Grit Nation

Positive Jobsite Culture and Developing a Growth Mindset

September 12, 2020 Joe Cadwell Season 1 Episode 2
Grit Nation
Positive Jobsite Culture and Developing a Growth Mindset
Show Notes Transcript

In today’s episode I will be discussing education, and why the UBC considers skill advancement to be the heart and soul of our organization's ability to stay competitive in today’s fast paced and continually evolving world of commercial construction.  

From staying current with advancements in building materials and applications to the steadfast cornerstones of communication and leadership development, the UBC invest heavily in training our members to be the best that they can be.  

Tight profit margins combined with a strong emphasis on safety, production and quality push today’s professional carpenters to be on top of their game in order to meet union contractors demands and customer expectations. UBC training centers spanning from coast to coast across the U.S and Canada are there to meet the need, by providing a skilled workforce of both journey level workers and apprentices. 

Our guest today is Mike Hawes Director of Training at The Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute, which is based in Portland, Oregon. Mike is a 30-year member of Local 146 and has been at the helm of PNCI for the last four years.  

We will start off today’s conversation with what steps PNCI has taken to ensure the safety of both students and staff while attending classes during the Covid 19, Coronavirus pandemic. 

We’ll also look at how online education is being used to compliment a traditionally hands on learning experience. 

Next, we’ll discuss the importance of apprenticeship programs and why passing down trade skills from generation to generation is so significant and what steps you can take to finding or becoming a mentor. 

Later we will focus on the important work Mike has done in developing the Positive Jobsite Culture training program that is being used to counter racism, sexism and implicit bias on the jobsite.   

We’ll then wrap up today’s conversation by looking into what neuroplasticity is and how developing a Growth Mindset can take your career to the next level.

Show Notes

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To get more information on today’s show checkout the links below:

1. PNCI.org

2. NWCI.org

3. MikeHawes@PNCI.org

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Work safe, work smart and Stay Union Strong!!!

 

Joe Cadwell :

Welcome to another episode of Grit Northwest. I'm Joe Cadwell, President of the Northwest Carpenters Union, and your host of this bi monthly podcast. My goal is to introduce you to the various personalities that make up the construction industry in our region and to help you develop a stronger understanding of what it means to be a member of the carpenters union, and how we can become better stewards of the deep and rich legacy that those carpenters who came before us work so hard to build.

Unknown Speaker :

In today's episode, I will be discussing education and why the UBC considers skill advancement to be the heart and soul of our organization's ability to stay competitive in today's fast paced and continually evolving world of commercial construction. From staying current with advancements and building materials and applications to the steadfast cornerstones of communication and leadership development, the UBC and heavily in training our members to be the best that they can be. Tight profit margins combined with a strong emphasis on safety, production and quality push today's professional carpenters to be on top of their game in order to meet union contractors demands and customers expectations. ubc training centers spanning from coast to coast across the US and Canada are there to meet the need by providing a skilled workforce of both journey level workers and apprentices. Today we will be talking with Mike Hawes, Director of Training at the Pacific Northwest carpenters Institute, which is based in Portland, Oregon. Mike is a 30 year member of the UBC and a local 146 and has been at the helm of PNCI for the last four years. We will start off today's conversation with what steps PNCI has taken to ensure the safety of both students and staff while attending classes during the covid 19 coronavirus pandemic, but also look at how online education is being used to complement a traditionally hands on learning experience. Next we'll discuss the importance of apprenticeship programs and why passing down Trade skills from generation to generation is so significant and what steps you can take to finding or becoming a mentor. Later we'll focus on the important work Mike has done in developing the positive job site culture training program, as it being used to counter racism, sexism and implicit bias on the job site. We'll then wrap up today's conversation by looking into what neuroplasticity is and how developing a growth mindset can take your career to the next level.

Unknown Speaker :

And now on to the show.

Unknown Speaker :

Mike Hawes welcome to the show.

