What does heavy machinery and an empowerment coach have in common? How Louise is empowering tradeswomen.

Louise is a heavy machine mechanic from Australia has expanded her talents for being in the industry to empower tradeswomen.

We discuss ways the trades can work in your favor by creating work weeks that fit your schedule. We also discuss how lucrative the pay is for mechanics.

Louise has an awesome Facebook group she has created for tradeswomen to connect. 

Personally, through the last several episodes I have learn so much about the pay scale and benefits in other countries. During this interview you'll hear me make some 'American' mistakes when I assume other countries have the same issues as the United States such as maternity leave. 

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Podcast Host's Drone Business

Transcript

Louise Transcript

Megan

Hey guys, could you turn it down a little? Kinda in the middle of a podcast? Oh, Here we go... Sorry about all that noise. Welcome to the podcast Doin Girly Things, a podcast focused on making construction, working the field, wearing a hard hat, a girly thing to do. Every other Monday, a new episode will be released. If you're interested in supporting the podcast, please see the show notes for how to get involved.

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Thank you for coming on to the podcast of season three and  in season three we are talking about all of the careers that make up women in construction, and what I've found is like a lot of women don't know about all the career paths that are actually in construction, and so we're just exploring what there is.

And today I have Louise on. Louise is such an awesome person in the construction industry because she has a Facebook group for people to go and talk about what it's like to be a woman in the trades. She is also a trades coach to help empower you. And I'm so excited to learn what has led her to find this career path.

So welcome to the show and I'm excited to learn more about how you became an empowerment coach for Women in Trades. Can you just share a little bit about your background and how this became your passion?

Louise

Yeah, thanks for having me on. So pretty much I am a qualified heavy vehicle and mobile plant mechanic. And I think something that people don't really know about mechanics in general is that we tie into a lot of industries because mechanical equipment is generally needed in so many industries. So that's how I tie into construction. Pretty much I completed my apprenticeship and I was working full time on the tools qualified, and I just found that there was this gap of the support. I kind of saw very clearly that heaps of people were really keen to try and bring women into their businesses, show them off with all the fanfare there at the beginning, like look at us! Look at how many female apprentices we've got, and then they will go at the end of the apprenticeship or the end of the qualification. They like, Look how many apprentices that we've had completed this is how many female tradesmen have completed our apprenticeship. But in between those two moments and after that, there was crickets from any form of support in the industry. I was really lucky to have someone support me through the process. I had a really lovely apprentice master and we are now really good friends. But I know so many of my female peers didn't have anything like that. They were kind of like, Yep, we're going to support you and then crickets for our qualification. Here in Australia, average qualification is generally four years. So crickets for four years. And then a bit of a fanfare when they completed and I was just seeing so many things pop up for, you know, encouraging women in. And I was like, There's a gap here. Like, there's a gap in what happens when we're in here, when we're in it all. Who's supporting us now?

Megan

And how did you get that support? Like you said you were really lucky, so who was that lucky person that was helping to support you?

Louise

Yeah, so I was working for a fairly large company and they had an apprentice master. So someone who was specifically employed to look after the apprentices, which I think every large business should have one. But he was there we would have monthly apprentice meetings, so the apprentices would come together and would chat about what we were doing, the type of work that we were doing, any struggles that we had, we had a direct contact with him. And because his job was to support us, we could book in time during the work hours to chat to him. And he had time for us because that's what his job was.

Megan

That is really cool that they had that because that was honestly one of my biggest complaints about where I'm currently working is like what you're saying is, is the support is you get into the workplace and it's like, okay, well you just got all this training. You should know what to do. And it's like, No, I don't really know what I'm doing yet. And so having someone that was their main job, and so that's really important. So what is like the biggest hurdle that you've seen that trades women need to overcome compared to their male peers?

