, more diverse industry,
because people don't realize, you know, there's a lot of
money to be made. What we do is really tangible,
is really rewarding, and also we enable lives. You know,
you and I right now we're sitting in a room.
I don't know how often you worry about the slab
falling on your head or the rio in the lab
(15:50):
that we're you know, standing on. We're not heart surgeons,
and I get that a lot. People will say, you
know what about medicine and law, that's what we want
the kids to do. We're not heart surgeons, granted, but
we are actually a lot more than that. You know,
the heart surgeons they can't do their work on less
than in the hospital, and these hospitals built by us
so I feel like this is a really important point
(16:13):
to make around the perception of the industry.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I think you hurt me talking to ben Fordham or
toog with them. I think construction is is a great industry,
and I wish more kids and parents would actually talk
with the kids into it. I definitely would got grandsons
and granddaughters just born, but I would definitely be encouraging
them to if they said that that's something they're interested,
I would definitely be encouraging them to do that sort
(16:38):
of stuff. Equally, I'd say, if you want to become
a doctor or a lawyer or accountant or whatever, I'd
equally say that too. But but I definitely wouldn't be
thinking ones better than the other. If we could just
go back, because the point I questioned you for about
making sure you look after however you do it. You
explain how you look after your workers, your partners by
(17:00):
thinking of construction worker every day, and you do that
sort of stuff at Urban Core. But it's also about competing.
That's partly because you're competing with a maybe even a
diminishing pool of contractors because we're not getting enough here,
and a straight from what I'm hearing anyway, and therefore
you've got to add off of something extra, not just
(17:21):
be prepared to pay the price that they're quoting or
be able to continue to give them more work, but
you're also building up a program whereby you're building a
brand around urban COREP. Maybe would you mind explain to
me what you think urban Core's brand values are?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, of course. Look, we're definitely a purpose driven business.
You know, we do want to build, and we want
to deliver on time and on budget and high quality.
And that will be what every single builder tells you
if they're a developer, that's yes, Well, I mean they're not.
Don't just build for developers. Obviously, we build for lots
of commercial entities like your DEXes and Charterhall and they're
(18:03):
not developers or such. Others refers a bit more to
RESI work in my world anyway. So principles, Yeah, principles
the owners.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So but that's for the developer. What about your brand
relative to your subtractors?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
How long have you got? So? Look, I'm I'm all
about you know, purpose driven, as I mentioned, you know,
values driven. We don't want to We're not just here
to build and execute. You know, the fulfilled the minimum
requirements under a contract. You know, we're here to execute
someone's dream in someone's space, something they've imagined, something that
they want to execute the way we tackle things at
(18:45):
Urban Quarries. Obviously, we offer this diverse workforce. You know,
we believe that we should be a reflection of the
public we serve. So that's the first thing that is
a very strong selling point for us to tell our
clients who are become more and more female. Anyway, because
there are fifty percent women in the world, there's fifty
percent women in the workforce, so a lot of our
(19:06):
clients are female. They like to to relate to us
and be able to see themselves in what we do.
That makes us more generally, more approachable, more transparent. We really,
we genuinely see the benefits of diversity in the business,
and not just upstream to the kind but also downstream
to the subcontractors. The subcontractors that we have are incredibly respectful.
(19:29):
They believe the same values. Because what's really interesting, Mark is,
you know, we talk a lot about construction being a
boys club and being you know, all heavy, ugly, dirty, bullying, harassment,
all of those things. The reason women don't join construction
is the exact same reason many many men don't join construction. Okay,
construction really just needs to we really need to change
(19:49):
the image and the reputation of the construction industry, not
just for the women, but for men as well. And
once you have a more diverse workforce, something magic happens.
You create psychological safety, okay, and psychological safety is what drives.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
People to be more productive the men on site.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, on site as well, absolutely, you know when the
side office is filled, you know, with three men three women. Firstly,
what happens is all my trades whenever they have a
female apprentice or a female worker, they happen to come
to my sites, which I love.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
The other day I saw a female still fixer. It's
quite rare. You know, a lot of females are more
like electricians or painters, are cleaners. And they say, oh,
you have to go to the open core site, you know,
because there's all these women in the side office and
all these women on the team, and the guys like
it as well, you know, they like it because they
feel safe. And what happens when you have a diversity
of identity, so people who are different by identity, like
(20:40):
you're a man, I'm a woman. You're old, I'm young,
Just kidding, I'm all too. You know, you've got age,
you've got education, background, you've got you know, religion, sexual orientation, everything.
