Tank Talk - Alaska's Bulk Fuel Podcast
Tank Talk - Alaska's Bulk Fuel Podcast is a podcast that delves into various aspects of environmental management and regulations, mainly focusing on bulk fuel storage, fish processing, and utility facilities across the Pacific Northwest. Hosted by industry expert Shannon Oelkers, Tank Talk features discussions with industry leaders to answer questions commonly asked by terminal managers. Episodes cover various topics involving State and Federal regulations, tank inspections and permits, and industry vendors. Tune in to navigate the complexities of rules and operations, offering insights and information to listeners involved or interested in environmental compliance and best practices within specialized industries.
Tank Talk - Alaska's Bulk Fuel Podcast
Special Guest: Michael O'Brien on Alaska's Evolving Labor Landscape
Join us on Tank Talk with Integrity Environmental as we dive into the inspiring journey of Michael O'Brien, a labor and employment lawyer from Davis Wright Tremaine in Fairbanks, Alaska. From Alaskan adventurer to employment law expert, Michael shares insights on the evolving labor landscape, including challenges in equitable overtime and the impact of generational shifts.
We discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed employment practices in Alaska, uncovering untapped opportunities in trade jobs within the emerging green economy. Michael highlights the vital role of unions like the Boilermakers Union in advancing careers in carbon capture and renewable energy.
Our conversation also covers the growing presence of women in traditionally male-dominated fields, the need for genuine diversity and inclusion efforts, and the importance of fostering a culture where employees feel safe voicing concerns. With a focus on enhancing science education and inspiring young people towards unconventional careers, this episode offers valuable insights into the current trends and challenges in Alaska's labor market for both employers and employees.
Resources:
Alaska Department Labor & Workforce Development - https://labor.alaska.gov/
United States Department of Labor - https://www.dol.gov/
Michael O'Brien's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-o-brien-704276102?
Photo Credits: Frank H. Nowell, 1904-1908, Nome, Alaska. Taken for the John J. Sessnon Electric Company. Displayed at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon Exposition held in Seattle, Washington to promote the progress of industry in Alaska.
intro/outro created with GarageBand
Thank you for joining us. You're listening to Tank Talk with Integrity Environmental, where we speak with founder, principal consultant and bulk fuel storage expert Shannon Oelkers, about regulations, safety and useful tips for smooth sailing through the bulk fuel storage industry. Come learn the unique joys of working life in Alaska with industry experts, including our team, vendors we work with and companies we support.
Shannon Oelkers:Hello, welcome to Tank Talk. This is Shannon, and today I have a guest, Michael O'Brien. He is partner at Davis Wright Tremaine and he's based out of Fairbanks and I'm excited to have him on the podcast today because he is a labor and employment lawyer and we're excited to maybe ask a few questions related to that. In our industries, a lot of the industries we serve obviously employ people and, Michael, thank you for coming on the show to talk to us about this. I really appreciate you being here.
Michael O'Brien:Thanks so much for having me Looking forward to talking.
Shannon Oelkers:Yeah, I was hoping that you could introduce yourself and maybe describe your current position and maybe cover how you got to that position.
Michael O'Brien:Sure, I've been in Alaska for about 27 years. I came up here like a lot of people just for adventure. After college, no job, no law degree or law career in my future Worked for park service, wrote for newspapers, worked in restaurants sort of did it all as you do in Alaska at first. And then I started my career in law and have, over the last 15 years, focused on labor and employment law. So employment law is compliance with your employees hiring, firing and all the acronyms of the ADA and the EEOC that an employer runs into but also labor work. So negotiating with unions, dealing with union grievances and working with employers as they interact with unions, sometimes for the first time.
Shannon Oelkers:What made you choose the law?
Michael O'Brien:I was sort of backed into it. I wasn't backed into it but I didn't grow up wanting to be a lawyer, but I was interested in environmental law at first. Like I said, living in Alaska, you can't help but be sort of knocked down by the natural environment and that's what got me interested in it. But what really sort of kept me in it and what took me down this path was the people of Alaska like I got interested in. I am interested in their stories, I'm interested in workplace challenges and all the things that go on to help a company thrive. And it's easy to sort of nerd out helping companies through that and that's really what an employment lawyer does.
Shannon Oelkers:That's the best how I became a lawyer story I've ever heard. You and I both share love for Alaska's people and a lot of the industrial work. I think that goes on in the state. There's really good stories and histories that go along with all of the industries we work with.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, I'm fascinated by it. And you look at something like COVID, which is now. I just got over COVID, so it's not so much in my rearview mirror but it's societally in our rearview mirror. Not so much in my rearview mirror but it's societally in our rearview mirror. And that was one of these moments that forced every industry to sort of do it to look at. They had to comply with these new laws and for employment lawyers, it was how to figure out how to keep you know, we couldn't shut down the North Slope, we couldn't shut down fish processing plants, we couldn't shut these places down in those moments. So we had to learn how they work and learn how to make the laws work for those industries. So, yeah, I love parachuting into some new world, new industry and learning about how it works.
Shannon Oelkers:So labor is an issue that looms large for almost every industry that our firm works with. I was wondering if you could talk about some trends that you're seeing right now that could impact those industries.
Michael O'Brien:Definitely, and my practice is both hyper-local working with a single village or a single municipality but also national, so working with the biggest companies in the world on a national level. So, and I think the interesting thing is that, whether you zoom in or zoom out, the same issues are plaguing or driving employers nuts. A great example in the organized labor context is that, just like five or six years ago pre-COVID, five or six years ago, pre-covid union contracts were about how do we equitably distribute over time? That was always a big issue. Everybody wants overtime. How do we make sure those extra valuable hours are distributed in a way that is fair? And that's what you spent a lot of time negotiating about.