Louise

I think the biggest thing that we come across as trades women is just the societal programing that we have that causes so much self-doubt. So, like sometimes we are our own worst enemy and unfortunately then there's heaps of evidence out there depending on your work environment to kind of prove that like that. I don't belong kind of thing because sometimes for me personally and it kind of shows up differently for everyone, but most of the women in my life growing up were housewives. Like the males had a business and the women supported the business and stayed at home with the kids. And that's just what I had grown up around. And no one had told me specifically that that's what you should do. But that's what I was telling myself because I couldn't see any other options for me. And I see this kind of show up in women in different ways, depending on how they've grown up. But generally we're like, OK, we don't belong here. We should be somewhere else. And, you know, for me, I was telling myself I should be somewhere else, not specifically that I should have been home, but I should be somewhere else. Like this is a place for me. And I would look around and there'd be no one that looked like me. And, you know, every now and then you'd have a dickhead come up to you and be like, Oh, you don't belong here, girl shouldn't do this. And because I already had that internal dialog and so and so many women already have that internal dialog of imposter syndrome. As soon as someone drops a bit of external evidence, it flares up. And it can be really hard to kind of see that as just brain noise. You think it's the truth, you think, you know, this is the truth. Like, I wouldn't be thinking it if it wasn't true, but reality is it's just our societal programing. Just looking for any evidence to tell you that you shouldn't be here.

Megan

Shouldn't be here, and the trades and everything. And so I do agree with you. It's interesting what you say about how like were you picture yourself. So right before we actually hopped on, my aunt sent me a video of my cousin and she's eight years old. And in the video she goes, Hi, I'm Chloe. I'm going to be a future engineer because I'm an engineer. And so she was sending the video to me. And I think it's interesting how she's grown up with seeing a woman be in engineering. And now that's a career path that at age seven to eight, she's already saying she wants to do. But if you've never grown up seeing that, it's not something that you think as a career path that you can do.

Louise

That's it, like our brain doesn't join the dots because there's no really dots for it to join.

Megan

And it's all about the representation and seeing that in there. And so in this season, we're talking all about money and what women can expect to see from career paths. So how do you see is like the typical like starting out career? Like you were saying, do you have your training in the mechanics or what is your background in the trades?

Louise

So my background in the trade is as a heavy commercial vehicle mechanic. So I did my apprenticeship on road transport vehicles, so semi-trailers and stuff like that. And yeah, I started off as an apprentice when I was 15 and so straight out of school into that. And with the apprenticeship system here in Australia, we have like there's a minimum like a base rate for each year of your apprenticeship. So first year, second year, third year, fourth year all have a minimum base rate which is generally like it's universal across like you'll try it across the country and it goes up every year to match with inflation and you know, general price going up. So that's really good to see. Like we have that protection here in Australia. So in Australia, depending on what industry you're in, depends if the union is kind of big in that industry. So like it's not like you need to be in a union to be treated well. There's a lot of base rules that are just implemented across the country, which is really good. So after that, like I think the trades on average are working in the trades here, give you above average income over the year and because we don't have to pay for our training because I'm like it's really, really good for us as apprentices learning like even though the income isn't that great so I started on, on $7 an hour as a first year, but now I think it is like ten years later it's 13 or $14 is the base for first year but you can get support from the government. You can also... the employer pays for your technical training. It's not something you have to do out of pocket. You get paid for your time when you're doing training as extended work hours. So when you kind of add all those things in, we have it pretty good.

Megan

So just for reference, what is minimum wage that there is starting out is $13 or $14.

Louise

I'm pretty sure qualified minimum for heavy vehicle minimum is 25, but generally you're on $25 an hour, but generally you're on $30 an hour or above.

Megan

The use heavy machinery is part of the construction industry because like we actually just had a group who build like the generators on site and they go to a very similar training program for my understanding. And so have you always wanted to work with heavy machinery or how did you get into that industry?

Louise

So I grew up on a farm, so my parents grew tomatoes and I was always working with my hands, always fixing things with dad. And I kind of just saw it as an option for me because everyone else, like around me. A lot, like most of the men were going into trades, so I was like, Yeah, cool, I can do that. So I wanted to be a motorcycle mechanic first because I was always writing and racing motorbikes, but then I ended up going to an apprenticeship expo. So I don't know if you've got them. It's like a jobs fair kind of thing. And I met another female mechanic who was working at the company that I went and worked for. She was same height as me and everything, and she's like, Yeah, you know, come and do work experience. And I ended up going and doing work experience. And then after being in that workshop for a week working on the trucks, I couldn't imagine myself doing anything different.

Megan

So I want to go back to something that you said about the money and how you said it was an above average way of living. So part of like what I really do think that construction and trades has to offer women is the ability to support themselves and their family because often they're single moms or just women themselves.

It's often thought that you can't support yourself with a lot of the women dominated careers, and so do you find that women that go into the trades, like in Australia, they do live a better life and are able to support their families just themselves.