What happens if you're in a room and everyone looks
different when the first person speaks, the second person feels
comfort disagreeing or having a difference of opinion. There's not
(21:03):
that sort of tendency to go for group think where
you go hang on. You and I were both middle
aged white men. If you think a my instinct to
fit in is that I should probably agree with you.
And so when I asked, what do I think I'm
going to go well to fit in this group? Sounds
like I need to think like what the first guy said.
So in a room where everyone looks the same, so
no diversity of identity, you're going to have someone says
(21:26):
let's go plan A, and everyone go, oh yeah, plan A, Okay,
plan A, plan A. When you have a room when
everyone looks different diversity of identity, you get diversity of cognition.
The first person will say let's go plan A, and
the second person will say, well, I'm a completely different person.
With a completely different view background and looks anyway, I'm
going to go with B. Then the third person might go,
(21:47):
I'm going to go with P, and then green and
then frog. And then we become way more creative in
a group where we don't all look the same. And
when you become more creative, you have a better debate,
you have better decision making, which is the most important,
and collaboration, creativity, innovation, et cetera. So for me, that
social innovation, which is my one point of difference at
(22:09):
urban Core, This fifty percent women has had this really
sort of virtuous effect, you know, to the rest of
the teams, Like my subbies want to work for me,
my clients want to rehire me, and those things is
you know, proof is in the pudding. I've been here
nine years. I keep growing every year. I've had a
bigger year over the previous year, and I have you know,
many people knocking on my door wanting a job with
(22:30):
urban Core. I think those things are working.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
You know, is there any risk of inefficiency as a
result of having I mean, I know you're making a
crazy example, but id a id b id peri idea, green,
idea frog? Is there any risk of having it like
a talk fest or inefficiency as a result of that,
(22:55):
And if so, how do you manage that?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, look, I mean there is always an inherent risk,
and I think you know that's the cost of innovation, right.
Innovation is an investment, and that's something I acknowledge, and
I think part of the reason why the construction industry
is quite slow and innovating is because they don't invest
enough in innovation. And I know why because the margins
are too slim. You know, you need to be able
to afford trial and error. You need to be able
(23:17):
to try something and it doesn't work. In my view,
the upside of having that really productive conversation is far
outweighs the risk of just going, let's do it the
old way, Let's do it the way we've always done it.
Let's follow that one single idea. You know, I think
that carries a lot more risk than having the original debate.
Another thing that's quite important is you've obviously got to
(23:40):
have the skill to make the decision, and you need
to have people on the team who are team players,
and the team players are the people who will a
rally to the decision once it's made. Even if that
wasn't their preference. So being you know, that's eight players
for you, you know, trying to find someone who's able
to say I think we should go be But then
when we make the decision that it's A, now I'm
(24:02):
going to support A and I'm going to work as
hard as I can.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
How do you build that culture? That's a cultural thing.
You do You have to sort of sit in on
the meeting is what did you find it difficult? Not difficult?
Did you find that you had to sit in on
the meetings to build that thought process initially and now
it just probably flows? But did you have to do
that yourself? Do you have to push that a little bit?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah? I push it every day. I mean I read
books like I'm obsessed with books with leadership. I love,
you know, Jim Collins. I was just reading other moment.
His latest will be two point zero. He talks about people,
He talks about building, you know, a team of like
a players. I read you know, Patrick lang Cherney and
(24:43):
the five Dysfunctions of a team. And I have a
national meeting every fortnight. I had one yesterday every second Monday,
where I passed that knowledge to the team. You know,
I'm always there going, oh, this is the book I've
been reading, and this is the exercises that we're going
to do. And I try to also really cultivate empathy.