Michael O'Brien:Just five or six years later, we're 180 degrees from there and a lot of union negotiation at the bargaining table is who are we going to force to take those overtime hours? Who's going to have to do the extra work? And I don't think people have gotten lazy. That's not the takeaway there. It's just that something happened societally that instead of everyone trying to work as much as possible, including all that overtime, it's now a greater priority being put on off work hours and the employer being in a position where okay, if we have to have people work extra, how are we going to make them do it or entice them to do it, which is not a place most employers have ever been, at least in a generation and, from what I hear, many generations.
Shannon Oelkers:I'm not surprised to hear that. We have seen it on our side as well, even in the non-union side. One of the things I had wanted to talk to you about was the fact that the graying of the fleet is now turning into the retiring of the fleet. Do you think it's a generational difference as well?
Michael O'Brien:I do. I do for sure, and there's definitely a different perception. I definitely view myself as firmly Gen X and I think as part of that Gen X and older, we were brought into the workforce with a you need to earn your stripes, like that sort of euphemism was common. You know, like suck it up, your time will come. That sort of notion is not as prevalent in the new generation that we see in the workplace right now the millennial, gen Y, millennial workforce. It's much more like if I'm giving you my time, I'm deserving of sort of all the things right now, and that's a big difference.
Michael O'Brien:And employers used to sort of there was a gradation of how people were treated or benefits that were received that was tied to time in service, time in office. Those sorts of notions that you can delay the delivery of those benefits are gone. It's probably too strong to say millennials want it all now, but I think that's sort of how that generation and younger is viewed and they also want to be trained really well. Younger is viewed and they also want to be trained really well. The sort of the rookie getting initiated or the rookie sort of we didn't do it back in the old day. Those sort of notions are not valued the way they once were, and that may be a good thing, because it's more the expectation that I have like a fully paying, well-trained, safe environment. Now, and you're not sort of exhausted and quote unquote, earning it for some delayed benefit, you're going to get down the road.
Shannon Oelkers:I think that follows frequent job changes too. I definitely have seen people not staying in jobs for 30 or 40 years. Right, they're going between jobs maybe every four to five years, and I think there's no point in having delayed benefits if you aren't going to be there in five years, right?
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, and I think employers are going a little bit nuts because they want to give people the opportunity to quote unquote, move up the ladder. But when there's an expectation that you start at the top to quote unquote, move up the ladder. But when there's an expectation that you start at the top of the ladder, you have to rethink the ladder a little bit.
Shannon Oelkers:Well and rethink the benefits, because a lot of the standard benefit options do not result in better recruitment. Our firm learned that early on.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, and I'm depicting this in a way that's negative towards these new employees, but we didn't get here by accident. The move away from a pension plan, for example, which very few employers offer that was this really monolithic, monumental way of building time into how the workplace operates. People stayed for the 30th year because that's when you got the most benefits, and employers, for many, many reasons, shifted to a defined contribution plan, which is, in essence, like a take the money and run plan. It doesn't value time, doesn't put a priority on that. So employees are basically saying two can play that game. If you're not going to have a system in place that rewards longevity, like I'm not going to stick around.
Shannon Oelkers:There's not a whole lot of us, and so I'm seeing younger and younger people filling jobs, just because there's not as many people our age to fill it, and I think that ties into the change in how these jobs are perceived and how all of our employers everyone who's listening to this podcast needs to learn how to recruit for millennials and Gen Y.
Michael O'Brien:Right, because that's who you're going to hire at this point, and definitely a labor shortage, especially in Alaska. You look, going back to my pension statement before, it's not a driver directly for private employers, but getting rid of the PERS system where you had people staying in the state for a long period of time under the state system. There's been like a trickle down of that. People leave the state more often, the families. If one family member is leaving, then everyone leaves. So you look at in my field, the Alaska Bar Association, they have an employment page. Field, the Alaska Bar Association, they have an employment page On any given day. Right now.
Michael O'Brien:There are as many open positions as there are people who pass the bar, because we had this massive pulse of people, employees during the pipeline era. They were boomer employees. The last of those folks are retiring right now and they were half the workforce and so we built infrastructures around that, we built systems around that number of people in the workforce and they've just gone poof. They've gone poof for a couple of reasons. They retired, they're not working anymore. Not working anymore those that were working during COVID. A lot of them just were like, yeah, it's not worth. This is incredibly inconvenient.
Shannon Oelkers:I'd rather just not work than do this. We went from graying of the fleet to retiring of the fleet in 2020.
Michael O'Brien:Exactly. And so as a state we've just had this, and I use an example from my field law. But look at social workers, look at teachers, look at really any field engineers and you just see this demographic cliff, with the last of those boomers retiring leaving the state, stopping working, and there just has not been the replacement necessary. You know, one person has come to the state for every two or three of those folks that have retired. So I think we have an open question If we needed those people, which it seemed like they all were working all those years. That's a big problem. So I think for an Alaskan I'm an Alaskan attorney, I'm defensive of Alaska work. You're an Alaska company, you want Alaska companies doing it, but it becomes tougher to compete because more and more outside firms will move in, just because there's not the critical mass for Alaska firms, which is a real threat to our economy.
Shannon Oelkers:We're seeing migration out to. You know, we have people that we've had as interns that go to college in somewhere else and then they don't come back to Alaska. So a lot of the future employees are also not necessarily staying.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, for 20 years I've tried to hire and I have hired for Alaska, and Alaska can be very sticky, meaning people come here like myself I'm not going anywhere. You know I'll be buried in Alaska someday. That's how sticky it is for me, but for a lot of people, if you're weighing this, you know it's not for everyone. You have to really have a passion that Alaska allows for it. And then if you're someone who's married, your partner has to like it just as much as you do, and there's a lot of factors that are working against us. Like, alaska is, in my mind, you know, the most amazing place to live in the world, so that's good. But more and more I get the sense that I'm in the minority. You know it's not for everyone. Like I acknowledge that.