Louise

Yeah. So I have seen a fair few single mums work in the trades and support themselves, but speaking to a lot of them, they really love the flexibility that the trade gives them as well. They've gone inside of their own business once being qualified and can book jobs around, you know, mum life and you know, wanting to get to school hours, wanting to attend different school events. And that's something that they really say like they don't struggling with money but they like, yeah, we love having this freedom and control of being able to, like cool we're not going to work Friday this week because there's a special event on or in school hours only which I think is really really awesome.

Megan

In America right now, we have the federal project is going under construction. You have to have at least 10% of your contracts have to be minority or woman owned businesses. Do you guys have anything that you know of in Australia like that to help support women owned businesses.

Louise

So depending on the businesses themselves and the projects themselves kind of make those rules themselves as far as I know, there's nothing really set in stone. But a lot of places are bringing in quotas now with their intakes on like how many... So for an apprentice cohort they might be bringing in ten apprentices. They might say, you know, 20% need to be female, which is something that I've seen come up a lot. And depending on who you talk to, depends on what they think of it as well. I suppose it'll probably be the same there where some of the men are like they're taking our jobs and I'm like yeah right. But now I think it's, it's got two sides to it, like that kind of ruling to bring minorities in just in the sense that, you know, the rules are really good to break down. You know, if there's individuals that have their own bias that are in the recruiting kind of side of things that it really does, you know, push them aside. But then I think the people that get in when there is something like that in place need more support. Because if people in the business know that they've gotten in that way, then they might be bullied for that. And then it kind of comes into that whole maybe having like with minority groups having that self-doubt of I don't belong because no one else is here. And then if people are telling me or you just go in because of a percentage, then that fuels it as well.

Megan

Yeah, the whole just meeting the quota because I've often heard and people are always like, Oh, it should be easy for you to find a job because you're a female. And it's honestly sometimes kind of insulting to have people respond in that way because it's like No, I got the job because I was probably the best fit for it. But to have that response is a negative tone on what that is trying to achieve.

Louise

Yeah, that's it. And it's kind of one of those things where it's like, what problem would you rather have?

Megan

Yes, exactly, exactly. One of the things that you had posted on your Instagram story was you said, if you don't ask, the answer will always be no. That's for the job opportunity. Pay raises. For getting that guy to stop being a dickhead. Ask every time. And I really like that because I do think that there are often times that women are not asking the questions about negotiating. And so recently all my stories I posted about what are things that you're negotiating for whenever you go and you ask for a new salary or you talk to your boss where at the end of the year and people are talking to their bosses, what is something that you've seen people negotiate in the trades for their job that you just need to stop? If you don't ask, you're never going to get it?

Louise

I think something that people do in the asking especially about pay stuff. They think if they don't have a super formal conversation, it doesn't count. But there's a lot of things that you can kind of discuss on a casual basis. As well with like your direct supervisor. So with my last jobsite, I work for myself now, but with my last job where I was employeed I had to kind of in agreement with my supervisor that if I worked an hour extra every day that I could leave after half the day on the Friday and that wasn't written in anywhere. So my my contract, I was on a salary, and it was like a 40 hour a week contract. So it was like, yeah, like if you do an extra hour, like you're still doing 40 hours. No one said when you're supposed to do them kind of thing. And he was like, Yeah, cool, I do that. And I think like heaps of people scare themselves because they like if it's not super formal, if it's not in writing and you know, if it's something that you're definitely relying on should be in writing, but some little things like that, you can quite easily negotiate on a casual kind of conversation.

Megan

I really like that because I think sometimes you think that everything needs to be a big production. Like don't do it whenever you guys are both meeting at like the copy machine, but it also doesn't need to be like a sit down meeting all the time. And to have those more casual conversations to get what you need from your workplace. I actually really like that idea of leaving half day on Friday and starting your weekend a little early.

Louise

Yeah, that was really good at the time I was traveling, so I was staying away from my family and stuff, so I would use that half day to come back home. Another thing that I actually formally negotiated when I was in my interview for that position, which I forgot until now, was the opportunity to volunteer and to continue volunteering because at the time I was volunteering for SALT, which is supporting and linking tradesmen, and they run workshops in schools and community centers to teach women how to use tools. And I was volunteering. So with that I would need like a week off here and there. And I said, you know, I really love this project. Like I want to keep working on it. I'm more than happy to know where the business name and stuff when I go. And they actually wrote into my contract that I would get like a two week special like volunteer leave to go work on those projects, which I think was really cool.