Mike Hawes :

Hey, Joe. It's it's really nice to have you to have me on today. I think the concept of having a podcast and opportunity to share things with our membership is absolutely fantastic. And I'm really excited to be one of your first guests one of your early guests here and represent PNC AI. So thanks again for having me. Now, we appreciate you taking the time to be here. I know at PNC AI you you have changed so much of the the culture within the organization and really putting education on the forefront in regards to education at PNC, I run with COVID-19. What what efforts have been made Mike to to ensure that we can continue to educate our apprentices and or journey level workers? Well, obviously when when Covid hit you know that back in in March, the latter part of March it, it hit all of us in a hurry. And we weren't sure as a lot of organizations were how long this was going to last. So when the governor put this shelter in place, state order for Oregon here, we had already been working a week prior to that to make sure that we got our staff set up to work remotely. That was the most important thing to me as director is to make sure that we take care of our team and our tech team did a great job of getting everybody set up to work remotely. And then we had kind of we're at that point with the instructional team. We had had a lot of aspirations to make some improvements to our curriculum. And so we had started that process in Microsoft Teams. And when the writing was on the wall that this was going to be a much, much longer process. The team, it did an amazing job of kind of switching that focus from making those improvements to curriculum to actually building online content. In the first two classes that we brought back online that I think were super critical. On the apprenticeship side, we started working on our intro class because of those safety certifications that the apprentices get right, those core safety certs. And the thing that was really nice about this was that we were able to kind of use those same classes that we developed for the apprentices and make them accessible to the journey level workers as well. And so we were able to start bringing some classes back online in June in order to do that, you know, we We wanted to start offering some training back inside the building. So the team worked really, really hard. with reduced class sizes, social distancing, you know, temperature checks at the door. We have opted for 100% mass at all time. So we got a good start with that another class that we wanted to make sure, or another group that we wanted to make sure that we touch was those mid to late term apprentices. And so we were able to develop a again, the team did amazing job on a 40 hour, a leadership transition class or our mid to late term apprentices. And this was something that was on our on our wish list actually had conversations back in 2016 is as you know, a new director, knowing that we're very, very challenged with the exit of the baby boomers from the industry and knowing that our apprentices, you know, We're on this fast track, right in a lot of cases to be able to fill the shoes of the foremen and the superintendent that are leaving, we felt that this leadership class was so critical right for them to have on the continuing education side, we we got authorization from the carpenters, international trading partners, CITF, to offer in online 24 hours best practices in the anchor class and knowing that, you know, around Covid in all the importance of you know, the potential for having to build emergency hospitals, etc. The more members that we had trained in in the best practice and health care, the better. So we've actually had a lot of success early on, in through contract requests, and offering some classes here at the training center to online anchor class. We had the we had the intro class for the apprentices, which We were able to roll over into those continue education classes for the journey level workers, as well as the leadership class really kind of gave us a nice foundation to get things going. And then as we moved into July, I think looking back, I think we we ran a total of, of 40 classes in June, in July, we were able to double that closer to 80 in the same thing in August, so like, like everybody out there, we have had to kind of evolve and morph and kind of throw our, our traditional model out here for training our delivery system and all that we really had to throw that out the window. And really a lot of ways just kind of start over from scratch and build this new model out and I'm super, super proud of, of the admin team. You know, the coordinators dry. Our accounting folks, obviously our instructors way that we've been able to evolve As a group and actually thrive in this situation, so those are some of the things that we kind of ran into with with COVID.

Unknown Speaker :

