Join the conversation as we sit down with Ruairi Spillane, Founder and CEO at Outpost Recruitment to dissect the urgent transformation needed in the construction industry's culture and branding. Ruairi's insights unravel the complexities of attracting a global talent pool and the vital steps to integrate immigrant workers into the Canadian construction sector. As we navigate through the industry's resistance to change and the hesitation of seasoned professionals to pass the torch, our discussion strikes a balance between honoring their legacies and the pressing need for a diverse and dynamic workforce to secure the industry's future.
This episode tackles the inefficiencies plaguing current hiring practices, drawing parallels with the delicate dance of dating, underscoring the necessity for both energy and commitment from HR and hiring managers alike. We candidly address the paradox faced by companies who fear seeming too eager when scouting talent, often missing out on prime candidates, and explore how a shift toward inclusivity can significantly enrich the talent pool. With Ruairi's expertise, we shed light on the barriers and breakthroughs in advancing the construction industry, from navigating succession planning dilemmas to championing gender diversity and learning from the global stage.
PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH
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Join the conversation as we sit down with Ruairi Spillane, Founder and CEO at Outpost Recruitment to dissect the urgent transformation needed in the construction industry's culture and branding. Ruairi's insights unravel the complexities of attracting a global talent pool and the vital steps to integrate immigrant workers into the Canadian construction sector. As we navigate through the industry's resistance to change and the hesitation of seasoned professionals to pass the torch, our discussion strikes a balance between honoring their legacies and the pressing need for a diverse and dynamic workforce to secure the industry's future.
This episode tackles the inefficiencies plaguing current hiring practices, drawing parallels with the delicate dance of dating, underscoring the necessity for both energy and commitment from HR and hiring managers alike. We candidly address the paradox faced by companies who fear seeming too eager when scouting talent, often missing out on prime candidates, and explore how a shift toward inclusivity can significantly enrich the talent pool. With Ruairi's expertise, we shed light on the barriers and breakthroughs in advancing the construction industry, from navigating succession planning dilemmas to championing gender diversity and learning from the global stage.
PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH
FOLLOW ALONG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit
Welcome to the Site. Visit podcast. Leadership and perspective from construction With your host, James Faulkner.
Speaker 2:Live from BuildX Vancouver 2024.
Speaker 1:You're live with Rory Spilland. Thanks for having me on. Okay, so you're from Outpost Recruitment. Just take us through that. Take us through what you do on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:First and foremost, I'm an immigrant entrepreneur and innovator, so I have two companies. Moving to Canada is a free information platform focused on helping newcomers be successful in Canada. Outpost Recruitment is a boutique recruitment agency. We focus on basically linking Canadian construction employers with the best global and local talent.
Speaker 1:Okay, great. And so you and I had a couple of emails going backwards and forwards and I think you and I need like a disclaimer before we get into anything that we're going to talk about today, and that disclaimer is that we are advocating for the construction industry to have its evolution in terms of Darwinism of its culture, darwinism of its own personality, darwinism of its own brand of construction. So let's just, based on the sort of email thread we were talking back, I'll just set this up for kind of what I think and you can sort of pipe in what do you think is the problem in top of funnel, people suggesting to their kids or suggesting to their 20-somethings who still haven't moved out of the basement that construction might or might not be something that is a prospect for their career?
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a deep question. So you think the problem with promoting is locally in Canada. I would say the best way I would describe construction is it's an industry of stodgy old white males. We need a lot of change here. There's a lot of change in mindset. We keep talking about innovation in the industry. We're terrified of change in Canada. I think that if we can rebrand our industry, we can solve multiple problems. We have huge labour shortage. We also, at the same time, have a problem we're not integrating immigrants to our economy. Can you imagine those two problems existing together? And we also have a third problem, which is the lack of innovation. We need to rebrand our industry as people that are being open to change, that we're assembling diverse teams and celebrating them and succeeding with them. So I think it's a huge opportunity with three different facets to it and they're all interrelated. Not one of these problems can be solved without impacting the other one.
Speaker 1:OK, so let's unpack that a little bit. So when we say stodgy old white men, obviously Look around.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of relationships with stodgy old white men. I guess you could call them. The one thing that I would say is that them protecting their turf. You could consider them a culture or whatever, but they are typically very. They have a lot of experience, They've taken a lot of risks, they have moved the industry forward to where it is today, and so they need to be given the credit that they deserve for the risks they've taken and everything they've built. So you know, that's sort of a caveat there. The question is is that where the rubber hits the road is where the succession happens, and how that succession can be passed on to a demographic of people who they might feel have the same attention to detail that they think they have. It might be a different way, because it might be a digital way or it might be. We all know this from dealing with younger generation. They're kind of snappier and they sort of operate on a different strata than a different generation. So do you think that there's something there?