Some of the things we've been doing at Urban Core
(25:04):
is we do a raw swap so for example, because
what happens is you have people in the office contract administrators,
project managers. They're working like dogs. They're trying to make deals,
they're trying to get you know, variations approved, they're trying
to get trades on board. And then you have site
site is the guys who supervise and you know, do
the safety et cetera. And we have some days where
(25:26):
we ask the site manager or the foreman to take
the meeting minutes of the client meeting, and then we'll
have the contract administrator to do five inductions, you know,
so they can really understand that actually, these guys aren't
just sitting in the office, you know, drinking coffees and
these other guys are just twiddling their thumbs in the
side office. Everyone is actually working really hard and doing
(25:48):
a job. Because inducting five people, you know, when they
show up and they don't have their white card and
they don't speak English and they need a translator, and
you know, it's actually a really hard thing to do.
And taking mid and meeting minutes of a client meeting
super important. These documents are pulled up all the time
whenever there's a dispute what happened in that meeting, what
was minuted. So just trying to make people understand, you
know that where the what everybody else in the team
(26:11):
is doing and being able to then you know, have
that creativity I suppose in their own work. You know,
when they write a contract and a scope of works
for a subby, are they thinking, oh, hang on, that's
going to be really annoying for my site manager that
I gave this part of scope to that trade. When
they're working in that area, maybe I could, you know whatever,
I'm making things up. But it's very important that they
(26:31):
have that understanding what everybody else is doing in the team.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
If we're finding most of the females working in the
business like are they in store in like internal like admin,
administrating like contracts, et cetera, Or you're getting an even
balance between that and on site like on site project
manager on female su advisors.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
So I've got definitely where I'm lacking women is in
site supervision. It's very difficult to get a site manager
or a for foreman, you know, person really that should
be called as as a female. Obviously, I would love that.
I do have a very good ratio of on the
project management side, project manager and contract administrators, and I
have a fifty percent ratio in leadership as well the SLT.
(27:16):
But when it comes to support roles, I have more women.
So the way I have my fifty percent is I
have fifty to fifty in project admin, more men in
sight supervision, fifty to fifty in leadership, and then more
women in support roles. So and actually I can tell
you that story. But you know, I'm quite proud of
my fifty percent diversity, right. I've worked very very hard
(27:38):
for that. I have recruited many women from different industries.
I've spent a lot of time with them. I've trained them,
a lot of my people, I've spent time with them.
You know, it didn't happen overnight. And we do it
because we believe in it. You know, this is this
is my life's mission to show that it works. So
I'm doing that. But then then because I like, you know,
(27:59):
I like to do brag about it and it's a
global first, and I had, you know, a little bit
of media coverage about that, and what was disappointing for
me is there was an article about how urban Core,
you know, achieved fifty percent diversity, and yet they're really
focused on my gender pay gap because of course the
site supervisors, they earn more than the support roles in
the business.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
So but that's an industry thing.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, well, it is an industry thing. But what I
mean is, you know, I have this amazing achievement, I think,
you know, which is very special, and he's proving you know,
he's making a point that I've been trying to make
for years, and that became immediately overshadowed by the new
trendy metric of gender pay gap, you know, And that
was a bit disappointing for me. And it's not because.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
They're blokes as supervisors, because.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, it's just a supervisor earn more. Yeah, that's just
that's just what it's like. But but you know, I
looked into this a bit further and I actually found
a loophole and it turns out that if I increase
my salary by three point two million, I can close
the gender pay gap at Urban Core. Now that's a
drick get that.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
No I didn't, but three two million sounds like a
lot of money.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I know, that's what I mean. But that was the point.
You know, you're trying to close the gender pegap. You've
just because I'm a woman, right so if I pay myself,
but therefore it doesn't make sense. No, therefore it doesn't
make sense. It's not a good metric, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
You've got to pay at the end of the day,
You've got to pay market anyway. So if a site
supervisor gets more than someone inside the office administering or
contract so that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's what it is. But of course the site supervisor
earned more than an office manager or an accounts person,
et cetera.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
So that's why, generally speaking, if I could just maybe
get your views on your industry, generally construction and this
whole difficult conversation that seems to be being had around
the country about productivity and one of the areas because
construction industries are is probably one of our biggest industries
(29:54):
in Australia. If more than likely it's either one or two.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I think it's second biggest employer and third biggest contributor
to the GDP.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, so yeah, so they're from not surprise. So but
it's right now. It's apart from gender issues, it's under
resource in terms of new recruits. Recruit is really difficult,
and usually it starts off that at the side. Part
usually starts off with an apprentice. What's the deal? Why
(30:24):
why are people joining up? Why can't plumbers go and
get themselves an apprentice or electricians going to get themselves?
