The rise of women in trade: Guest starring Hacia Atherton, founder of Empowered Women in Trades (EWIT)

Andy
It’s important for us to look outside our business and take note of the industry change because that’s how you stay ahead of the game.

Ange
Yeah. So for instance, the rising number of women in trade, you may not think as a business owner that you should care or that it has an impact on your business, but that’s actually just not true. And today we’re going to show you why.

Andy
So with that in mind, Ange and I would like to welcome a true leader of women in trade, Hacia Atherton, founder of EWITC Empowered Women in Trades Charity. Welcome, Hacia.

Hacia
Thank you for having me.

Andy
So Hacia, let’s just dive right in here. You know, your charity Empowered Women in Trade, you’ve got a pretty ambitious target of raising female tradies from 3% to 25% by 2030. You know, what is the strategy for achieving this goal?

Hacia
Yeah, and I think being ambitious is important. It took us 10 years to move the needle from 1% to 3%. So if we’re not going out there and having ambitious goals, we’re gonna keep crawling along at snail’s pace and it’s a complex problem or issue. And we’re looking at strategies that are addressing both the attraction phase and the retention phase. Because there’s no point in attracting a whole bunch of women into the trades if we’re not also supporting industry to make the cultural change that’s needed. Toilet facilities having appropriate toilet facilities on site for these women that are coming in, following their passion, being really courageous to step into Australia’s biggest boys club. And then if we don’t point,

Andy
Yeah, big point.

Hacia
Yeah. And if we don’t have facilities there, uh, both the mental and physical ones to support them, then we won’t retain them. So our strategies focus on both the attraction phase and creating awareness and opportunities for women to explore trades, get their hands on the tools. Support them with the mental tools as well around how they overcome self-doubt, unconscious bias, conscious bias, all these different things. And then how do we also, and then we’ve got programs where developing to support industry to gain shift the mindset, understand the importance. How do you work with a female when you’ve never worked with a female before in your whole entire career and all of a sudden there’s this girl on the tools next to you, how much do you have to change? And a lot of men feel uncomfortable cuz they go, do I have to change the way I talk, the way I talk about in the lunchroom.

Andy
Really? Yeah, exactly. It changes everything, right? Yes. All of a sudden go, well, hang on. It’s been like this for so long, but now what do we do and what’s the right thing to say? And the wrong thing to say, and where’s the line in the sand of where, you know what he said?

Ange
Yeah. . I do think over time it’s changed considerably with respect to, we’ve got a daughter who’s 15, so she’s in year 10 at school, and I do know that, you know, from the era that we were even at school, like if you’re talking about that a track strategy, trades even then was considered the dropout. It still is, I suppose considered kind of the dropout industry of choice, but they still direct that to males. Right? But what I do love is it’s very common now that trades are introduced at like year 10, 11, and 12. There’s a lot of woodwork and like there are a lot of classes or opportunities to do subject matter that covers even TAFE as an example. They can do things like building certifications whilst they’re finishing year 12. So it’s good to see that something’s happened. But I agree there’s not perhaps enough.

Hacia
And that’s the thing that I’m very passionate about. Repositioning trades is just another four year degree. You’ve gotta compensate, you’ve gotta do classwork, you’ve gotta do assignments. You’ve gotta be signed off just like uni. No one just goes and hands you a trade. It’s not an easy thing to actually obtain. So it’s around repositioning that as well. But if we keep providing, even though we’re empowered women in trades, we are very keen to make sure we’re designing programs that support men in this change because the more support we have for men to understand and and welcome women into the environment, then the cultural change will be able to retain the women and we’ll get to that 25%. And I think that’s a real key to our strategy and success is making sure men are involved in the conversation, making sure that we’re supporting men. Because a lot of the time men are not doing anything bad or malice or you know, they’re just really uncomfortable, don’t know how to act, and therefore sometimes act in an inappropriate way without realizing it.

Andy
And being in that male dominated space. I love how you said the biggest boys club in the world.

Hacia
Such a good thing, you know?

Andy
Um, and we’re just so used to that banter and how we act on site and, and all of a sudden, you’re right, we sit there having lunch going, oh, okay. What do we do now? You know, so we’ve gotta be so careful, can’t be talking about what happens on the weekends and what we got up to and all this.