Shannon Oelkers:I just feel like the opportunity here, Michael, is so big and I think that people in the lower 48 don't necessarily see that opportunity. I mean, just the fact that I could start a business from nothing and become competitive within a few years is crazy. Like everywhere else in the lower 48, there's dozens of companies that are all doing similar things and lots of competition.
Michael O'Brien:I agree a thousand percent. And I'll say I can't remember which friend of mine said this, but it's not my original idea. But in reference to Alaska Native corporations, people really don't understand how sophisticated People really don't understand how sophisticated, how big and how meaningful their work is. And this friend of mine said someday there's going to be a base built on Mars and an Alaska native corporation is going to build it. And people who are sophisticated about government contracting and that sort of thing know how big a deal Alaska native corps are. What they're doing is so impressive and so if you are in that orbit, if you can do that work, help them, be a partner to theirs. The sky is literally the limit in Alaska.
Shannon Oelkers:So we've talked about some of the impacts to labor that we're seeing. What does that mean for, like, our industry partners, like what are you seeing utilities and bulk fuel companies? And I mean like how are they changing or adapting to this changing workforce?
Michael O'Brien:So often in that equation, like the union is a partner for the utility world. Those are all unionized workforces. And one thing I think you've seen more and more of across the state is the way that you'd have a national signing day event for kids who are going to play a sport in college. Or you'd make a big deal about a student who's going off to X, y or Z college student who's going off to X, y or Z college. More and more you're seeing like union signing days and you're seeing kids moving from high school to the trades and I'm a liberal arts guy myself but you can do very, very well especially compared to a liberal arts degree, which is what I have going into the trades and some unions have done a really good job of that and they've done a great job of highlighting what their union has to offer. I still think there's a tremendous opportunity there, because a high school student may intuitively know I know what an IBEW lineman is because I see them on the side of the road.
Michael O'Brien:But, for example, the Boilermakers Union is doing some really interesting work. They're interested in carbon and carbon capture and there's a huge future in that and it's actually sort of the green economy. Are we doing enough to publicize that? It's not just like hammering nails or like building things. It's actually being part of like probably world historical change in our economy and a lot of these trades whether it's solar installation or carbon injection into an old well hole, the trades are going to be part of that, and so we really have to figure out how to capture the imagination of those 17 and 18 year olds.
Shannon Oelkers:So I work primarily in bulk fuels, although we do utilities as well, because they store a lot of bulk fuel. And we also do aviation and forgive the term, but the sexiness of the job really does play a factor, like every little kid who's six can imagine being an aviation pilot, and making the jump between that and fueling the airplane is pretty easy. But a whole lot of them don't think about a Boilermaker or a Boilerman. In the same ideology, and I do think there's an opportunity both on the union side and the private side to just make these jobs more visible. And I know in our podcast I'm trying to show people how we get to these places Because when I was growing up I wanted to be a biologist.
Shannon Oelkers:I mean Exxon Valdez happened when I was in fifth grade, right. So the entire industry of environmental remediation and response was being invented as I was growing up. I mean it did exist prior to Exxon, but as a national EPA project. Those are big changes in 89 and 90 that impacted all the way through. So back to the visibility. I think a lot of the people that we work with when they're recruiting for jobs right now what I see is the people that are most successful are also recruiting for future employees by showing up to job fairs, talking at high schools, supporting programs, so that people can see that you can make $100,000 driving a truck or managing a gas station. You can make $100,000 in Alaska managing a gas station. Yeah, that's good money.
Michael O'Brien:There's so many things that I'm sure most adults have this experience where you're like if I'd only known what that was, I might have studied that or I might have done that. And I'm absolutely fascinated by, like, large industrial, whether it's a power plant or a distribution center or anything that's just really complex. Where you have it's a bunch of hard problems that you need to solve. And I was wandering around this a client's large distribution center, you know, and it had truck schedules and trains involved and you know mechanics to make sure all the conveyor belts worked. And I was asking the manager, like how do you find people who want to run this place 24 hours a day? You know it's so complex and like no one majors in that in college.
Michael O'Brien:He said, you know our best luck is zoology students because, like they want to be zookeepers and in essence, a zoo is just a supply chain. Like poop has to go out, food has to go in, you know the monkeys have to have bananas, the rhinoceroses have to have hay 24 hours a day. Like it can, you can't like take three days off. You know the poop will pile up and the monkeys will starve, you know. And like you have to sort of have someone who is like that's a challenge I want to solve, yeah.
Michael O'Brien:And the reality is, running a distribution center is the same problem. It pays a lot more, but working at them and running at them appeals to like the same mind, like you need the same mind to do each of them. And I just thought that was such a fascinating like someone was really intentional and creative. When they're like, these are the people we need to go after. They think this is fun, you know, and the question is like, what is that for us? And I feel like in Alaska there are so many opportunities for kids to be hands-on and do things and something happens because and I'm not blaming school for this, but something happens once they're like middle school and older, when we start teaching them the science of the things, that it sort of drains the joy out of it for them.
Shannon Oelkers:Well, you and I could have a whole other podcast on science education in Alaska. It's a personal project of mine to improve scientific literacy in Alaska. But you're right, the joy gets sucked out or the sense of achievement. And you know I work with people who would, I think, be considered blue collar workers. But they're performing pretty high level science every day hydraulics, fluid dynamics, pressure. A lot of engineering goes into those systems and they have to have a good literal grasp of what's going to happen, because things really bad things happen if they don't.
Shannon Oelkers:And I do think that the hands on piece is something that needs to be part of jobs. People learn by doing and creating positions, with mentoring or job shadowing or being able to let them try it out as an intern before you go in. And I do know for some of the industries we work with the idea of hiring an intern for the summer. It's there, they might run the marina and fuel up boats and then that might be a way for them to get into the fuel industry. But you can't do a summer internship for truck driving, for example, or fuel truck driving, but there's other avenues for that.
