No. 1 Must-Have: Humor.
“I guess my story is that I watched too much “Law & Order” growing up, and so I was pretty hellbent on being a prosecutor,” said Kassy Slaughter, head of construction education at Procore.
So, Slaughter went to community college for criminal justice and worked in a few law firms until she realized how inauthentic everyone seemed. “There was a big facade in that industry, at least in the region that I was working in.”
She went to the temp agency, and they put Slaughter at the front desk of a construction company. In no time, she had “fallen in love. I just thought [the people] were so authentic, so gritty, and sometimes that’s for better, sometimes it’s for worse, but what it is regardless is real,” Slaughter said. “And that really resonated with me. And then as time wore on, I was getting more and more opportunities.”
Slaughter then officially changed her major from criminal justice to construction management and began working her way up at the company. First into a project engineer-type role which then, eventually became her running her own projects while still attending school at night.
Slaughter finished her associate degree in construction management and then went on to get a business management degree and green building certifications.
After working on some luxury projects at her firm, a computerized maintenance management system company she had previously worked with called her and brought her on board to an international consultancy group. “So, after nine years of going from temporary receptionist to project manager at this one company, I made the leap into a big pond.”
The new role was tough. “I was living in a project-specific world without the ability to impact the big picture because it’s so demanding. It takes everything to manage projects like this.”
This led her to Procore in a role that promised fewer long days. She figured she’d recharge, finish her degree and get back into the industry. “And then I got to Procore, and I realized that I could make more change in the industry by participating from the sidelines than I could from within the machine itself.”
Since nine out of 10 employees at Procore have no construction background, Slaughter and her team are responsible for educating them about how construction works. This ultimately turned into a larger initiative, including a construction “boot camp” that every new Procore employee receives as well as jobsite visits, ongoing education about financials, various processes and construction, and education for members of the Associated General Contractors and Associated Builders and Contractors.
However, her way up wasn’t always easy; Slaughter recalls when she learned she was making 50% less than her male colleagues in a previous role: “Even in tech, my experience was valuable but only at a discounted rate.” And although Slaughter recognizes the industry’s perspective toward women and other minority groups shifting since she entered the workforce, there is still a long way to go if companies want to hire good people and ensure they stick around amid labor shortages. “It’s going to take those brave few companies to really pioneer it, study it, share it out, champion it for others to follow the leader on this.”
“In the same way that construction went through sort of a safety culture revolution, I think that construction will also go through a revolution around company and industry culture and the way that we treat others, in the way that we speak about the future of the industry instead of just relying upon the past and, ‘Well, this is what we’ve always done.’ I think that temperament is changing, and I truly hope it does because it has to.”
For younger women in construction, Slaughter recommends finding a group of women in the industry who can provide guidance and keep them from becoming complacent with their current conditions, especially if they’re not the best.
“Always paying that forward and encouraging women to drive toward more earning power, more responsibility, and not letting them fall into that trap of thinking, ‘This is the way it is, and this is still pretty good,’” Slaughter said.
“I think just modeling the way — telling people what you’re doing, telling people why you love construction, why you love the team, why you love the process, why you’re proud to say ‘I built that’ and saying it with conviction. ‘I helped build that. That was me, a woman. I did that, and I was in heels in the office most of the time, but it wouldn’t have happened without me.’”
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