Ange
You can, it’s just language does change, I suppose.

Andy
Well, yeah.

Hacia
Yeah

Ange
I’m actually really surprised to see, or, or that you’ve made a statement that women make up only 3% of the skilled trade industry. Uh, I know here on, on this show, on this, uh, podcast as well as in our educational business lifestyle tradie, we have a lot of female trade business owners, and they’re generally husband and wife teams, but there are a few that are sole business owners and trades people on the tools. So from your experience, Hacia, from working with women in trade, do many aspire to become trade business owners?

Hacia
Very much so. And when we are looking at even women before they have picked up the tools or even enrolled in an apprenticeship, that’s a lot of questions they’re asking around career progression and pathways. A lot of them might not want to necessarily stay in the hardcore commercial construction industry. Once they have kids. They want more flexibility in everything. So a lot of the questions when women are even starting to inquire about trades is, can I turn this into my own business? What would that look like? What point in my, uh, trade journey, can I start my own business? Do I have to wait until I’m five years after I’m qualified? These are all the questions. So women are very attracted to that, how they set up their own business once they’re qualified.

Andy
Yeah, and there’s some pretty scary stats out there. Um, according to your charity in Australia, we’re approaching the lowest level of apprenticeship commencement since the late 1990s, and the number of females doing an apprenticeship of any type fell by 12.2% from 2016 to 2020. So why do you think that is? And what can we, as trade business owners do to change this?

Hacia
Yeah, and it’s gonna be great to see some data coming out now that the government’s got all of these apprenticeship boost supports and everything, that’s definitely gonna turn the tide because it’s great to create that support for employers to take on an apprentice, cuz they do cost time and money and effort. They make mistakes. Work has to be redone. It’s a learning process on the tools. Unlike university where you make a mistake in an assignment or in an exam room and it’s not on client’s time. So it’s fantastic to see the government supporting it, and I think the statistics that will start to come out will show a change in that tide. But a lot of the reasons I think apprenticeships dropped is that what we’re talking about before school’s position is that you’re not smart enough to go to uni. You’ve failed as a successful person. Off you go be a tradie, which is ironic cuz I went to university and I know a lot of tradies that earn way more than my fellow commerce degree graduates.

Ange
Totally.

Hacia
So the other layer to that is a lot of parents consider the trade industries of manufacturing construction, say 20 years ago or 30 years ago, when it was the Wild West, there were some things that were happening in those industries that are pretty shocking. And I hear stories from, you know, my dad of that era, and I, I was like, how did that even legally even happen? So the industries in the last 20 years have changed dramatically with oh and s. With becoming a lot more professional environments now, but the mindset of parents, they haven’t been educated that way. So they’re quite resistant sometimes to letting their kids go into the trades because they’re like, oh, you’re gonna get tied up with duct tape and buried in a trench, alive and left there overnight. Which is a story that I heard happened 25 years ago. Oh my goodness. That would never, ever, ever, ever happen in today’s commercial construction.

Andy
No, not true. Like, um, we’re, every tradie out there listening now would, would’ve straightaway thought of like a million stories of what happened when they’re, when you’re an apprentice and you first start and all these kinds of stuff, so you’re right. We have changed a hell of a lot to get to where we are today, but now it’s about how we change even more to make sure we can get to those targets. You guys want to hear the 25%?

Ange
Hey. Yeah, your charity mentioned that if we increase the number of female tradespeople, we could boost Australia’s G D P by 11% and boost economic growth by 25 billion over the next decade. And we always say that small businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy, and those stats pretty much prove it. So that’s said, if there is such a massive financial incentive for our government to act on this, why do you think so little focus has been given to the issue of females taking on trades?