Shannon Oelkers:But I think what you and I are getting at is, if you're listening to this podcast and you're younger, you should try some of these interesting things that you see while you're out and about living your life and maybe give them a thought, because it's very difficult and competitive to get a job working at a zoo and the pay is low, but you might be finding just as much satisfaction at a distribution center and getting paid triple and much less competition and in fact, you can go up the chain really fast, and I definitely. I don't know if you've seen this, michael, but when I entered the workforce I was looking at a 20 year slog to be management and I think that has been halved maybe eight to 10 years at this point.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, and people would much rather develop, especially in Alaska, managers from within. It's very hard to bring in leadership from the lower 48. Is that? Not only is the time required halved to become a manager and get to a certain, with all the pay and responsibility that comes with that, but you compare notes with people in the lower 48, if you are interested in a field, you've had four times the experience they had, because people are much more willing to throw people into stuff. In Alaska, you know to figure it out because we don't have the luxury of layer upon layer of experienced employees.
Shannon Oelkers:Microspecialization. I only pull this lever. Nobody does that in Alaska. You got to do it from start to finish and be there when the one other person that does what you do is taking a vacation. You've got to do their stuff too.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah Well, and I think just I'm not sure which there's a lot of like industry support alliances and things like that. One of the things I saw this year was there was a program just to bring people up to the slope for a couple of weeks and there's a thousand jobs up there. Does any of this look interesting to you? Whether it's sweeping the floor or running the rig or doing the engineering, because that's sort of the problem. Alaska is amazing but we don't have. You may not see people in your daily life doing all these jobs, so it's tough to visualize yourself doing it. So we need to. I think internships are a great way to do it. The medical field in Alaska is just plagued by this issue and I know in Fairbanks, fmh has been spending a lot of time bringing in high school students for interns and interns. There's a reason not everyone has interns. They get underfoot, and that's the point. They should be getting underfoot because they don't know anything yet.
Michael O'Brien:But getting folks turned on to, whether it's radiation technology or nursing or pediatrics, you have to be that aggressive in Alaska or else you're just going to run out of. You're not going to have people to do the jobs. So certain industries are getting it, others I'm fearful for because you look at the cost, you know, using that metaphor of like a traveling nurse, yeah, or bring someone up for a year or two from the lower 48, and they don't work out the cost involved in that turnover.
Shannon Oelkers:Not just the cost to the company, but the cost and trust to the community, the cost to the company for having to train somebody to replace that person.
Michael O'Brien:There's so much that happens when you have the wrong fit for that job to bring to the table just by having lived up here, because in that year or two of bringing someone up from the lower 48, there's a lot of getting up to speed just for Alaska that they have to do. That is expensive as well.
Shannon Oelkers:Just remote travel. There's so many people on this earth that are afraid to get into a small plane, michael, which is something we do every week at our firm. Let's go, time to go. It's an adventure, but to a lot of people that feels like an extremely risky thing to do.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah Well, and that's like the literal, the nuts and bolts of travel. The other thing that I've seen, the Alaskan workforce we sort of all get along with each other, we know how to talk to each other. But if you take someone from Seattle and fly them to a village or somewhere off the road system or even a smaller community on the road system, there's a bit of culture shock for them. No matter how welcoming or not welcoming the community is, just they don't feel comfortable. Welcoming or not welcoming the community is just they don't feel comfortable. Like it's so different, it's so different from anything else in the lower 48 that a lot of people are afraid to do that. I've seen that in my career over and over. Like they're not comfortable going to village Alaska, to rural Alaska and I'm sure someone's done a study rural Alaska is probably greatly underserved just because of that one function. Like people from the lower 48 don't want to come here and so they don't get that service.
Shannon Oelkers:True, I mean we're seeing it with a lot of the renewable energy. It's very difficult to get people to come out and fix it. I mean like to get the right kind of engineer to come out and do the work. There's definite restrictions on who's available, although that's getting a little better in the last couple of years, but 10 years ago when the windmill went out on St Paul Island. It was out for a long time because there was just nobody to come and fix it.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, I'm smiling because I had a client who was dealing with a remote facility and there were bears there. So we're talking about bear guards and who offers that service? And, like you, know what should you? How do you protect your employees who have to work in that remote environment? And we got pretty far into the conversation about hiring these bear guards. And we got pretty far into the conversation about hiring these bear guards and the client said I just think it's amazing that the bears are that well trained that they can guard the employees.
Michael O'Brien:They were thinking like a literal guard, like a guard dog, but not a guard bear Exactly, and I was thinking wow, like we've been having two totally different conversations. In fact, they thought the bear was good, that would be amazing to have trained bears guard your employees.
Shannon Oelkers:I now want a trained bear with Integrity logo, tactical gear on. That would be amazing.
Michael O'Brien:Absolutely To guard your employees in a remote location. But just wow like there was a lot of disconnect at that moment.
Shannon Oelkers:Yes, our firm has done quite a bit too. We also struggle with Alaskans who are urban. You know, maybe from the Anchorage or Mat-Su area. They definitely have exposure to rural Alaska, but not intense exposure. I mean, I myself am probably one of the most well-traveled Alaskans that I know within the state and then our firm travels pretty frequently to rural Alaska and we definitely have added trainings and company culture moments and a lot of things that sort of build people's ability to do better in rural Alaska.
Shannon Oelkers:And I know some companies do and some companies don't. But I personally feel like you have a better chance of success if you're giving people heads up on things like something simple, like shaking hands and taking your glove off and shaking skin to skin, like that's a big manners piece that many people miss if they just didn't grow up doing it that way. Or taking your sunglasses off when you talk to somebody important so you can look at them eye to eye and that's all in our handbook. You know we have like. You know like we have things about like how you interact and if you are working with a gas station, you buy your gas there, like we call it old fashioned manners, but it's also ways of doing things in rural Alaska where people are more interdependent, and those things are really important.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, and I don't think you realize I mean a lot of it is this accrual of learned habits over many years and Alaska employers. If you're working in rural Alaska, finding people who have all of that is very, very hard, and I would say the key then is to start employing more people from rural Alaska because they have all those skills. But I was reminded of that a couple of weeks ago. I had family in town and a friend of mine with a plane decided to take myself and a relative out flying and we landed in a village off the road system and my father was walking around and sort of like a tourist, like taking pictures of like everything, and I said, look, don't do that. You know that's. You know he was like just really fascinated but it's not a tourist attraction, it's their front porch.