What's the issue with this?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Well, look, like like I was saying earlier, I think
the construction really suffers from a reputation problem. It suffers
from an image problem. You know, people will people look
at construction and they think it's heavy, it's dirty, it's ugly,
it's bullying, it's harassment, it's not diverse, it's not inclusive. Yeah,
and c I mean, obviously it gives it gives a
terrible example. But I want to unpack this for a second.
(30:56):
You know, I think what I love about construction and
what people often don't realize is there is a lack
of diversity, but there's definitely not a lack of inclusivity.
We are actually the most inclusive industry on the planet
because there's zero barrier to entry. Zero. You can be
a homeless person and get a job in construction. You
can be an ex prisoner and get a job in construction.
(31:18):
There's not many industries that give people a second chance
at life. I think that's really beautiful, and we forget that.
The problem is because we welcome this really vulnerable layer
of society, we also have you know, the people who raff,
the people who bully, the people who harass, etc. So
we then suffer from this from this image problem, and
people don't want to join up. But if we change
(31:41):
that perception, like I said before, if we try and
increase the make people understand that what we do is
really noble, that we save people's lives, that we protect
people's lives, that we enable people's lives. If we try
and were able to remind people that the work we
do is so important. When I walk on a site
and I see a trade person and I say, excuse me,
(32:02):
what is this or what are you doing? They often
will say, oh, I'm just a carpet layer, like I'm
you know, I'm no one, or I'm just the steel fixer.
What would I know? And I always try and remind them, like,
don't call yourself just this. What you do is so
important these people. You know that the carpet you're walking on,
this is someone's dream, someone's living room, someone's classroom, whatever
(32:23):
it may be, you know, and just reminding them how
important it is. The other thing is people don't realize
how much money you can make in construction, and I
think that's a real shame because we get paid really well.
You know, we can get paid really well. Obviously it's
based on hard work, results and performance as well, but
the potential is there A crane driver, really experienced crane
driver can earn up to two hundred k a year.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Is this the guy or girl who's seeing in the
top of one of those things it goes about the building?
I got freaked me out of things out? Yeah, how
did they get up there?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That's really there's a ladder. I climb to crane myself.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
They climbup a ladder. Ven if it's a windy day,
I have think got some sort of harness.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
On the way up there with it depends depends.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
They can Sometimes some of these things in the city,
they're like like skyscrape scrapers, as well.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
I've got a crane on one of my sides and
I climbed up that crane on in November last year.
And yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Is the ladder on the inside of the things on
the inside.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah you can. You know, every ten meters you have
a platform, so the highest fall is ten meters, which
is still really high.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And they set up there all day.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, well they have no that breaks. Yeah, and they
have a relief person sometimes or they just take a
break care.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
But a special type of people, like individuals.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I think they're pretty smart, but are a special style
of character. Like who's happy to sit in the side
of the glass box? Yeah, pretty much on their own.
Yeah they're getting they're talking through something.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Like yeah, of course, yeah, it's a big deal. It
is a big deal. Yeah, it is a big deal.
But also you know, it pays quite well and so
nice view from up there, and you know you feel
you're contributing and making a difference. And that's what's beauty.
It's so tangible. You know, the day you you crane
up the tree because you topped out, you know, that's
a good day I think for the crane driver included.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
That's the day that the top of the buildings reached.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, the last lab yeah yeah yeah, put a planted
up the top of the tree. Generally, yeah something so.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
But going back to apprentices, why why are we having
so much difficulty getting these apart from the image? Yeah,
a kid saying or a parent saying, the kids outside
the image they're saying, listen become a blah blah you know,
or is it ignorants?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it is. Well I think, you know,
my you know, I have a not for profit outside
of urban Core where we go and talk in schools.
We go and speak to girls and boys about careers
in construction because it's my life's mission to change the
culture of construction, increase the number of women. What I'm
finding difficult if I get in front of the kids,
they're all like, wow, my god, we didn't all these
(34:51):
jobs existed. We didn't know we can make so much money,
We didn't know how much fun it was. We love it,
you know. And I start every presentation with who is
considering a career in construction? Generally I get no hands
go up. Sometimes a couple of mercy hands on this pool.