Hacia
I wouldn’t say it’s so much little focus, it’s more the time lag. So it’s a very complex issue. You’ve got layers of bias from gender bias to, as we’ve been talking around, the bias in schools around it being, for some reason the school system, some second class citizen career path. You’ve got the mindsets of parents that we’ve talked about. You’ve got the mindset of career counselors, you’ve got all of the media out there. If you ever see any kind of ad for the railway upgrades that are happening at the moment, they’re all men in those ads. A lot of the Bunnings ads or R S E A ads and all those kinds of stuff, usually all men, come and work in mining in WA. I saw that on the bus. On the bus, the other day. All men. So why would women naturally be going, oh, I’ll come work in mining when the imagery that’s advertising is all men. So how does the government influence marketing trends? How does the government influence biases? Conscious, unconscious, it’s been a very complex issue and we’ve seen, now we’ve got the, the gender quotas in the construction industry and it took the government probably seven years to to flush that out, work it out. You’ve also got changing governments. You’ve got how the Labor Party addresses this versus the liberal party. So in government you’ve got so much complexity. It’s gonna take time to get all the stakeholders to the table to agree on how we actually address this issue.

Andy
Yeah, definitely. So we just saw in the federal budget too, you know, some pretty decent incentives given to young Aussies to consider taking on a trade, but it didn’t seem like there was any specific incentives for women too. How do you see that? I mean, I know it’s great for apprentices or round and, and obviously that’s women and males, but there’s nothing there, just sort of for women to really lift the anti cuz you are talking about, going from 3% to 25%, and we are talking about the G D P and like at this point in time, there’s just not enough tradies out there. So what’s your thoughts on that?

Hacia
So I think when it’s funneling down to lower levels of government or government based programs like Apprenticeship Victoria, they’re putting funding behind women’s specific programs. So when you are looking at the budget at the federal level, yes, maybe at that level, but once it gets down to, I call it like action orientated government departments in different states or the government that’s connecting with society to actually roll out and deliver the metrics, to meet the budget requirements. A lot of those organizations like Apprenticeship Victoria in their budget off. The budget they receive is putting a lot of money behind women’s specific programs and different things like that. So once we get to our state and council based levels, I think the money will go into programs to really support women.

Andy
That is awesome.

Ange
Can only hope that that happens in every single state. And not just in Victoria, you know?

Hacia
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I, I think it definitely will. And I, other states will probably start to have quotas. And with the quotas as well, you are looking at organizations that operate nationally. So multiplexes are affected by these quotas. So if they’re doing certain things in Victoria, They’re gonna roll that concept out nationally. So our Victorian quotas will probably start affecting us nationally anyway as national organizations comply with them in Victoria. Then they’ll roll out those, most likely roll out those policies nationally cuz it doesn’t make sense for a corporation to have one policy for one state, another policy for another state. They’ll uniform it as much as they can.

Andy
Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. So just to change the pace off for a minute. There was a reason why you founded Empowered Women in Trades Charity. You know, can you share with the audience what that reason was?

Hacia
Yeah, so when I used to be quite a high level dress arch rider and in 2017 I had a really bad horse riding accident, so my horse rode up. I fell off and she fell on top of me. At the time I was working at my family company and manufacturing company. Yeah, big. Ouch. And just before the accident happened, I was doing a lot of research into the skill shortage that was happening, the low representation of females, which at that time was 2%. Off skilled trades people. I’m wondering why this was happening and a lot of women I spoke to just said it wasn’t an opportunity for them to end up. People wouldn’t hire them. There was just no opportunity for them. Then when I lost my opportunity to walk after my horse riding accident, I really emotionally connected with what they were saying. I was also trapped in a hospital for six months. So I had my laptop in front of me and I could really deep dive into a lot of the academic research that’s out there at the moment. Really immersed myself in the research and I started to become really angry. Uh, to be honest. I became really angry about what I was reading. I started talking to trades women on Instagram and different things like that and just that anger, and probably I channeled a lot of my anger around my accident and what was happening to me personally into this topic and this issue. So once I learned to walk again and got out of hospital, got back into work and everything, I thought, let’s, let’s do something about this because there’s no point in sitting on the sidelines and just being angry about it. Let’s put that energy into making meaningful change.

Andy
Yeah, that’s just such an incredible story. And I know we’ve talked before that you fell in love with welding, so a lot of the time you didn’t do a lot of welding. Can you talk about that?

Hacia
Yeah. So at that point of time, just before my horse riding accident, I was in the family’s factory.
Getting to understand the different trades that we employ and understanding the company from the ground up. And I was in the welding bays, learning how to weld, and I just absolutely loved it. And it was just so, so fantastic to go from accounting. So I’m an accountant and sitting there at spreadsheets to connect with a trade and such a passionate way. My husband’s a farrier, so he does a lot of welding and welds up shoes. So on the weekend he brings me all of the old horseshoe and I can muck around and play with it. I just love it. It’s just such an outlet for me away from spreadsheets and emails and

Andy
You know, Hundred percent. And, and that’s the thing though.

