Mission: Recruitment

By / Tiffannie Bond Photos by / Sheet Metal Workers Local 20

If you happen to live in the Indianapolis area and are approached by a spunky, 5-foot-2-inch-tall young woman about considering unionized sheet metal as a career path, you’ve officially met Catie Rogers, apprentice for SMART Local 20 and self-proclaimed recruiter of female apprentices to building trades.

Rogers’ current mission is smashing stereotypes in the gender arena, and her long-term goal is to help disadvantaged high school kids see the myriad opportunities in trades careers. She brings optimism and confidence to the table with a clear message: “Your life is a blank canvas and you have a paint brush. You can paint it any way you want.”

Her passion is her guiding force. As a fifth-year apprentice, Rogers is the only female apprentice at her local in Indianapolis. She believes women can do the work, but they don’t know it exists and is readily available to them.

“Sheet metal work isn’t for everybody, and I’m not going to push it because that’s the career path I chose,” says Rogers, who is 25. “The goal is to get more women into the building trades as a whole.”

Along her daily travels, Rogers’ friends and family aren’t surprised when she stops a waitress or female mechanic who has provided good customer service to encourage her to consider the building trades as a career. Rogers also works with local female journeywomen and women’s organizations such as Oregon Women in the Trades, Chicago Women in Trades, and others to put her energy behind the movement. She volunteers as a cast member for Built to Succeed, a collective partnership between building trades in Indiana to showcase the education and opportunities behind apprenticeship.

“I want to be the girl I needed when I got in the trade,” Rogers says. “I want to make it easier for women to get information about construction.”

When she isn’t working, going to school, or participating with other organizations, she compiles pamphlets and folders for women she meets and delivers the information to them wherever they need. In 2017, Rogers spoke to 30 women about the trade and conducted a tour at the Local 20 training center and at Poynter Sheet Metal.

The USG and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Commercial Construction Index released its 2017 fourth quarter numbers on Dec. 11. The index showed 57 percent of contractors expected to hire skilled workers in the next six months and a large number reported stable or increased revenue expectations for 2018.

However, 42 percent of contractors predicted that, although they will need to hire, finding skilled workers to fill those positions would be increasingly more difficult in the next six months, and 92 percent were concerned about available workers’ skill levels.

Joseph Lansdell, president of Poynter Sheet Metal and immediate past president of SMACNA, sees potential in what Rogers is doing.

“We’ve gotten in a rut over the years—a son gets into the trade because his dad did it; a niece gets into the trade because her uncle did it. That’s the only way we’ve recruited,” Lansdell says. “If more people were involved like Catie and recruiting their friends, we wouldn’t have that shortage.”

Mentoring, in general, also helps retain and recruit union members. Along with Rogers’ one-woman crusade, Poynter also supports a youth leadership program at the company to help retain and recruit new members, Lansdell adds.

Rogers’ long-term goals consist of one day working for the union as an apprentice recruiter and visiting high schools like the one she attended in East Indianapolis, where many kids grow up to have far less than she does, to educate them on what they can accomplish if only they put in the work. After all, as a kid who came from an impoverished neighborhood, she is proof it can happen.

“I didn’t want to be a product of my environment. My family didn’t put me through school. It changed my life to become something other than a drug dealer,” Rogers says. “It changed my life to have benefits, to have a pension. I want to go to the schools where people think ‘those kids aren’t going to amount to anything.’ These kids have no other options—or so they think.” •

Rogers was on hand at the Diversify the Workforce: Recruiting Women and Minority Workers session at the Partners in Progress Conference, where Mechelle McNew, a member of the SMART Women Team; Julie Muller-Neff, a member of the Women in Construction Leadership Council; Leah Rambo, a member of the NYC Coalition for Women in Construction; and Angie Simon, who formed SMACNA’s Women in Construction Leadership Committee, explored why diversity and inclusion are key to our future sustainability as an industry, how to overcome barriers to achieving greater diversity, and developing a culture of inclusivity.

STATS & FACTS

There are approximately 939,000 women employed in the U.S. construction industry, accounting for 9.1 percent of that sector’s workforce. Although in 2015 women in construction only accounted for 1.3 percent of the country’s entire workforce, the numbers climb each year. Part of recruitment success is pay equity—while in the rest of the workforce, women make 81.1 percent of what men make for equal work, in construction the disparity is only 4.3 percent. But pay isn’t everything. Successfully recruiting women also means addressing barriers such as inappropriate workplace culture, inadequate training, and ineffective policies and procedures.

According to the Construction Sector Council’s Women in Construction Engagement Strategy, success in recruiting women hinges six important factors:

Industry leadership: Addressing barriers begins at the top. Leaders must drive behavioral change, develop policy to encourage respectful and welcoming workplace culture, provide straightforward avenues to report abuse, and consider family-friendly workplace policies.

Apprenticeship: Women need opportunities to complete the full range of trade-related skills and responsibilities, strong and relevant mentoring opportunities, and assistance building strong and useful relationships with industry agencies and training entities.

Training: Diversity/cultural sensitivity training should be available to all management, supervisors, and tradespersons, and diversity should be a strong component of mentoring and supervision practices. Technical training should also be specific to women’s requirements, including general orientation in the construction workplace and accessibility focused on family responsibilities.

Outreach, Recruitment, and Retention: Examine and articulate a strong business case for women in construction. Share best practices to promote the use of successful programs, resources, and tools. Look for industry heroes and tradeswomen to act as mentors and spokespersons.

Policies and Procedures: These should be developed to address intrinsic, ingrained barriers to recruiting women. Support internal best practices that can influence labor groups in developing overarching inclusion policies. Be sure safety policies and equipment are appropriate for all employees, including women.

Partnerships with regional stakeholders: Seek opportunities to partner with national and regional stakeholders in support of women in the construction industry. Communicate the importance of diversity to all construction stakeholders, and work with them to integrate women into the construction industry.