Speaker 2:Dealing with the last part first. Yeah, there's always a problem is in what put business person feels difficulty handing over their prized asset to the younger generation. We always, every generation in history, always has doubts about the next generation after them. That's never, ever going to change. You know, when we were young our parents said that's not how it was when I was young.
Speaker 2:We always hear that yeah, yeah, and then we go on to have kids and we say, oh my God, things are completely different when I was alive. And that's just us. We're just looking back. It's nostalgia, a lot of it is nostalgia. We're almost jealous that things are very different for us, that we had more different challenges when we were growing up. To go back to the start of your question, I suppose I used to study old white males. I used that line to aggravate people to get people's attention because I definitely would.
Speaker 2:I probably have a few wolves circling now after my comment.
Speaker 1:No, no, no no.
Speaker 2:The reality for me. I just came from the ICBA CEO's breakfast this morning. You look around the room. Okay, we'll bring some data into it. Okay, buildforce data 27% of the entire Canadian workforce is made up of newcomers. Right now, 27%, that's more than one in four, if you so when you say newcomers, newcomers to Canada. Newcomers to Canada.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I believe they classify as a newcomer as somebody who's in the country within the last five years.
Speaker 1:Like PR card kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, settled in the country. Okay, got it. When you look through that CEO's room, these are leaders in the industry, but you can see how far we need to go. It is a room full of predominantly older white males. They have done an incredible job. So I suppose the first thing I want to touch on here is credit. I've learned so much from these people. These people have created the industry. But at my table as well, we had one of those senior leaders and he talked about succession. He talked about trying to decide when the timing was right to go away. There seems to be a challenge for people to let go. Every business has to have a succession plan and I think the challenge is when to let go. I've had this. I grew up in a family business. I grew up in a guest house in the southwest of Ireland. My parents didn't know when to let go.
Speaker 1:We couldn't tell if they were asking.
Speaker 2:We literally had to retire my parents and COVID was a gift because I had to convince my parents that there is more to life than your family business. They became workaholics. I think we've a whole generation of these white males who have done an incredible work to build the industry, to give it the sterling reputation it has in this economy there needs to be. They need to find a point to let go, to trust other people, and that comes back down to, as well as in trusting a younger generation Person with your prized asset, you know. But there's a lot of great examples of companies being handed, handed down. So I think it's just part of it's part of life. You know, we've got to realize that there's got to be a succession and for these people They've got to have a succession from what they're doing and they've got to allow somebody else to take the business or the sector in in different directions to what they would do under their leadership so what is the average tenure for?
Speaker 1:let's say I Mean this yeah, are you recruiting for field staff and office, both?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty much from you know. Field engineers. Project coordinator.
Speaker 1:It's up to executives. So what's the average tenure for a project coordinator at a construction GC?
Speaker 2:Ooh, it's probably two to three years now.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if you can think of the, you know the, the entrepreneur who started the company, and they, and they have this feeling that people are always ready to jump ship for a better opportunity. That could be the reluctance for letting go because it's lack of trust there. Secondly, you know, from having a sort of a background you know with site max dealing with corporate finance and understanding you know how shares work, how you know there's many, many different ways to To have. You know option agreements you can have. You know you know different ways to incentivize your staff to stick around and do the things they want to do. That is actually really worth it. You know, if you really want to have a succession that's worth something, then you know it's better to have something that continues on, to keep keep paying you a check when you're not working anymore. Then it is to. You know, try and sell something outright and then you need and it didn't get what you wanted for it.
Speaker 1:So let's just dive into one other thing, one thing in the email, which is this is this is why I was really stoked to listen to talk to you, because you, we were talking about the, the brand of construction, and you were saying that you know it's the evolution of what people think of it as a, as a community or a career opportunity, that it is a self-inflicted, that the construction industry kind of Doesn't help itself I guess that would be the the translation there and, in a less visceral way, of Having a yeah. So what are the things? How are, how is the construction industry as a whole, in your opinion, inflicting Injury on itself in terms of it moving forward?
Speaker 2:I think the self-inflicted comments were with relation to the labor shortage.