She you know, she came here to talk to us
we might pretend we're interested. Then I do the presentation
for like thirty minutes, and then at the end of
the at the end of the presentation, I ask again
(35:13):
the same question, and I'll get sometimes thirty five percent
thirty thirty five percent of hands go up. But what
has the difficulty is generally getting to that classroom, calling
a career advisors in a school, private schools, public schools,
and saying, hey, I want to talk about construction. Generally,
I don't that don't get a lot of interest. People
are like, well, We're had a lawyer come and speak
(35:36):
to us last week, we have a surgeon coming to
us next week, we have you know, Macquarie Bank coming
to speak to us, and we're not really sure we
want our kids to do construction. So that's the barrier.
There's a lack of there's a there's a need for
educating the career advisors. They need to understand what are
the opportunities that exist in construction. Then it is the
parents as well. You know, I do a lot of
(35:58):
career showcases. You know, I go to school, I set
up a table, I said, do you want to work
in construction? And the kids come after school with their parents,
and the parents will say, oh, keep walking, keep walking,
you know, let's go to gap year in London, you know.
And I'm sitting there going, guys, why don't you want
to hear about construction? So there is definitely a very
big important piece around educating the parents and the career advisors.
(36:20):
But I have some good news I want to make
this is this is a new release material. I haven't
really spoken about this a lot yet, but I'm gonna
talk about AI for a second, because what is happening
with AI. You're I'm sure you're well across. You know,
the rate of adoption of that new technology, it's unprecedented.
You know, everyone's using TOADBT, Everyone's using AI. It's faster
(36:44):
than the rate of adoption of the Internet or the PC.
All these industries are getting disrupted. All this white collar
jobs that the parents have been pushing the kids to
go for and go to unifour are being disrupted. And
guess what's left. What is one industry that is historically
very slow at adopting to technology and is also being
(37:06):
slow at adopting AI construction? Right, So suddenly, what I'm
finding really interesting is we live in a world where
we are more and more disconnected. You know, we have
AI agents doing jobs for us. We're working from home, isolated,
and construction is this one industry that might well end
up being the last truly human industry where you need
(37:31):
physical work. You need to do things, You do things,
and you need to be there. Local presence. Physical work
is so prevalent in construction and it makes your job safe.
You know, suddenly we're thinking, remember all these kids that
we're going to stand for doing computer science. You know,
look at Atlastian. Atlastian made two hundred people redundant two
weeks ago because AI. That hasn't happened in construction. We're
(37:54):
not seeing that. I think we should embrace AI. I
embrace sed open core. I've got all my gbts doing
everything I do as much as I can with it.
I use it to supplement and augment what I do.
But it's not replacing. It's not replacing anything or anyone.
It's we're still quite a few many years away from saying, hey,
Tad DiPT, can you well this metal? Can you pour some.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Compte and have to build a robot first?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You're going to have to build a robot exactly, and.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Some people are starting to try it. But I agree.
I mean, like right now, you know, kids could go
off and get an apprenticeship, but it's because the apprenticeship
is doesn't pay much. I mean, is there some government?
Are you happy with the governments the way governments address
these things?
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Not happy at all? I'm not happy at all. I
think the government could be doing way, way more. The
first thing the government could do better is advertising for construction.
You know, what I see is a lot of advertisements
for the Defense Department, for the Navy. You know you've
seen those ads. You know, leave a dream worth living for,
or you know someone in a uniform cradling a baby
and a fire, and they make it all so attractive.