Michael O'Brien:Right, exactly, and it sort of very quickly makes people feel other or less than when you do that and it's really easy for all. Of you know, no one's perfect in this world.
Shannon Oelkers:Oh, I struggle with that. You know how many photos I take. I definitely have to be like is this an okay one? I don't know, maybe, maybe. Fortunately, I work in a lot of industrial areas, so it's not somebody's house. But yes, you're right, there's just that piece of it One of the things I wanted to talk about, because I do think this is changing a little bit. You and I both work in some traditionally male-dominated industries and I personally am seeing more women enter these areas. My firm is actually part of that. A lot of our employees right now we're all women, but we have had men work with us before. We're not exclusive. I get asked that a lot.
Michael O'Brien:As an employment lawyer, I tell you that's probably a bad idea to be exclusive one gender.
Shannon Oelkers:No, it's illegal to hire only women, but our firm has benefits that do appeal to women, especially in the professions that we are in, and so I would argue that it's no different than an engineering firm having mostly men, because how they're structured and the benefits they offer and the career that they offer appeal to a dude engineer. But yes, we do. We do get asked that all the time, and I do think my firm's doing our best to be the little light right, but we do see more women enter, but I don't know that they're staying, and so I was curious if you had trends or data that you've come across that shows more women entering, or some of these. I mean literally, in some of these industries it's like 99% men and 1% women. I don't know. Have you seen things changing in the last couple of years or recently?
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, I don't have data on that, but I do see more and more women in traditionally male-dominated spaces, you know whether that's the slope or just industrial settings in general. You know, and I will say good on millennials and Gen Y here, because I think with Gen X we might have been the first. I think boomers sort of broke through the barriers on this issue. But a lot of what I saw in my career early on was like talk about diversity and equity. There were posters, there was training, and I give those trainings and training is important to set the tone and to establish what the culture is, to set the tone and to establish what the culture is.
Michael O'Brien:But really good on millennials and Gen Y, because like they are not satisfied with the posters and like the platitudes and like talking it up, like they demand action. You know it's fair to say they're more of an activist generation than Gen X. You know, like not in the parade sense of activism but in the like we demand real results. And so I think that more than anything like no, I'm not going to be satisfied with just talking about it, I want to see the company change its behavior on this thing.
Shannon Oelkers:Or choosing to work at a company that has those things in place and has a diverse workforce already.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, and what I always tell employers and I do a lot of training on this is it's not a good place for an employer to be to think, well, we haven't gotten sued this year. No EEOC complaints Like we must be great because you can be in that status and still have low morale. You're good employees. You know the ones you're trying to attract. They're not going to sue you necessarily. Like they leave sooner than you wish they would.
Michael O'Brien:The quiet quitting, yes, yeah, there's all those sort of attrition factors. You know why does this company just stay male? Why is it stagnating? It's probably because you're not doing enough A lot of these things we're talking about. It's about real action and people.
Michael O'Brien:Again, it's not the poster. It's like do I have a mentor who actually gets my situation and understands what I need in the workforce and not just sort of begrudgingly, lets me take my 12 weeks of FMLA when I have a child. And I'll say this my own boss when I had a child was like take as much time as you need. We are super excited for you. I felt like a thousand percent support in that setting and that's what employees are looking for now. It's not just like okay, here's the HR form, because 12 weeks later, after your FMLA is done, you still have a child. That's how that works and they have all sorts of needs and it's taxing. And one thing I see is as taxing as that is when you're a young parent.
Michael O'Brien:We're now on the other end of that equation and now it's our own parents we have to start taking care of, and especially when workforces are smaller to begin with, and Gen X is sort of the leader in the workforce now if we need to take time off, sort of the leader in the workforce now If we need to take time off, do we work in a workplace that's going to be like, yeah, like we get it.
Michael O'Brien:Like all humans have, they have parents. You know, most humans have kids, and like it's part of that being human and that's the shift in the workplace. Like the workplace isn't everything. Life is everything and the workplace is sort of what people do. Part of the day Is that sort of the new view and the workplace who, yes, we're going to support you through all these life events. They're going to have free and so I'm past the age of using daycare benefits or anything like that, and I'm sure, however much it costs my firm they've gotten their money's worth in marketing of me telling everyone I run into, because if you're in your 40s or 50s as a parent you're sort of like deep in this college hunt- and it's a loyalty right, like you're not looking for another job right now.
Shannon Oelkers:You feel happy, right. That's a huge piece of retaining employees is having benefits that matter to them, not what you think they want, and that was something I had to learn early on because I was Gen X and things that I thought would matter. There's differences, and changing how we offered those benefits was really beneficial to my firm. But I do feel for some of our employers, though, because they've got a labor shortage and then they've got a labor force that wants lots of flexibility and lots of time to do their own thing and take care of family, and I know especially some of our skilled trades where there's not really remote work flexibility, like you have to be there operating the machine or the warehouse or the whatever. How do you see some of those employers adapting and attracting employees?
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, great question. You hit the nail on the head and it sort of goes back to what I said earlier about the overtime issue is that time is seen as wealth. Now, it's not. Can I work as much as I can to accumulate wealth? It's how do I have time to myself? That's what makes me feel value and obviously, if the work has to be done in real time in a real space, someone's got to be there. But being really creative about how can I schedule people so that they have chunks of time off, I think it's a fool's errand. I see a lot of employers doing it, getting in an arms race over pay. You know, oh, we'll match this pay, we'll match that pay. The reality is that that time is more valuable. That time is more valuable and whether it's working eight months on, four off, having those options for employees like a very flexible schedule when you do have to be there is very attractive.