Speaker 2:I said D. Okay, first of all, before I go into this, there is an acute shortage of skilled laborers in our inner industry. That's because they're not coming through the immigration system, rightly or wrongly. Ottawa is not a huge fan of trades immigration. They're a huge fan of white collar immigration, but there's only so many white collar people our economy needs, and they badly need trades people right now. But when we look at the labor shortage in general in the construction industry or even in the Canadian economy, my argument that is that a lot of our problems are self-inflicted. You know we've got there's three areas that we need to improve on quickly. You know, as in, we've got very lethargic HR practices in this country.
Speaker 1:Okay, take me through that. What's what? What's lethargic about HR right now?
Speaker 2:everything, every, and this is like, I must add, with this. This isn't just one agency griping about their customers. This is more of from the moving to Canada side. I observe I'm a I'm a fly in the wall for a lot of recruitment processes. I I place some candidates for a fee. I help a lot of immigrants for free because I helped them with their resume and I give them contacts for my clients. So I'm gonna fly on the wall to a lot of different recruitment processes outside of the paid search Environment. So this isn't just a recruiter griping that people don't want to pay for his candidates. Right, the John. When we talk about lethargic HR practices, the biggest problem is everything is too slow. We're always hiring by jury. There's no defined like. I've never met a company that can schedule a second interview for a great candidate to during a crunch to hire.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Joe, and that's a very, very simple suggestion that I make to people. I'm saying if you really want to make this hire, why wouldn't you schedule the first interview and the second interview? You can cancel it if you don't need it. So there's a lot of common sense that isn't necessarily applied. What we normally do is first interview two or three days to dust off, get the feedback. Everyone's too busy to give you the feedback. Then we get hold and we say, oh, let's look at an interview next week, but everyone's busy, so let's all we need to go to follow a week right, so it's a leaky bucket basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like how important is hiring? Hiring is the most or is our biggest problem in the industry right now, but we're not prioritizing it. We have got a too busy to hire mindset. No, we've got HR professionals and hiring manager where the gold standard is being too busy instead of making the higher.
Speaker 1:Okay so let's just. Let's just talk about that for a second. So in my career of hiring hundreds of people over my career, I've found One thing from doing interview after years most people suck. Most people suck, they do they really not? Either they're reaching for something that they're not really that good at or, luckily, I've had a lot of people who are great, although I would never be able to get where I've gotten. But I've gone through or interviewed a lot of people that are just terrible.
Speaker 1:So when it's almost like it's very akin to dating in a way you have to, kind of you know, get out there and go to the nightclub and do the thing like the old days. That's what you used to do. Now you're just swiping right or left, whatever. That that's another whole podcast. But the whole notion of the fact that you have to go through this process of finding people and maybe being a bit jaded that people are going to eventually let you down and maybe that's like that oh, we'll do one interview and then we'll try and do the next one, and maybe it's because the process is so taxing, do you think that could be something to do with it? Because you have to, kind of you, sit across the table, you have an interview with somebody. You kind of have to kind of get to know them. There's a lot of energy, it's like a performance Right. You've got to.
Speaker 1:If you really want to connect with somebody, to know what it's going to be like to work somewhere, then you really have to communicate and put your time in in order to conduct that interview properly, even on the HR side. So and there's a talent on the HR side as well so you probably deal with hiring managers all the time with your service Correct Right. So you're dealing with HR, you know head of HR etc. And they're reaching out to you. Can you send us some candidates? But even the HR person has to be great to have a vision, to have a shared vision with the owners or whoever.
Speaker 1:And maybe it's just when you're bringing in. There are a lot of stars out there, rock star people. But is it because there's a cultivating of people who are sort of mid excitement and just feeling a job? Do you understand what I'm saying? Is it because of the process and the product? That kind of makes it mundane. That's why people are reluctant to put a huge priority to it and that would make it self inflicted. Yeah, am I talking completely out to lunch here, or does it kind of make sense?
Speaker 2:No, there's a lot of validity in that. And like what hiring manager? Your job as a hiring manager is to get your hiring process dialed in. When you sit with a good guy and you have 45 good minutes with a candidate that you can say, okay, we like this guy. I'm going to do one second chat just to zone in on a few different things that I've thought about since I've met him. Okay, but we're going to set the second interview up before we leave the room, because this guy is good but we're not there.