Hacia
All that stuff.

Andy
Being a tradie, what a great opportunity. I mean, us blokes talk about it, but you’re out in the field and it’s fun and under the skin, in the sun and whatever. And we always talk about how we don’t wanna work in an office, but that goes for everyone. It’s such

Ange
Absolutely.

Andy
It’s such an amazing being out there and about and breathing the fresh air and getting around is

Hacia
Well, and creating something like making

Andy
That’s right

Hacia
something. Building something. Working hard, feeling exhausted and looking at something going, I created that.

Andy
Yes.

Hacia
When I’m, when I was more of an accounting based role as a hard day work, what do I walk? Walk away going, wow, look at that Excel spreadsheet.

Andy
That was amazing.

Hacia
That’s the best Excel spreadsheet I’ve ever seen. .

Ange
No. Some people would say that they do love that, Hacia.

Hacia
Some people, not me.

Ange
Did you personally experience any sort of backlash from friends or family or coworkers when you were learning this skill? Did you personally face any barriers?

Hacia
Not in the factory. So the factory was so supportive. They really loved teaching me their trades. They got really excited. They treated me like their daughter or their little sister. I felt a lot of love in the factory. I wouldn’t say backlash. The confusion I guess was more from my academic colleagues. They’re like, what? You’ve gone to uni. You’ve done this and you’re telling me you love trades. They didn’t really understand it and it was more kind of confusing and some of their questions could have come across, I guess, offensive if I didn’t have that empathy to understand that it was just coming from a place of confusion. Like when they’re like, why would you do that?

Ange
Totally, yes.

Hacia
it was, it was just confusion.

Andy
So those that really know me and, and those that have been listening to my podcast for a long time, I’ve got a habit of putting my foot in my mouth like every second word, , you know, and it, it comes from a place of love. But I, I think at times, that’s the worry as well. You know, what about if I do say the wrong thing and what does that mean and what’s gonna happen then and what’s the next stage? You know, that’s the bit that as a tradie, you know, talking with all my mates and all of our members, there’s not one person that’s ever said to me they don’t want females in the trade industry. They love the thought and a lot of our members are doing that. But that’s the question, right? Like, it’s scary, it is a bit scary at times with everything.

Hacia
Mm. It is really scary. And as I said before, a lot of the, um, situations that happen aren’t men necessarily being blockers or, or roadblocks or discriminating.

Andy
Yeah.

Hacia
It’s because they are uncomfortable, they don’t know what to say. They, and then they become paralyzed and then they might do something that’s, uh, not great. Yeah. But a lot of it doesn’t come from a place of malice. And I think this is a really important conversation to have and we need to stop.

Ange
I agree.

Hacia
Pinning men up as the enemy or the victims or things like understanding. To be fair, there are some men out there that have done some horrific things.

Andy
Agree.

Hacia
To women when it comes to sexual harassment and physical sexual assault. You can never excuse that, but certain different things like. Yeah, calling them babe or girly or love or hunt or things like that. A lot of it’s because they wanna, they call their mates, Hey buddy, or hey mate, and they’re like, Ooh, what do I call you? Yeah, what do I call you? So they call you girly or love or you know, sweetie or honey or things like that. So when you’re talking about those levels, it’s just a conversation. And this is where women really need to step up and say, Hey, my nickname’s Hace. Can you just call me Hace? Instead of love or sweetheart or honey.

Andy
Yeah.

Hacia
Or if whatever they’re calling me is making you uncomfortable, just say, look, this is my nickname. Or Ashley, do you mind if you call me X, Y, and Z? Just have that conversation and support men in this change.

Andy
Yeah.

Ange
Yeah.

Hacia
Don’t victimize them.

Ange
Well, isn’t that, uh, a very sexist thing that I’ll say is if you just tell that bloke what you want, it’ll be far easier. So, you know, like what you just said, they’re calling you love. To actually speak up and go, just, if you don’t mind, don’t call me that. My nickname is Hace.

Hacia
Yeah.