(38:57):
In twenty twenty three, the Navy had the high rate
of intake ever based on all these money they spend
on advertising for the Navy. The reality of working for
the Navy is sometimes seven months on a ship, you know,
in the hall of a ship. And yet if you're
going to look for a career in construction, say you're
a young person thinking I'm thinking about construction, You're going
(39:17):
to google it and go, oh, I wonder what would
happen if I join construction. What do they see. They
see highest rates of insolvencies ever. They see public projects
with you know, three years over time and three times
over budget, and tax payer money is down the drain,
and someone will go, well, maybe I'll go and create
all the baby in the fire and join the navy instead,
(39:38):
you know, And that's such a shame, like the government
could be doing more to advertise this industry that we
all rely on. I mean, it's insane that we're looking
down on the one industry that everybody relies on, you know,
it's unbelievable. And then the other thing they could do,
and this is me, This is very personal, and I
don't know if you have any people in politics listening
to this podcast, but someone like me who is trying
(39:59):
so hard, you know, to change the perception and have
increased the number of women in a male dominated industry,
which is something the government keeps talking about, you know,
something they care about. Why can't I get you know,
I don't know, payroll tax exemption or some real incentive
to keep doing what I do because right now, all
this training of women who come in from horizontal, horizontal industries,
(40:21):
and the time I take to recruit and I generally
pay more my recruiters for women over men to make
sure they find the right woman for the job, et cetera.
That's all coming out of my own pocket. And yet
they have on their agenda that they want people like
me to do what I'm doing. But where are they
incentivizing me?
Speaker 1 (40:38):
You know, it's encouragement but no incentive.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah, that's right, that's right. It's a big guest, but
I feel like it should be rewarded, you know, and
then more people will do it.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Where my main businesses at the moment. It's funny, I've
been seeing a lot of female It's it's in the
city in chiefully, but I send a lot of female
trades people. More recently, I've noticed noticed a lot, like
a lot as opposed to just seeing females stand there
with those go stop stop goho signs which you often
(41:09):
see outside construction sites. But I actually quite a few,
And I was only thinking about it the other day.
I thought, I think to myself, how did you to
the particular individual, how did you decide to become my
donal trade they're doing? But how did you decide to
do that? Become a trades person like who wasn't in
your family that said to you become an electrician or
(41:29):
a plumber. Are there some trades that you don't You
very rarely see women do it, like, for example, plumbing,
because I always sort of a plumbing. Plumbing be a
pretty bad I reckon that'd be a tough trade to do,
because I can imagine the old dude plumber be saying, okay, Mark,
you climb under that house there and toilet and there's
rats and snakes and whatever in there, and you go
(41:53):
on and plug that like and the gaps is big.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, but why should men do that more than women?
You know, it's a bad both, right, I mean, but I.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Can see why woman or a man, thank you, I'm
not doing that? Is because is it to something Sai?
Construction is a bit hard?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Yeah, well, look of course it is. It is. You know,
there's I mean challenging. Look, with the advancements of safety,
there are no real tasks that are outside of the
physical ability of anyone.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
You know you.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
I could be a plumber, I could be a concrete
I could be a still fixer. You know, we we
don't let people carry one hundred killer beams on their
own anymore. Ever, I mean, unless you know, you're out
regionally somewhere with a one man band and they have
no systems in place. But the reality is there are
no tasks outside of the physical ability. But that's a
myth that needs to be debunked and people don't know that.
(42:44):
And a lot of the girls, when I presented the
girls school schools and I say, why aren't you thinking
about career in construction, not being strong enough comes up.
You know, I'm not strong enough, and that's the first
thing I say. Well, you know, we're here. We can't
have people break their backs from carrying and you're not
going to do that. I'm not going to do that.
We're not going to put you in a confined space
if you don't fit in there. And you know, so
(43:06):
people need to understand that whilst it's a slow adoption
of technology, systems have improved, you know, and they are
getting a lot more sophisticated, and we are trying to
reduce the number of incidents. You know, safety is a
very big deal in construction. And I can have plenty
of things to say about safety as well, because but anyway,
so we talked about a lot of things for a
(43:28):
very long time, yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Where okay, don but where do you see Where would
you like to see urban core in I'm not talking financially,
but where would you like to see urban core? And
you've already got fifty to fifty urban core in three
years time. I'm not to them from an economics point
of view. I'm talking about as a representation of what
can happen in this industry.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Well, look, it's three years is tomorrow right, I'm going
to snap my finger is going to be three years?
I think for me, longevity of the business is really
thing that's important to me. So I didn't build a
business to sell it and you know, be done with it.