Speaker 2:And like it's very easy to tell people you need to rush your hiring. It's not. You learn yourself when you're hiring. We grew, we hired 10 people last year, we're seven, we went to 17. I heard for roles. I didn't know what were, you know. So I understand how difficult it is. But, like as an industry, we have to be dialed in on what the gold standard for hiring is, what we're looking for and when we see it. We got to be decisive.
Speaker 2:My gripe with hiring process in Canada is we expect it to be on demand. You know we're all as we're always expecting. Oh, we need a guy we're not ready to hire just yet and I'm like, yeah, but hire him or hire him now or just put forward a start date, you know. But we always go oh, let's wait, and didn't? They come to a recruitment agency and they expect miracles. Instead of paying one month's salary extra, they're now paying a recruitment fee and it just doesn't make sense. It's in if you get a good guy, go through the process with him, tell him where you're at, seize their flexibility and timing and make it happen. But we're looking for when we engage in processes here, we're looking for reasons not to hire rather than hire. And that's why I talk about our mindset. We're hiring by jury, we're passing the book, we're saying, oh, let's have a meet the CEO or the ops manager. I'm not sure I said why your job is to hire people, make a decision.
Speaker 1:Interesting because you I always find that you know casting directors always say that you know when you're casting for a part, you have the part. The minute you walk into the room it's your chance to lose it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's how it should be here. When you walk in, whether you're a newcomer or a local candidate, you should be. We should be hiring people on the spot in their first interview.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see, I see, but instead but it does also. It's a risk mitigation to, though I mean, you have to admit that you know if it's just the owner hiring, they have to pass it through. So maybe what you're saying is there has to be some way to sort of take the add some grease to the wheels here.
Speaker 2:I would summarize it by saying it's like the first hire, every hire. When I go through processes with employers, they are second guessing themselves. They are passing the buck. Instead of having a, this is how the first, second and third interview is going to look, and this is when we make a decision. It's like let's sit on this. I have my notes here for my chat later and I need to sit on this for a few days. Let's see how things look in a few weeks. Come see us when you get to Canada.
Speaker 2:I see, I'm like the time is now. We either have a labor shortage or we don't. I see, I see, well, that's a power dynamic thing, isn't it?
Speaker 1:it's almost it's ascending your rank so that you can establish a power dynamic early. It's like I'll get back to you because I'm the decision maker and when in fact, they're in an economy where it's flipped, they actually need the people. So they can't actually act like that, but they want to, because they want to set up the power dynamic first, because if you come in, well, we need somebody. Can you start tomorrow? Like yeah. Then they're like yeah, yeah, let's talk about salary and then something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like dating, you don't want to come across as desperate there you go but at the end of the day, we need the people here. Why are we looking for? Why are we biding our times? And one of the most common lines and infuriating lines I get as a recruiter in this industry is single email. Is your candidate still available? Guess what the answer normally is yeah, no, gone no.
Speaker 2:So we're very myopic in terms of how we hire Hiring managers. Our HR people are like okay, we only need a project manager right now. We can't talk to your superintendent. Next thing in three weeks time they're coming back. Is your superintendent available? I'm like have a five minute chat with any candidate who is available, understand who they are and tell them the time. We're not in a position to hire right now, but we'd love to stay in touch. But we're afraid to engage in this country. We're afraid to engage with the solution for our hiring shortage, which is people, and in most cases it's immigrants.
Speaker 1:Is this a Canadian thing? Is it like this in the US, or are they more direct?
Speaker 2:The US is not a good standard for anything. Right now, the US are just about to vote in Donald Trump for the second time. So I think that's Canada's innovation problem. As we compare ourselves to the US, I would prefer to say well, what's going on? Look at similar countries Australia they realized 15 years ago they had a huge labor shortage. What they did very well, and it is being done in Canada, is they learned how to assemble diverse teams and celebrate that diversity and make things work quickly. In Canada, we're starting to learn it now. There's great examples. I always, instead of just going through all these gripes and sounding bitter about the industry, I love to raise people up. What you've got to do is there's some companies I just realized there.
Speaker 1:It's gone.
Speaker 2:John McKenzie was the name. John McKenzie is construction manager out at the Royal Columbian Hospital. Four years ago, when they won that project, he assembled a diverse team. What Ellis Don have done in the last four years is they have learned how to thrive with a diverse team of workers.
Speaker 1:When you say diverse, what kind of categories you're talking to be diverse?