Megan

That was awesome that you were able to get something that you were passionate about in there. I actually have never heard of anybody doing that, but I actually really like that as a way because you're negotiating time off, but it's time off that's dedicated to something that is clearly within the industry and supporting a good cause.

Louise

Yeah, and I had never heard of anyone do it until I was kind of like in this position where I was like This is what I want to do. I want to keep on volunteering and I'm going to find some way to make this work.

Megan

And so one thing that I like about what you're doing is you really talk about the word empowerment a lot. And so you call yourself an empowerment coach. And so what does empowerment mean and why is empowerment important?

Louise

I really like empowerment because it can really mean something different to everyone. That's me. It's being able to choose what you want to do. No, matter what. So if you want to be confident and you want to go out in there and do big things, if you, you know, you you want to be empowered to take a rest to the other side, of the coin, which I think not many people talk about, just being solid in your decisions and going for what you want. The rest is a really big thing for me because I have worked myself to the point of burnout before where I had to take four months off full time work and I was only 22 at the time and that was something that no one had never talked to me about. Heaps of people were like, Okay, you need to keep working. You need to, you know, like, yep, work in, you know, get more skills and all that kind of thing. But skills weren't really that useful when I couldn't function because I was so exhausted.

Megan

How did you identify then that you had gotten to that burnout? Because I do think that that's where a lot of people are coming from right now, where we're calling this the great resignation and people all over are quitting. And so I think a big portion of those people, including myself, but I think a lot of us were getting to that point, like you're saying, is this burnout culture of work, work, work, work, work. It's just it's not working pun intended.

Louise

Yeah. I think it shows up differently for everyone. Like even at the time I was looking at other mental health conditions. Like, I was like, I must just be depressed so that's why I feel so tired. But nothing was quite matching up. And when you look at some of the stuff online about burnout, it's like you know, sleeping ten to 12 hours a night but still feeling tired, not being able to move. So I was actually fairly physically fit. I was dancing a few times a week. Physically, I looked really fit, but I would get puffed out walking up a set of stairs, jobs that I could usually do in an hour. Like at work. So say a service or something that was routine that would usually take me about an hour while it was taking me up to 3 hours and I felt like there was this fog over me, like every time I moved, I was like pushing through water. Like there was that resistance. And it just it was exhausting because you're in it, you're like, Oh, is this just how it's going to be forever? Like, you don't realize what's going on.

Megan

How many hours a week were you working? Whenever you got to that point?

Louise

So I was working 40 hours a week as a mechanic, and then I was volunteering on the weekends at the women shed, teaching them how to use tools. And I was also doing speaking engagements on behalf of TAFE, which was the training center that I did my technical training up. So all of them individually didn't really look like too much. But once you bang them all together, I think it was about 80 hours a week, or like 70 hours a week I was doing.

Megan

Oh my gosh, yeah, no, that is crazy to be working that much. And so that was just so awesome that you have gone through, not also that you went through all of that, but just that you were able to like go through it and then want to empower people to not have to go through it, be able to identify kind of how you've come through it.

So you have this Facebook group that women can join, and you have this community, and so talk about that and what you want, especially trades women to get out of a Facebook group to all find each other.

Louise

Yeah. So I was actually holding off making a Facebook group for a very long time. So my Facebook group is three months old and it's called Trades Women Owning Their Power.

Megan

Well, doesn't sound like you needed anything else for a little bit, so I can see why you held off.

Louise

I was really busy, but the main purpose of my Facebook group is pretty much to have a location for me to share and also have a community for tradeswomen. Working on personal and professional development that's specific to us. I was and probably still am classed as a professional development addict. I love self-improvement, but I was always finding that it didn't really quite fit in being in a physical, male dominated trade. As a woman, there was always something that was kind of missing or a translation that I would have to kind of go through and like I would have to sit and think with different techniques for a while. And knowing that our experiences are slightly different. It is a unique situation. And I remember like at the beginning of I went through a fair bit of shit, oh, everyone goes through a bit of shit. But I was going through that lovely downturn of the, you know, the 50% negative we have in our lives. And I was thinking, you know, at the beginning I was just trying to get through it, but later on I was like, I'm not going to waste this negative experience. I'm going to learn as much as I can from this and be able to help other people through this because I felt so alone and like there was no one to guide me, or no one was like, Yeah, you're not crazy. I mean, that was the main one is I spent so much of my energy thinking like, No, you shouldn't be upset. Like no one else is upset. Why are you upset?