I wanted to last not three, not ten, but fifty years.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I love seeing companies that celebrate one hundred years. I
think this is you know, really really great innings and
I'd love to be part of that. What's really important
to me is to maintain that fifty percent diversity and
maybe you know, hovering over fifty percent because you know
it can hover a little bit. And I still want
(44:30):
to have some growth like in revenue, in turnover, because
I want to get to a critical size where I
have really made a dent you know, like say fifty
percent diversity. If I was it was me and my husband,
that's fifty percent. You know, that's not really proving anything, right,
I feel like to be able to really inspire and
(44:52):
show Look, guys, urban Core is doing it. They're turning
over over one hundred million, and they've got fifty percent women,
and they've got repeat work, and they've got great credentials
and everyone's coming back to them, and all these people
are knocking on their door to work there. I want
to inspire others to do the same, you know, I
want to change this industry. It's not about me. I mean,
(45:12):
I would just want to lead the way and show
a good example and show that it works, because as
far as I can see, everyone talks about it, but
nobody's doing it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Has anyone else adopting.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
This, No, not that I know of. I mean a
lot of people talk about diversity and increasing the number
of women in construction, and look, it's getting better, don't
get me wrong. And there are great initiatives out there,
and especially the bigger players, the tier ones, you know,
they have the developed the culture standard recently. They have
lots of good initiatives. But you know, ninety eight percent
of businesses in construction are small businesses, you know, and
(45:43):
we need the small businesses to come on board as well.
You know, we need everyone to agree that this works,
that this, you know, is good for everybody. It's not
about ticking boxes, you know. I hate when people say, oh,
diversity and inclusion tick the box. It's it should be
a business priority. It's a strategic move, you know. For me,
(46:03):
it's better productivity, better happiness. I mean, we haven't even
started on mental health, but my people have psychological safety.
They are better in their heads than if they had
less diversity. That means maybe fewer days mental health days,
and less burnout and more enjoyment, and that creates productivity,
you know. You know what I mean that the trade
(46:24):
off is incalculable.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
But do you think therefore there needs to be some
sort of task force formed by the government sort of
to address this, as opposed to governments talking about it
or having it in there sort of overall agenda, yeah,
and maybe having a few minuteses appointed into various portfolios
and talking about it. Do you think there needs to
(46:46):
be some sort of task force that oversees this in the.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Industry, look and there is one, and I think unfortunately
they're about to wrap it up because they had the
CC which is the Cultural Industry Task Force for construction
or construction industry tasks, and they're the ones who ruled
out that culture standard and that worked well. They took
five projects and they had you know, a minimum of women.
They had five days a week government projects, yes, two
(47:10):
in Victoria, three New South Wales, a mix of vertical
and horizontal projects and that was an overwhelming success. But
then it's done. So they're just like, well, now we
have the proof that this is good, but yet to
see you know how they pushing others to do it.
Because I remember putting my hand up and saying, oh,
I want to be part of these. You know, this
is all I stand for. But it was all only
(47:30):
big jobs, you know, it was all only tier ones
and I feel like the big construction Yeah, like you're
Lendley's John Holland you know whoever they are, So yeah,
multiplex and be six what packe, et cetera. So they
get involved and obviously they have a lot better balance sheet,
they have a lot more margin that they can really
you know, expand onto those experiments. Like I said, innovation.
(47:54):
It's about trial and error and spending money. But the
problem is, like I said, ninety percent businesses are small businesses.
You know, what are we doing for them?
Speaker 1 (48:00):
You know?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I feel like I'm a voice for the small businesses.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
So I think what you're saying, I think we're saying.
I want to give that. It hasn't that that initiative
good initiative hasn't led down into the smaller.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
It's not that I constructed businesses, not that I can see,
except it's got a really shiny, glossy report that says, hey,
we did this and it worked.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
A final question to you, do you do you feel
like sometimes you're out there on your own beating the drum.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Sometimes you get frustrated.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
At what point do you say stuff this?
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Well, look, I did feel a little bit. I do
feel a bit like that sometimes. And then I don't know.