Ange
So when you’re talking to women through your charity, uh, is this, are these some of the barriers that are holding them back actually from taking on a trade or what are you, what are they saying to you?

Hacia
Yeah, it, it’s, it’s so interesting. There’s so much fear in this space. The men I speak to are quite fearful. The women I speak to are quite fearful, and the fear is similar. The women are like, oh, I’m really scared of how I’m gonna be treated. And the men are like, I’m really scared. I’m gonna treat her the wrong way, and this is why I’m like, We need to bring men and women together to have those conversations and have that clarity around, okay, educate the men on how you wanna be treated. And therefore that takes the fear away that you’re gonna be treated a certain way. And men listen to the women. So then they’re educating you and taking the fear away from you doing the wrong thing or treating them in a bad way. And that’s sometimes the women, look, if, if the conversation in the lunchroom is making you uncomfortable around what they did on the weekend with a certain girl or going to the strippers or whatever the conversation is, if it’s making you uncomfortable, just say, Hey guys, is it alright if we change the conversation to talk about the footy or the cricket or something, or something else? Just, this is what we tell these women. Have the courage to speak up.

Ange
Yeah.

Hacia
Call it. Just say, I’m uncomfortable with this conversation. Can we just change the topic? And 99% of men aren’t gonna go, no, I wanna continue to talk about what I did on the weekend with this particular girl or something. They’ll go, oh yeah, cool. You know, Carlton actually played well once a week.

Ange
I hear you though with regards to just cultural change in general. I do agree that it stems from so much history with respect to not just the industry but the public literally in, in large. So even the public would even say, if you talked about trade, they would say, well, it’s a very male dominated kind of industry, of which we know is true. But how do we change the thought process about how the general public sees females, you know, joining the trade industry.

Hacia
Yeah, and that comes back to what we were saying before, the media has a large role in advertising and marketing. People actually have a large role to play here. So we need to start changing the imagery, the wording as well, so tradespeople instead of necessarily tradesmen or trades women. So start using the word tradespeople, for person instead of foreman. So a shift in the language, a shift in the imagery, uh, a shift in that kind of education. If people are walking past the R S E A store and it’s the woman’s top and the woman’s shirts in the front window instead of hidden in the back corner, people are naturally gonna start subconsciously picking that up and normalizing it.

Ange
I a hundred percent agree about making this a normal conversation. If we don’t talk about it consistently and raise this to all levels, it’s never gonna change.

Andy
And I think what Hacia has said this morning really appeals to me as it goes both ways. The biggest challenge we have with tradies and trade business owners that are male out there at the moment, That scariness of what we, we really need to make it a, a simple and a clear path of what is expected for us as well. So it sort of goes both ways so that we’re not know,

Ange
they’re not, they’re not treated any differently at the end of the day. Right? Well, I think about some of our maintenance styles of trade business owners, for instance, and I see an absolutely huge benefit to them employing females as a, like a plumber or electrician or pest control, especially inside a residential.

Andy
No, I think around the language of what we are allowed to use, that’s what I was trying to get to.

Ange
Right.

Andy
Because I think there is a really scary part on our side that you go, oh, if I do. , um, get a female tradie. What does that mean to our team and our team culture and

Hacia
Yep.

Andy
How’s it gonna affect everything? So,

Ange
Right.

Andy
There’s gotta be a lot of learning around that. And, and I think it goes both ways, don’t get me wrong. I understand. But that’s what’s gonna really make people put up their hand and go, yes, I’m really

Hacia
understand,

Andy
open to this.

Hacia
and it’s basic education, I’ve spoken to so many male employers where women, even if they’ve got unisex toilets, don’t have a sanitary bin for the woman. Now a lot of men probably won’t naturally think about that cause it’s not top of mind for them. But that is a huge barrier for women and makes them feel very uncomfortable at a certain time of month if they do not have that support. Similarly, I’ve spoken to a lot of male employers and said there’s three reasons that a woman needs to go to the toilet. So if you are a trades that are on the road and you drive around from client to client, if a woman’s asking to go to the toilet, say, you know, every two hours, a few times a month, there is a reason she’s asking that she doesn’t wanna just sit there on Instagram and go to the toilet.

Andy
Yeah.