Shannon Oelkers:We've seen a couple of different remote work industries start adopting a two-on-two-off schedule, like the slope, so that people can live where they want to live, which is like Wasilla with better schools, right, or sometimes even Fairbanks with better schools, but they can work, do this skilled labor, in more remote locations and so they can fill those jobs. There's definitely some chatter about you know, are you taking a local job? But I can tell you right now two years of a job opening in a remote location and no one's applied and no one's qualified and no one's going to do it. That two on two off schedule has been very appealing and I've seen that work really well for some of our clients. They just had to shift from you've got to move to this location and operate this tank farm to why don't you go out and do it two weeks and then someone else will come in and relieve you and give you that time that you want to go fishing and hunting and hanging out with your family.
Michael O'Brien:And I think that speaks to this broader trend, which is not that we're working in the gig economy, but sort of the premise of the gig economy is you could do it on your time, where you want, when you want, and that isn't how these jobs work, but it's sort of it's on that spectrum of I want more flexibility, I'll be there and I'll be there 100 percent when I'm on site, but the rest of the time, in essence, why should the employer determine where my kids go to school? Is what you're saying.
Shannon Oelkers:So, Michael, you previously mentioned training and that's kind of woven throughout. What we've talked about is that there's this expectation of training. Many of our regulations and permits that we write to meet those require multiple overlapping layers of training. This includes things like technical certifications, like sort of specific training like Haswopper, and then there's like on-the-job experiential training. Could you talk to us about what role employer-provided training plays in successful employment, Because these jobs do have a lot of responsibilities.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, really interesting question, and I think COVID for a little while forced everything to go online. There's been online or virtual trainings for quite a while and we had a moment to think of well, what if all of this was going to be training, you know, could it be online training? And I think the takeaways are mixed. For some things, online has been just as good, in fact. Whether it's a recorded training or it's sort of just a training through a Teams channel, it can be very good. But the question is like engagement, like that's the key with any training.
Michael O'Brien:If I'm desperate to learn something, if it's an online training that's pre-recorded, I'm going to learn it because I really want to know it. But if it's something I'm less engaged in, I don't think it matters if it's an online training, recorded, or even if it's in person. If I'm not engaged, it's just going to sort of go over my head. So I think the levels of training have gone up, meaning you can get much better online training now than you could a few years ago and there's almost an overtraining. Because so much of it is online, people don't mind requiring even more training.
Shannon Oelkers:Well, what we see is that there's trainings that check a box, and then there's trainings that teach you how to do the thing you're supposed to be doing, and those two are not necessarily the same.
Michael O'Brien:They're not the same at all and I feel like if you really want to change minds or change behavior or like introduce a new skill, there's no substitute for hands on. You have to really sort of work through the problem yourself, sort of work through the problem yourself. Have the thing in your hands, whether it's a regulation, a tool, an experience or a problem, you have to really work through it. In the end. That's like where all education really lies. It's like giving someone that, and sometimes you give them the basics through training and then they really learn it on the job. But if we're expecting them to really learn it through training, it's just got to be excellent.
Shannon Oelkers:We talk to employers a lot about having a training program that goes beyond check boxes, because you know, I do a lot of adult development in my job and there's a lot of research that shows that somebody needs to interact with a new idea or something that you need to learn that's important at least seven times and in multiple different learning pathways.
Shannon Oelkers:And so I think a lot of employers, when they want to retain employees, they provide training programs, but then the employees are like I didn't get any training and it's because they had one video the first week they were hired and then that particular skill or responsibility was never touched upon again and just like our record keeping recommendations, you've got to like train them once, train them again, do a refresher, have an easy reference guide, have a highlight day where you bring it back up again. And I do see this corporate push to have checkbox trainings. But I think that's the start, that's where you bring it back up again. And I do see this corporate push to have checkbox trainings. But I think that's the start, that's where you start. But then there needs to be other things on the job and woven into the work environment to create an atmosphere where they're going to pick it up all those times and retain it.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, I advise clients, so there's compliance, there's like keeping the company out of jail, you know, and there's probably some amount of training that checks that box you know that says okay, we provided everyone this training.
Michael O'Brien:Like, you have to check that box again. That's like to keep us out of the jail category. That's not the aspirational. Like, okay, how do we change our culture? How do we achieve great new things? A checkbox training is not going to do that. It's the seven different ways that you're talking about. So companies are allowed to have both goals. You got to stay out of jail.
Shannon Oelkers:Yes, that's the beginning, that's where you start. You have to have the stay out of jail training.
Michael O'Brien:Yes, but no company ever got great with that as their goal Agreed. To really change people and to achieve those new things, you've got to be really work investing in people. And I think Gen Y, millennials they're sort of calling us out on that. You know, like we expect, like we're not going to play along, that we're trained after that one video like we want the real, like in essence investment you know. And again, shame on us, gen x, for not, we just sort of like oh yeah, I guess that was sufficient.
Michael O'Brien:I have no idea what I'm doing well, it comes down to cost too.
Shannon Oelkers:It costs more. It does cost more to keep hitting, but I would argue that a lot of people in the management role terminal manager, plant manager, operations lead. There are ways for them that are pretty low cost to keep. Coming back to stuff that's critical, and I do think you have to put in a little bit of work to understand what's critical, like what training is really important to not mess up, and what I see with, like in the bulk fuels industry.
Shannon Oelkers:For example, they get a lot of training on how to load and unload a tank truck because it's high risk and they do it every single day. So they get a lot of reinforcement. They don't get nearly that level of training on I don't know emergency response and spill response. They might do that once or twice a year. Right and granted, hopefully you're not going to be doing spill response every single day, but we see when they actually have a spill that there's that training gap because they've got all this reinforcement on this one area that's considered really critical but not another, even though they've had minimum trainings, they've had reviews. It just doesn't stick yeah, it is rare.