Speaker 2:I'm talking about immigration, right Immigration they come from everywhere, so just coming from everywhere, Yep they have that's kind of inherent now, isn't it? Yes and no. But for our first, john, what we do when we get a newcomer in front of us in Canada? We beat them up. We focus on what they don't have. We tell them oh, you don't have local experience. We keep reminding them you don't have local experience. It's going to be really hard. How about if we flip that upside down? We said what can you teach us?
Speaker 2:I see Okay, guess where most innovation comes from in global construction. Canada is not the innovation hub, so a lot of these global innovations come from primarily Europe and Asia, but when people come to us from those countries, we're obsessed with shoehorning them into the Canadian way, first of and foremost.
Speaker 2:So there's a huge opportunity to learn. We could say what can you teach us? This is how we do it. Tell us what you're doing in London, tell us what you're doing in Sydney. We want to learn, but instead we're obsessed with the Canadian way here. And that's actually, john. That was the point. Our flawed obsession with local experience is investing us the opportunity to staff jobs, but also the opportunity to innovate.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Okay, do you have any information on the top of funnel of women versus men? How many are coming into construction, what those numbers are, even maybe from your experience? What's that kind of split, if you were to say percentage wise?
Speaker 2:Just from a recruitment point of view. Yeah, just total, I would say about 20% of the candidates I deal with are female 20% yeah 80% male.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So what is that reason, do you think? Is it just a lack of want?
Speaker 2:That's a tough one to answer. I, going back to my first answer again, is I think if the industry is more progressive, it would be more attractive to a lot of people.
Speaker 1:What are the factors of that being progressive? Do you think there's a?
Speaker 2:lot of I don't know what to polite with. I say in Canada there's a lot of approaches. I heard a comment from one of our great national constructors about four or five years ago. Is we'll switch to BIM when the guys in the corner retire? We're a little bit resistant to change in Canada.
Speaker 2:If we could get a lot more progressive, if health and safety was a lot more progressive in Canada we're way behind the rest of the world in terms of fall protection, health and safety these aspects. If we could be seen as an innovator and like, instead of being a slow adopter or a begrudging adopter of change. If we could be more progressive in everything we do in terms of hiring diverse people, in terms of immigration, I think females would feel more welcome in their industry because they're conscious that there's a lot of the older demographic are slowing down change in our industry and that's going to slow down the openness to females being in the industry as well. Any of these challenges when we talked about chauvinist behavior or things like that, it's not young people, it's the old superintendent who's extremely skilled, but we're afraid to call him a sight and say you need to change your ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hear you. Problem is it's just a different time, it's a different generation. They don't think they're doing any harm or foul and their intentions are. They're all probably very nice people, I don't know. It's tough. So we've got about a minute left because these are short interviews. This is like and I got 14 of these today, not today, well over the next two days, but just maybe a little plug for your company, anything you want to say, any statement you want to say, just to close off here today. It's been a pleasure chatting with you. I think hopefully we can do a longer one later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to. You can obviously tell I'm quite passionate about all of these topics.
Speaker 2:For 12 years I'm a newcomer advocate. I get very passionate about pushing it. So we've talked about the labor shortage problem. The solution is immigration. We had two million immigrants come into the country in the last two years. It hasn't moved the dial on our open roles, so we've got a big problem in terms of our immigration system and our labor market being out of sync. My goal with my companies is to bring people together. We're focused on helping newcomers for success. That's helping them with their resume, their job skills, their communication, all of that. But there's a lot of advocacy in terms of employers. The reason I'm at BuildX today is to chat about just being successful with newcomer talent. We talked about the lethargic HR practices. We talked about the flawed obsession with local experience. The other basic one is improve your immigration knowledge. There is no excuse for not knowing the difference between a temporary work permit and POR and not being familiar with the BCP and P program in our industry right now Global stream and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:I would encourage anyone curious to innovate and hire newcomers to get in touch. I'm very happy to give people advice. We have a lot of open source information. It's not all about plugging my recruitment business, but we are proud to basically help the construction industry innovate through global talent. Okay so what's your website? It's OutpostRecruitmentcom. And then Moving to Canada, is it's moving the number to Canadacom?
Speaker 1:Perfect. Well, thank you very much. Thanks, Laurie. I appreciate it. That was awesome. Have a great rest of your trade show. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming. Well, that does it for another episode of the Site Visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for a monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystemscom slash, the Site Visit, where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the Site Visit podcast and Sitemax, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.