That's fantastic. And my understanding Mike is, throughout the UBC PNCI was one of the first if not the first organization to, to actually roll out some of that online training. I'm glad that you brought that up. As far as I know, I've not heard of any other training center in the nation that has done this. But about a week before we left, I had had a conversation with Bill Irwin from the International Training Center he and he basically said, Hey, you know, if you guys are thinking about doing anything online at all, with any UBC certifications involved, you need to make sure that you run a bias I'm like, absolutely. And I'd actually shared with Bill our our model that we had already discussed using zoom as the platform because for them, they countability is really a really big deal. And they wanted to make sure that we're maintaining instructor led courses. And that was kind of our plan from from from day one is that we wanted to Covid or not, we wanted to make sure that we maintain our, our presence with the instructor and students so that we can verify attendance in the classes and things like that. And so he was actually pretty open to that concept. So what we did when it came on to the hands on part of that is we built an ante room here at pn ci, and we had all the participants and we still do today, right that are involved in the hands on part of the upper class, we make sure that they're completely gound up and have a full PPE class so that their say, so I really appreciate you bringing that up. Thank you for asking about that. Indeed. And from your impression Mike, what do you think the the students takeaway is now are they enjoying this, this new hybrid format of learning at home and then coming in for the hands on portion other training. I think our apprentices Joe have been incredible, as you know, as adapting to this new environment, a lot of them are what we already kind of referred to as digital natives, meaning that they've grown up with with iPads and laptops right already. And so they're used to that, the classes that I have been able to pop into it and talk to the apprentices. They've really appreciated. Number one, that they've been able to keep their training moving forward, but also on top of that, the ability to stay safe to keep safe. And then a lot of these classes that we're talking about are being run in the evenings. And and even though there's been an interruption to their family time. I remember one class in particular where one of our one of our apprentices held up there. They're very young baby and said, hey, there's no By the way, I couldn't be able to be home and spend time with my family and be in school and work. So I think for the most part, our apprentices have been very appreciative and they've reacted very positively to this to this new model and, and I'm excited I can't wait to see Joe what these are gonna look like for us a year, a year and a half down the road. With the delivery of our of our online content in the hybrid classes. I'm super excited to see what the team is going to come up with, as they say necessity the mother of invention, so accolades to PNCI and yourself for for obviously taking the ball and running with it. The UBC obviously invested a lot in training and education skill advancement. My understanding it's really is the heart and soul of our organizations to keep our members you know viable in the in the workplace through leadership, development and keeping up on latest trends with building and materials As we know though, especially just regarding the apprenticeships, the reality is 640 hours in, in in our apprenticeship is invested at the training center PNCI, and an average apprenticeship 6000 hours out in the field. So we know that a tremendous amount and almost 90% of apprentices learning experience happens on the job. And as we know, there are a lot of issues that can inhibit someone's ability to learn on the job. And I was hoping you could talk to us about a program that I understand you're responsible for bringing forth called the positive job site culture program. Can you tell us more about that, Mike?

Mike Hawes :