Michael O'Brien:You know we're talking about how hard it is to fill jobs and fill positions, but sort of shout out to the good managers of alaska, because those are very hard to find being a leader it's a huge retention tool, because who you work for is important as well, right?
Michael O'Brien:Right. Being a leader is very, very hard. Being a manager not quite as hard, still hard. But being a leader and really setting the tone and juggling all of these things, including investing in your employees personally and making them feel like they're important in the workplace there's not enough hours in the day for all that, so it's quite hard. So it's not just like employers are asleep at the wheel, but it's all. These positions are hard to find and sort of the managers who drive it are. It takes time to develop them.
Shannon Oelkers:It does. It does take time to develop them and develop their own understanding of what they're required to do, because if they didn't get good training when they started, they're going to have gaps in knowledge too when they get to that management tier.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, well, unfortunately, like you said, the thing that you didn't train on it doesn't happen all that often, so it's almost like it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, like, well, I guess it's not that important because it didn't happen again. It's wrong, because when it is important, it just doesn't happen all that often. You talked about the Exxon Valdez is probably maybe the world historical best example of that. It doesn't happen very often but, boy, when it does, you want everyone to be trained, and Alaska's, since then, done a good job of taking that seriously.
Shannon Oelkers:You know an example from that catastrophe I use the most. They had spill response equipment but it was buried under eight feet snow eight foot snow drifts and they had to get equipment to dig out those connexes to be able to get into them, and that did delay. And so something as simple as keeping the snow blowed away from the front of your spill connex is important. It's part of your regular groundskeeping and maintenance and it's easy to skip because you don't want to stay that extra 15 minutes because you already plowed the whole road right, but in the event of an emergency you do need it, and so that's the one I use the most from the Exxon Valdez. Yeah, yeah, that one thing fogged it up right at the beginning.
Michael O'Brien:And you need to have a culture where, if the snow gets piled up, where people feel safe, saying hey, that's not right or you know, that's not supposed to be that way.
Shannon Oelkers:Or heard Right Like they say it and somebody's like you're right, not.
Michael O'Brien:Right or they're retaliated against for being some sort of stickler goody two shoes. You know, if you have that sort of culture, you could have the most elaborate compliance program in the world and it won't do you any good. So that's a lot of what I work on is sort of what is the culture in a company and does it embrace people bringing those things up? It's sort of the biggest challenge. There is a lot of times when you have that culture, people will get it wrong. They'll think something is blocked or they'll think, oh, this isn't safe In fact it is and the company will sort of come down on them in that moment. And that's not good either, because it suggests you have to be 100% right to bring up a question. And most of us don't go through life feeling like we know everything and we have it 100% right. And so even when a person raises something that actually isn't a problem, sort of celebrating that like wow, that's great.
Shannon Oelkers:It's a training opportunity too, right.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, like we so value your employee of the week, even though you like sort of made us do this literal or figurative fire drill. Yeah, have made us do this literal or figurative fire drill yeah, because you could have a sort of not optimal compliance program. But if everyone has a compliance mindset, that's going to fill in a lot of the gaps.
Shannon Oelkers:Yeah, I really like the point you made that you can have the most optimal compliance program in the world, but if the culture doesn't allow its employees to operate within it and safely call things out, you're right, that definitely is a huge factor in actually achieving compliance. Yeah, michael, thank you for your time today. Is there anything else you would like to bring up related to labor or the industries we work with, and do you have any resources that you would recommend for someone who's listened to us?
Michael O'Brien:I'm a big LinkedIn person and, for me, getting involved online in different industry groups and seeing what's sort of cutting edge, whether it's in the travel industry the travel industry may seem very different from the bulk fuel industry, but everything that we talked about today would apply to that industry, would apply to hospitality, would apply to fishing. You know everyone's facing sort of this change in the workplace and these new expectations in the workplace. You know I use that story of the zookeeper and changing mentality. Like who do we need to go after? Mentality like who do we need to go after? Like what mindset solves these problems? And seeing how other industries are doing.
Michael O'Brien:It is really fascinating. Like I have learned a lot just by reading wonky sort of industry newsletters talking about how they're solving these problems and how they're going to pivot, and maybe they've already figured something out that you're trying to work on. So that's what I'm on, because I'm always trying to sort of look over the horizon and see like, okay, I'm a huge advocate for Alaska, I know you are too. How do we turn the corner and do something new, because a lot of the old things aren't going to be there anymore?
Shannon Oelkers:They sure aren't Okay. So look to groups in your industry. Sign up for free newsletters, sign up to actually be members of those groups on things like LinkedIn, Facebook. Some of them are even on Instagram now, although less so. Depends on the industry, Okay. And then what about things like legalities and labor law? I'm guessing the state of Alaska and the federal government have good resources for things like that as well.
Michael O'Brien:As far as like checking that compliance box, yeah, it's like a lot of things in life. The biggest mistake people come to me with is ignoring some problem and they're like you know, we've been doing this wrong for 10 years or 15 years. They're like you know, we've been doing this wrong for 10 years or 15 years and it got caught in an audit or it got caught Like in my experience. That's probably true of many, many things in life. But in the legal world, you know, things compound, there's trouble, damages Alaska. We are really lucky on labor stuff, you know. So wage an hour, just a bit of a shout out to the Alaska Department of Labor. You can just call them up and say hey, like a lot of times I do it anonymously at first and say I'm not going to tell you this client, but how can we solve this problem?
Michael O'Brien:Like everyone you know, the problems we've been talking about plague the government as well. They're not looking to come down on companies and, like you know, you see things in the news that they're going to do some massive fine. Generally speaking, those agencies want people just to get in compliance. So I'm really comfortable calling up a variety of state agencies and say let's solve this problem together. Like this person just realized it. They just called me. They want to get in compliance so, as opposed to other states like that is not the case, don't try that in California.