Hacia
There’s the third reason that women go to the toilet, that men don’t go to the toilet. And don’t disrespect that. Just say, okay, that’s fine. Don’t make her have an awkward conversation. Oh, why do you wanna go to the toilet? You went there two hours ago. Like, don’t have that. Just understand that. And as soon as you have that conversation with so many men, they’re like, oh my God, what did I do? Like I put her in such an awkward position. Oh my. Like them, they are so, so, so empathetic. But it’s giving them that understanding. Men don’t understand that. So you’ve just gotta have a simple conversation.

Ange
Like you’ve said, they don’t intentionally do the wrong thing. They actually intend to do the right thing. It’s just they’ve never had an open conversation about it.

Andy
Yeah. So we like to play this game. It’s rapid fire questions. We’re gonna rattle off three questions right now. Um, are you ready to go?

Hacia
I’m ready to go.

Andy
So the first one really is what is next on the horizon for you and what are your goals? What, what are, what is the plan for the future?

Hacia
World Domination. No.

Andy
Yes.

Hacia
No, no.

Andy
That’s awesome. Love it.

Hacia
Definitely looking at launching the EWITC programs nationally. So both the, uh, participant facing the experience trade programs and the employer programs that we’re working on at the moment. Uh, the goal is, to, yeah, by the end of this year, have them running nationally.

Andy
Wow. That is amazing. And I can’t wait to see that happen. You know, perfect timing. So if any of our listeners want to help support Empowered Women in Trades Charity, which is your charity, what is the best way for them to do so?

Hacia
The best way is definitely to get on and follow our social, so Instagram and LinkedIn cuz we’re often putting out shout outs around events or if we do need volunteers or calling on the community that we’re building. So when we need help, we, uh, put that out there and if you can help in whatever way it is. Whether that’s helping us get some P P E gear for the women and doing that kind of stuff.

Andy
Perfect. Get out there and get that hard earned cash and help them out. Cause this is for a good cause and it’s gonna help all of us in the long term, which is super exciting. So the third question is, what advice do you have for any female tradie or aspiring tradie listening today?

Hacia
Definitely do your research. So say, take some time to understand, do you wanna go into the manufacturing industry? Construction industry? Is that domestic, commercial, civil? Understand what style of organization you wanna work for? Like Nelson’s Electrical that employs thousands of people, or do you wanna work from mom and dad, Sparky company? Then also explore a range of trades. Don’t just go, oh, I think I like carpentry. I’m gonna go into Carpentry. Have a crack at plumbing, have a crack at electrical, have a crack at carpentry, and do trials. Like it’s okay to have a couple of weeks trial or a month’s trial before you make that decision to sign up to an apprenticeship because there’s a lot of paperwork, there’s a lot on the employer, there’s a lot on you to really just do your research before you make that commitment.

Ange
Great. I love that.

Andy
That’s amazing.

Ange
Loved this entire conversation Hacia, we really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing with us your absolute awe inspiring journey, but also the work that you’re doing with your charity Empowered Women in Trades is doing for the entire trade industry.

Andy
Yeah, absolutely incredible. So we just wanna thank you so much for being on the show today. It has been really eye-opening and I think every tradie, trade business owner out there, we need more females within the industry. If you’re thinking of hiring at the moment, let’s look and see who’s out there and let’s look at making sure we can get to that 25% target market. It’s gonna be good for all of us. Yeah, there’s gonna be a little bit of a change, but as Hacia said earlier, You know, look how far we’ve come from the days when plumbers used to put blue glue on the ball bags of the apprentices. You know, like,

Ange
Oh dear.

Hacia
Yeah.

Andy
But you know, back to those days,

Ange
We laugh, but it’s not funny. ,

Andy
no, it’s not funny. But as I said, every trade business owner, guys that have been in that have got a story about that and it’s not right and it’s changed now. It’s definitely changed now. But go back 20, 30 years ago, that’s how it was.

Ange
So this needs to be, our next cultural change is for not just trade industry, but the general public, overarchingly to support females joining the trade industry.

Andy
Yeah.

Ange
Thanks again. We’ve loved having you.

Andy
Thank you.

Hacia
Thank you for having me.

Ange
Alright, Andy, should we play ourselves out?

Andy
Let’s hit it.