Absolutely. So Hey, Joe, you know that that's a really, really good setup for this question. I really appreciate you know how the fact that you pointed that out that the majority of the wording for any apprentice does take place on the job site and it we created our mission statement back in In 2016, it was our first staff meeting after I became director. And in our mission statement is at PNCI we strive for excellence in the education and leadership development of our professional corporative workforce. And we are committed to creating a positive job site culture and safe work environment by collaborating with our partners in the community and industry. So we know that our we need our veterans out there right to be an extension of the work that we do here at PNCI. In any kind of a progressive positive learning model. There needs to be a level of trust that's been established between the trader or the trainee, right, whether it's, it's us here as instructors or coordinators, working with our apprentices or our journey level workers continuing that education out. On the jobsite, and and I went through some of this, you know, kind of old school hazing. Now we call it bullying, which is which is appropriate. But when you if you're in an environment where you've got this type of activity going on around you, it's really, really hard for an individual focus on on learning, right? Along with the fact that if we have invested, you know, a lot of money in getting an apprentice just to the door, and we get them out on the job site, in and and we can't hang on to that individual. And it's not because of the work right? It's not because of the 430 wakeups. It's not because of the 38 degrees and raining, right? It's not because of the physical work but it's just because the culture because we don't know how to act professional and appropriate in teaching coached people in a positive That way, if we lose our apprentices or members because of that, those people when they leave, they go out. And they tell everybody that they know, basically that we suck. Right. So. So nationally, I think the completion rate is somewhere around 50% for apprentices that start a program that actually finished. So there's there's two pieces to this that are really, really important, I think. One is that we're creating a positive environment for apprentices to learn, but also from a, from a business standpoint, a resource standpoint, that we're making sure that we're supporting our apprentices environment where they can thrive, right, because remember, we talked earlier about the mass exodus of boomers from this industry. So all the research that you can look at shows that an engaged worker Joe that Phil's supported is gonna get more done. On any given day and work more safely than a worker that's having to deal with what I oftentimes refer to as the static that's kind of been part of our industry. You know, you know, the bullying, the harassment, they hazing and all that kind of stuff that we've all always kind of traditionally said, Well, you know, you better toughen up, because it's a tough industry, right? You better have thick skin, when you go out there, because people are going to treat you poorly. People are gonna yell and scream at you. People are gonna call you names, right? People are going to harass you, they are going to discriminate against you and I know that construction industry or not, that's just not appropriate behavior. And there's no way we're going to be able to sustain and build a workforce and reach our national goal of 70% market share if we don't get this right. So we've held in the last, you know, a little over over two years now we've held close Do 130 trainings across Oregon and Southwest Washington, I've been invited to do some trainings up in Western Washington as well. And we train close to 4200 craftworkers, right, we open the doors to, to electricians or laborers or sheetmetal workers, whoever wants to jump into training with our generals and our members. So I think we got a good start on this. But man, we got a long, long ways to go. I'm excited at the support that I've got from our journey level workers and as well as our contractors out there that I've had the opportunity to go through the two hour training. I'm really excited about this, but our staff worked close to 14 months to develop a training, you know, to address these things that I just talked about. I say this training was built, built for carpenters, by carpenters, right. So we're very, very proud of the PJC and we're hoping to continue this this conversation and get more contract. actors involved all the time in the Regional Council. My hat's off to him because our rats have done a fantastic job of not only promoting help us, helping us promote the training, right? But but also when we do the training out on the job sites, oftentimes it's over lunch, the council reps are right there to buy lunch for the members and support us in this effort. So and are these classes being taught as sort of a reaction there was a negative instance on a job site and management was notified and and they wanted to bring in someone to do some damage control, Mike are these are contractors being forward thinking and proactive and bringing it in bringing this positive jobsite culture training into their organization to sort of prevent or at least raise awareness to in the hopes of preventing bad behavior on the job side? Job we've done both, you know, in I think it's I think it's sometimes you know, like we'd have a rep that's been out, and they've got a particular situation on a job site that has, you know, obviously something to do with the culture. And they've made the recommendation that would come out and train and we've done that, and certainly will continue to do that. But we do have some really forward thinking contractors out there as well, that that know that the culture has to change. You know, it's interesting, that that one of the things that that I'm always surprised and disappointed at it at the same time is I've got a slide where I show over over like a nine year period we we graduated, you know, 900 new apprentices and we lost about 1400 in the same in the same period of time. And when I asked the group, you know, how many of them left because of what we talked about earlier, right. The you know, the early wake ups, the rain, the whatever it is, how many of them left versus how many left, because of the culture and I have these season, you know, journey level carpenters You know, in their 40s and 50s, that raise their hand. And some of them, some of them, they say, as many as 50 60% have left because of the culture. So that tells me that this this problem, if you will, that we have with our culture, it's been with us for a long time, and our members know that this needs to be addressed, right. This is not like new news to them. They have seen this happen time and time again, in they along with the contractors are like, yeah, we know it's about time we pay attention to this and start really, really trying to fix it. So it is a combination of, of some folks being proactive, I think, and also, hey, we've got a situation on this job site to address so we do both. So what can a journey level worker who's gone to work for the last 20,25, 30 years? What can they do? What can they learn? Within a two hour period of time that can can really, you know, kind of turn on the light switch for them and, and make them aware that their actions are affecting others. What what's the number one thing that they can do? Or, you know, what, what, what the term unconscious bias means, right? what that means and what that looks like, right? And so because so many times we've got these kind of preconceived notions about what somebody, somebody's capabilities are from how, how tall they are, how short they are, how thick, how thin the color of their skin, right their gender. And what we're trying to do is break up those traditional stereotypes of what, what, what what a great Carpenter looks like, because a great Carpenter can come in all different shapes and sizes, and really, really, really reinforced the importance. And when we cover we talked about we talk about conflict resolution. We talked about the importance of bystander intervention, right? seeing something that's not okay. And sticking up for a brother or sister right in a time of need, and how important it is, as, as, as teammates, as co workers, as union brothers and sisters, that we don't walk by a conflict and put our hand up and ignore it. And we talk about what what a positive coaching model looks like versus a negative coaching model, right. So, I think a lot of these things that we have in this conversation, you know, your attitude when you go to work in the morning, you know, are you Are you a member of a high functioning team? And are you there to make sure that the team moves ahead, or are you going to or all you just go to work every day just watching out for you on your own? The reality is, is it takes a tremendous amount of teamwork and collaboration, right? To build a building across not only our trade, but multiple trades, and people go to work every day with a positive attitude and say, You know what? Today I'm going to contribute to building this building in the process of building the building Joe, I'm going to invest in my, in my co workers and my team in a positive manner to build them up to, then we're going to get some place we have, we have a lot of good illustrations and examples of what of how damaging right when you go into an environment where there is harassment, where there is discrimination, and there is bullying, and what kind of an impact that has on basically the bottom line of the project, right, not only the interpersonal relationships, but the bottom line on the project. So there's there's a, there's a lot that's covered in two hours. But the biggest kind of movement is is we're trying to hit people in the head with the on the intellectual side of the importance of this shift, this mind shift, but also hit him in the heart so that they can see you know that there's a lot of damage. It takes place to people and individual basis when they're in an environment where they're where they're not supported in the right way. Right.