Megan

What I love about the Facebook was you hashtag it, which is super nice when going through it, but you have a hashtag called Vent. And I oftentimes think that like, you don't meet another woman all day sometimes. And so it feels good to be able to vent about things that are bothering you, that if you told another male coworker he might say, oh, you're being dramatic. Oh, you're reading too into it. Oh, no, that's not really what they meant. And so I love that you created a space for women to come and to vent.

Louise

I think it's really important just because we can have the stories swirling around in our heads and they just magnify in there. And I know sometimes, like all you need to do to see a situation from a different perspective is actually like speak it out loud. And then having yourself hear it, you like wait a second. That actually might not be a big deal or actually like this could possibly be a solution. And I just like talking. There's kind of like a saying in the coaching world where it's like you could talk to a lamp post for an hour once a week and see change in yourself. Like just getting the words out of your body and out of your brain makes such a difference sometimes.

Megan

I agree with that because I journal every morning and I've seen in difference and I just it's just the 5 minutes, whatever is on my mind. Sometimes it's just a list of things. But I've found that even just talking to, you know, my book or my journal it's just it is helpful to have something to clear your head. And so I do kind of wonder what it would be like if the world was different. If we all talk to lamp posts for just a little bit.

Louise

Yeah. Just having that safe space. And I think that's something that I kind of learned for a while. So I come across coaching at the end of last year when I was like, There's something missing. I have more to offer this world. And that's when I started doing tradesmen empowerment coaching and it was kind of like coaching. I really love it because it's all about using your internal resources and then encouraging other people so the person who's getting coached to use their internal resources and then having that experience in their situation, once they've exhausted their own like internal resources, you can add resources and look at how they're going to work for them in their specific situation.

Megan

Oh, I love that. It reminds me, I have another episode about career coaching, and one of the things I asked on there, and I'll ask you the same thing is like, what's the difference between coaching and therapy?

Louise

When I was struggling through the burnout and all that kind of fun stuff, I was seeing like a counselor and a psychologist for roughly about five years on and off and I found they both help in different ways. So therapy, something that's more medically kind of assigned. I don't know if that's the right terms, but there's a lot of theory behind it and a lot of, OK, here's something you could use externally, like giving you external resources. But with coaching, it's a lot of listening to what the person's saying, hearing what wasn't said and kind of getting people to think more about what's going on in their own head rather than know handing them a resource straightaway to use.

Megan

And helping to get people to an end goal. Because like you talked about, empowerment is just getting women to believe in themselves and that they do belong in those situations, and the voices of telling women that, you know, you don't belong. Oh, you can't do as good of a job as a man not listening to those.

Louise

Yeah, that's it. I think that's a lot of just being sure of yourself and not letting that background noise in.

Megan

Mhm. So I want to end the episode with the best self cards and they're just my favorite way to in the episode because it's just a different change of the questions that I've been previously asking. And so the two categories that I picked for you were dreams or life lessons.

Louise

Dreams. I love a good dream.

Megan

How do you imagine you'll spend your retirement?

Louise

My retirement? I've always imagined myself retiring early or being semi-retired for a really long time, so like as soon as possible. But adventuring.

Megan

Where do you think you'll be? Do you think you'll be somewhere in Australia or would you go somewhere out of the country?

Louise

I think I see myself with like a little van or like something I could sleep in and just kind of everywhere, like just around and just, you know, spending time somewhere. And then when it feels like time to move on. Moving on.

Megan

I love that because it's like, yeah, you're retired, but that's the least retired plans that some people would ever have because usually retirement is just about hanging out. I love that. Yeah. So where can we find you, Louise, and your awesome Facebook group?

Louise

Yeah. So my Facebook group is called Tradeswomen Owning Their Power, and you can just request to join that, which is awesome. I've also got my Instagram page, which is Louise Underscore as a party underscore 1996 and I also have an email list. So if you're not on social, you can go to my website Louise as a party dot com and sign up and I'd love to hear from you.

Megan

Yeah. And I will have all of those links below so you can find her and thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was so interesting talking with you and getting to know more about the pay scale in Australia. And how we can join your Facebook group and all about empowerment. So thank you.