Shannon Oelkers:No, don't try anything in California.
Michael O'Brien:But in Alaska you really can solve the problem through some phone calls and like people have a very sincere interest in having companies work and employ people and succeed. They don't want people to be abused no one does. But a very easy example is people don't realize that you have to pay overtime over eight hours. If you work over eight hours in Alaska, they just think it's over 40 hours in a week but it's actually eight hours in a day. A lot of companies get that wrong for a long time because they just don't know it. Similarly, they treat employees as independent contractors when they should really be employees and there's a real dollar value for that mistake for employees. So it's not that it may not cost you anything. It probably will cost you something, but it's a problem that can be fixed and that's a lot of my day is just working with other people here in the state. Okay, how do we solve this problem To keep everyone's interested in keeping businesses?
Shannon Oelkers:keep it on solve this problem to keep everyone's interested in keeping businesses keep it on. What are your thoughts about having a proactive relationship with? A labor and employment lawyer and finding those mistakes before they crop up in an audit.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah, yeah, I think that's. You know, most people don't need like an in-house counsel, but even in our conversation, like I could give you 10 questions Do you pay all your employees as independent contractors? That's probably a problem. You know, like there's sort of a greatest hits list that if you're doing all these things it's not because people are evil, it's because companies start small and informal and a lot of this seems intuitive, it seems reasonable. You know, for example, instead of giving overtime after eight hours, giving people flex time People love that. It's illegal.
Shannon Oelkers:Yes, yes.
Michael O'Brien:But there's a way to do it legally. There is a way to flexible work plan in the state of Alaska will allow for it. So there's sort of a greatest hits of mistakes people make as they grow from, like, working out of the basement to owning an office and having a lot of employees. You know withholding it, you know it can be complex, but most of them are, like, very easily solved.
Shannon Oelkers:So maybe checking in a different growth stages of your business is helpful as well, In addition to like finding out where you are now being aware that if you're a company and you're growing, you're probably going to have additional things you got to hit as you grow.
Michael O'Brien:Right, exactly, and there are different. You know certain laws, like the American Disabilities Act, family Medical Leave Act they kick in at, like, say, 50 employees or 15 employees. So there's a lot of this stuff. You just don't need to worry about when you're very small, but then you need to start worrying about it in a major way once you get to a certain critical mass.
Shannon Oelkers:That is super helpful. I actually took some notes while you were chatting for my own self. Before you go, though, Michael, I wanted to say thank you for coming on here and speaking so broadly and sharing your enthusiasm and love for Alaska, and I wanted to just end our conversation today. You and I both share a love of old machinery. That's how we became friends on LinkedIn, because I was posting strange machines which I wish you would do more of. I'm trying. I'm trying.
Shannon Oelkers:The first time we actually talked about this, I posted a photo from 1909, and I will post this in our show notes. It's a photo of a wooden oil tank and it's being pulled by this massive horse team across the snow and it's for the John J Sessnan Electric Company light plant in Nome, Alaska. And, just as a sidebar, I really love the thought of horse-powered oil tanks Like that. Just the irony delights me. But you and I were talking about that photo because I was interested in the tank, but you had a story and a tie-in to the sledge that the tank was sitting on, that the horses were pulling. Yes, Tell me about the sledge that the tank was sitting on that the horses were pulling.
Shannon Oelkers:Yes, Tell me about the sledge.
Michael O'Brien:Yeah. So I also love old stuff in Alaska, which, if you love old stuff, alaska is the place to be, because, a there's a lot of it and B no one can afford to get rid of it, so it tends to just sit wherever it was last used. And I had the great fortune of a friend who lives in Fort Yukon and does logging and he found in their dump not one but two of those giant sleds and I was just mesmerized by this thing. You know, you can imagine a telephone pole size log. It could hold about 25 of those. He pulled it with a bulldozer, not with horses, and I was watching him use this thing and I was like where did this come from? It has links and chains. The chains have five pound links. I mean, these are huge, huge chains. And the only sort of marking on the sled was Fond du Lac, wisconsin. And so I was like well, that's all I need.
Michael O'Brien:And I wrote an email to the Fond du Lac Historical Society and they knew all about these giant sleds and they'd been produced there for the California Silver Rush, these giant sleds. So I forget what year that was, but maybe it's like the 49ers. That's why it's like the San Francisco 49ers. Anyway, they were built to get over the Sierras to bring mining equipment to these mines and they're indestructible. They're massive oak timbers and they just sort of followed one boom after another so they kept using them to haul anywhere there was snow. And this one in particular had been used on the Cannell Road in Canada to the oil fields there and they were used to make the dew lines like the direct early warning military sites to pull stuff around there, and I think that's probably how it got to Fort Yukon, to the Air Force Base there.
Shannon Oelkers:Oh, through the dew lines. Huh, that's fascinating.
Michael O'Brien:And the interesting. So you have this 100-year-old or older sled. It's still better than anything you could buy. People figured things out at some point sometimes and that's like best in class, and so sometimes you just we still have the benefit of those things in Alaska sometimes that are still in use here because we can't afford to get rid of them.
Shannon Oelkers:All right. Well, thank you, Michael. I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for sharing so much of your knowledge and your experience with our listeners. I really appreciate it.
Haley Hall:Thank you for tuning into Tank Talk with Integrity Environmental. For additional information, please visit our website www. integrity-env. com. Interested in becoming a guest on Tank Talk or have a topic you'd like to learn more about? Send an email to marketing@ integrity-env. com.
Haley Hall:Until next time,
Shannon Oelkers:Hi there, this is Shannon Oelkers and, as the owner of Integrity Environmental, I wanted to take a minute here at the end of the podcast to make sure that you knew the following this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal or regulatory advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional regulatory or legal advice, and the views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host that would be me or Integrity Environmental. Thank you very much for listening and if you do need professional regulatory advice, we'd be happy to help you as part of our consulting services.