Joe Cadwell :

It sounds like you're really focusing in on what the the international started some some years ago with their journeymen leadership training and taking these journey level workers and building upon their communication their leadership skills to become in essence better mentors continued not only to build buildings or be, you know, proficient in their craft, but to help the next generation along and it really does require our our membership to step up and do their part and being a great leader and passing down your skills and your knowledge and hopefully your strong work attitude can only better our organization. So it It sounds like a great, great program. Mike, you had mentioned a little bit about, you know, people's potential for growth. And I know you're a big proponent of Carol Dweck, the professor of psychology and her growth model. mindset books and philosophy she has developed over the years. And I was hoping you might be able to tell our listeners a little bit more about growth mindset and what that is and how important it is to to have one.

Mike Hawes :

Yeah, I'm really excited about this. Yeah, I got introduced to the growth mindset about three and a half, three years ago now that they had what they called the convocation where they have you know, 600 of the, of the, you know, the teachers and administrators and everybody together and they had this this person come in and talk about the importance of, of a growth mindset, right when when teaching and coaching, and in but by definition, from Dweck, she says people believe right with a growth mindset that people believe their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. brains in town are just a starting point. This, this view creates a love and learning and every zillions that is essential for great accomplishment in so many of our apprentices have have come to us with such a varied experience in, in education. And I wanted to make sure that when they walked through the doors here at PNCI to kind of have a kind of have a restart when it comes to their attitude around around education. One of our one of our core values here that I think this really ties into, is that we have a core value that we will inspire a workforce committed to lifelong learning. So when you have a growth mindset, basically, the idea from a coaching standpoint is is that you don't just look at a letter grade at the end of the day and say, Well, this person's got it or they don't, we don't we don't necessarily gauge people by by A's and B's and C's because that's a slippery slope. What what Carol talks about when you Your kids are young, and they bring home in a we have a tendency to, you know, to praise them and say, Wow, look at that you got an A, so proud of you were what we should be praising is, wow, you must have worked really, really hard to get that name right when you praise the praise the process of education, not necessarily the outcome, right, you praise the process. And then in doing so, I was just going to interject their bike that in doing so and just praising the outcome, what you begin to develop are people that are solely motivated by the outcome and like you said, not so much the process so if they don't bring home those those straight days, then they begin to work on things that challenge them as much for fear of failure. So like you're saying yet the process and and the effort that is put forward is really I think what, what growth mindset is about? Absolutely. And you know, I think math is a great example. You know, I was not myself personally, I was not great in math in high school, right? I, but but when I got out of you know, even even college, there was certain math classes I did better than others. But when I got in construction and started applying math and using math, it was like this light went on for me. And I'm like, Hey, I can do this. And we have so many apprentices that Alas, so, you know, is it is anybody ever heard someone say, I'm just not good at something, I just, I suck at math. And if you have that attitude, going into anything you've already set yourself up for failure is rather than say, you know, right or wrong, right? B or A or D? She says not yet. That means, well, we're gonna have to, I'm gonna have to work a little harder. I'm gonna work a little longer, but to have the confidence. I want each and every one of our apprentices to know that if they if they apply themselves, right, to have the competence that they're going to get it at the end of the day, right that they're there. Going to be able to. And that's really part of the when you talk about the higher levels of learning, it's about the transfer of knowledge, taking what I learned over here, in reframing right, the concepts of the concepts of layout, the concepts of square, the concepts of plumbing, being able to transfer that knowledge to different other applications and construction, you'd be able to do that, Joe, you have to have a growth mindset. You have to believe in yourself and have confidence that even though these things aren't jumping off the page at me, by golly, I'm going to get them I'm going to figure out a way to get there and that really, to me, is super exciting because that's exactly what we need from our apprentices right now. We need to have need to have grit right and stick to itiveness. And believe in themselves to be able to, to be able to perform at a really really high level.