I got this invitation to speak on the Mirk Boris podcast,
and I thought, this is the start of change. It's
coming because people like you.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
I mean, I've sent in another industry. But you need
to get reassurance every now and then, and you need
to get that little injection of adrenaline. I'm talking in
a business. It's a little injection of adrenaline to make
sort of convince you that you are on the right
track and hopefully you I'm hoping that this will help
you out today. But I mean I when I said
(49:04):
to Ben Fordham on that that on that day we
weren't do about females and business, but I was talking
about apprenticeships and career is in construction. Generally, some of
the wealthiest people I know, outside of people who inherit
the wealth some when I say, probably the majority of
the wealthiest people I know have made the money out
of building fantastic.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, that's right. Well that's a great message.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
And to go to the southern, southern, Southern, get the
shire and all of these ten fifteen, twenty million dollars houses.
Admittedly there might be you know, they've been in the
business for twenty thirty years, but that equally applies to
any other industry. By the way, but I don't see
too many surgeons out there.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, true, you know.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
And all lawyers. Lawyer sounds like a great idea, but
it very rarely does is to make you a lot
of money unless you're like even you become a judge
then you don't make a lot of money either. In fact,
judge they are underpaid. So but the construction, the plumbers
who build up a team, the electricians to build up
a team in the plaster, the plasters, the tilers like recently,
(50:12):
I had an excise admittedly was during COVID, but of
building a building up, in building a small building up
and morder in New South Wales. Tylers were charging me
then one hundred and sixty bucks an hour a tyler.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, what the hell?
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Mike Countant only charges undred and sixty bucks an hour
and he's been around the many years, so this is
good man.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yes, there is good money.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
I was prepared to pay because no choice and.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Mark once you reach you know, eight hours your time
and a half, and on Saturday and Sunday your double time.
And you know, my electricians, my trades make more money
than me, like some of them, not not all of them,
but some of them, you know, And it's very possible
and very likely. You need a little bit of business acumen.
I think that's the only thing that sometimes I feel is,
you know, they give builders licenses to people who probably
(51:02):
aren't so good at running a business, and that is
actually hurting the industry. But those who can you have
a little bit, you know, a little bit of that
money minded or money making gift. You know, they can
do really well.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
And there's no shortage of work.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
There's no short no, no, no, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
In fact, there is shortage of workers. You know, we
need more. That's why they get paid so well, because
it's so hard to find the trades people that you need.
And they know, especially right now with the housing crisis
and trying to densify these areas and really push for
I can't remember how many homes they want to build.
A one point two million, you know, it's.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Five years, so it's like, yeah, a couple hundred thousand
a year, and they're way off the target.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
And the shortfall is more than three hundred thousand workers
I think in the next three years. You know, how
we what are we doing about that?
Speaker 1 (51:45):
I don't understand. That just doesn't turn the light on
for parents and all those who can influence their kids
a lot and say well, hang on, there's a huge
demand there and as a result that they are always
going to have a job. Money. You should always have
a job, assuming your competent.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Job security, job security.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
And that's sort of as a parent, that's the most
important thing job security, Like you know what this thing me.
But there are millions of lawyers graduates, kids graduating from
law degrees left right center, and they're all struggling to
get a job.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Oh and AI. AI is big time over to paralegal.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
I think that probably will have another role in some
type of role, but it would be more like supervising
in the AI, because a I can can do some
weird things. But but look right now, you're right, there's
one industry that is not disrupted by AI is the
physical industry. Any physical industry which you know you're not
going to get AI do your plumbing for you. And anyway,
(52:41):
maybe maybe they get some sort of little lum body
out of the time, but that's a long way off
and the adoption of that process will be a long
long way off. But so I think parents should be
thinking about this. I think parents, if you've got a daughter,
you should be thinking about this. I've got a I've
got a granddaughter and her mother she's only through so
but her mother is a project manager on site fantastic
(53:02):
and she's construction engineer. So so there's a perfect example
and I wonder whether, if you're listening to me right now,
daughter in law, whether you would encourage my granddaughter, your
daughter to one day become a trade or just get
involved in the construction industry generally, because I know she's
(53:23):
had a pretty good experience with it, so fantastic. It's
a great business. And I really appreciate you putting yourself
out there, and I absolutely hope that you achieve for
urban Core what you set out to achieve. And you're
gonna have a lot of bumps in the road, don't
worry about it.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Any bumps in the road.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
That doesn't matter. I never give up though there's no
point giving up. Just keep going.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Nice talking to you. Cheers,
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