Unknown Speaker :

And that's what we need our lifetime learners in our in our trades. Again, as we mentioned earlier. The the industry is constantly evolving with the the techniques, the materials, the expectations. And so we need from apprentices all the way up to the to those 30 year journey level workers to remember the growth mindset and the importance of being a lifelong learner. As a professional diver for 35 years of my career, I always told myself a day that I thought I knew at all would be the day that I needed to get out of the industry, because that's when I would become the most dangerous when I thought that there was nothing left for me to learn. That's when I became the most dangerous to myself and my crews. And fortunately, I retired before I I learned it all still have a lot to learn about, about diving, but I'm happy to be involved with education and leadership within our organization now.

Mike Hawes :

Yeah. And I think that you know, you really brought up a great point about especially now, I think, you know, so much of our focus for example, since I've been directed is really getting the training center up to speed with the technology that's being used out on the job sites. Right. So what there's, I think a lot of our members that didn't have that opportunity to grow up with the technology like the the millennials and some of the Gen Xers have. So we've got a lot invested in here in terms of, you know, the Blue Beam and the plan grid and the computer classes to make sure that we can help those members that are in those leadership positions. You know, we can help them kind of kind of morph into more of this, this, you know, the use of computers and iPads and tablets on the jobsite, because that is such a fast moving train right now. That that that's a, I think, an excellent illustration of the importance of having a growth mindset. We've got a lot of really, really talented carpenters out there that are great builders, but they may have fallen a little bit behind. right because of the Because we've moved so quickly as an industry with technology that I wanted to make sure here at PNCI, that we've got the tools for both our journey level workers and our apprentices to help them with the with this technological revolution that's basically happening in our industry. Right, Mike, this has been a really fantastic conversation. Where can people go to find out more about positive jobsite culture training and educational opportunities at PNCI. So anybody who's interested in in the pjc on their job sites, you know, talk to talk to one of our reps out in the field. Obviously, you know, you can talk to our instructors, you can talk to our coordinators out perfect. I'll put some of the links in the show notes at the end of the show.

Joe Cadwell :

So, again, Mike, thank you so much for your time. It's been really, really great talking with you. All right, Joe. Thank you. Very, very proud to have the opportunity to represent PNCI on your podcast today. So thank you so much for the invitation. Our guest today was my cause Director of Training at PNCI the Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute. If you'd like to know more about a career as a union carpenter, visit p nci.org. Or carpenters dot orgy. Also check out the show notes for more details. Well that wraps it up for this edition of grit Northwest. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it with a friend, fellow Carpenter or family member. They can find us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or tune in. And if you haven't already done so please take a minute to write a review will help others find the show. Until next time, this is Joe Cadwell reminding you to work safe, work smart and stay union strong Transcribed by https://otter.ai