How to Attract and Keep Great Construction Workers: Employer Branding for Any Size Firm (ft. Procore)

0:00This episode is a feature production from our co-branded partner Procore Technologies, a global leader in project management software. This content is part of a Procore series — I have episodes where we get guests from across the country and talk about technology and construction underneath the Procore umbrella. Enjoy the episode. Okay, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Very excited today to have with us Melissa Heidmiller, talent acquisition specialist with Procore Technologies — formal partner of ours — and Melissa is joining us today from the GTA area.

0:36Very pleased to have you with us, Melissa. Thanks for doing this. Hey, I'm happy to be here. It's really fun to get to chat with you and connect with the construction audience and share some insights, and hopefully get something good. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, so like I was saying before we went on air, it's plus 33 here this afternoon in Halifax, so definitely the nicest day — good start to June — minus the forest fires that we

1:08have out this way currently. But we're hoping that we can get those under control. But how's the weather — was that around the same temperature? I never want to be one to complain about warm weather because I'm a big kid — you know, I'm not hot unless it's like 28 degrees — but we have our air conditioner cranked right now and I'm sitting with socks and I'm freezing and I'm like, why am I doing this? So yeah, today we're going to talk a lot

1:40about company culture and brand development and these sorts of things. And obviously you've got a long history and a long career — your time at Wilfrid Laurier University in communications, experience with career coaching, brand development, and your current position with marketing and talent acquisition with Procore. Maybe we can start and kind of just go through a little bit of your journey and your story, and then we'll kind of lead into some specific topics

2:13around Procore. Yeah, definitely. So my story is kind of one of those — in my 20s, you know, go to school, figure you've got the dream of what you want to do. And I think like so many people, I bumped around, and you know, finally one day I was like, wow, I could really use a career coach. And in that process of that exploration, figured out, oh, that's the direction that I want to go — and help people figure out what is it they want

2:39to do, how do they land into those careers where they feel good about and they want to stay in, or how do you recognize when it's time to change. So this shifted my career path in that, and I spent a lot of time helping people figure that out — helping people recognize what matters to them, why it's important, how that connects with their careers. And then, of course, as any career coach would do, I start doing all that stuff to myself, realizing when it's time to

3:07— and I had set myself up in business, and my childhood best friend had come to me for career coaching, and she ended up doing social media management. And I was like, that's the coolest thing in the world. And then I switched gears to partner with her, where we worked with small businesses helping them understand their value as a brand, how do they communicate that and get that out across social channels. But then COVID happens, right? My brain

3:39kind of got fried on it, right, and I started looking at what my next steps were. And I kind of came back to that idea of how much I enjoy helping people make those decisions in their careers. And that brought me to Procore, working with our talent brands team — helping to communicate what a company is, what the value of a company is, what it is like working there, and how you can build and grow somewhere. Getting that communicated out to a talent audience to

4:13help people decide if that's where they want to be. So that's what I'm doing now. Yeah, I mean, thank you for sharing that. It's a tough thing to do a lot of times — to navigate, I think, for people with professional careers and wanting to make a change and understanding what direction to head in. And then, you know, even once that decision is kind of established, you know, what companies would I fit

4:40with — whether it's core values or their brand or the culture — you know, there's a lot of different things to take into perspective. And to get that — your life's work, or your place where your passion can grow — it's tough to do on your own. I've been in that position, like you said yourself. And without somebody there, not to necessarily hold your hand, but just to kind of be that extra guidance and help you navigate

5:06that — it's very tough terrain, especially in a competitive market and all that. Yeah, exactly. And you know, we're always evolving in our careers. What we need five years ago is probably very different from what we need today, right? So when we're looking at the direction that we're going or the spot that we're in, it's that constant self-awareness. If you can have the self-awareness to recognize what those needs are, recognize what your values are, what your priorities are, and how does

5:33that fit in — one, with what you're doing, but two, with the company as well, right? So so many times in my past in career coaching, talking with people and we started digging in on where's the discontentment coming from — so often it's because there's that misalignment between those current needs and what the company's offering them, right. Sometimes it's literally just a shift in the role within a company, or sometimes it's exiting the entire industry, or just finding a new employer

6:06or finding a new boss. Yeah. I mean, as you say that, I think of things in my mind from the past — you know, whether you're on site maybe in a leadership role on a construction site, as a foreman or site super, and then maybe your temperament or something is causing you to think, you know, I'm just not into this — or with the many other variables — and then, you know, maybe like you said, it's just a

6:33pivot within the same company, maybe a project management role — you're kind of stepping back, you're a little more of a 30,000-foot view, and it's a little different. You know, still the same industry, same company, but that can be like a real fresh start for somebody if they can see how to connect. Yeah, and I'll admit it's not easy to do on your own. If someone has the option to work with someone, go for it. But even, you know,

6:59talk to your best friend, talk to your partner, talk to a trusted colleague within your organization that you can just start exploring the conversation. And just those little bits, honestly, go so far. Yeah. And I think it's interesting — you know, there are so many different variables. Like, even a lot of times what people want to do is ensure that there's room to grow, whatever their position is, right. Like, you know, where can I be in two to five years if I take this role now? And

7:30does it align with my vision? Does the company have those kinds of opportunities? And then, like you said, training — it's just constantly, like you said, ever rapidly changing. And if you're not keeping up to date on technology, you know, on the construction site, or from the tech side, or more of a consulting side, there are just so many fast-moving parts that it's tough to keep up with. It's almost like you need a

8:03— you need that guidance just to stay on top of what it is you should be educating yourself on. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we can never predict what's going to come in and potentially disrupt our roles in whatever capacity. But like you're saying, if we can look five years down the road and say, well, where do I generally want to be? And identifying those skills that you need to grow — whether they're the physical hard skills or whether it's the soft skills — look at the

8:34opportunities of how you're going to get there. And oftentimes when we can build relationships — whether it's a formal mentor or just someone who's in a role or two above you — just having those relationships and keeping an open dialogue with them, learning from them, from their experiences, how have they grown and developed, what can they suggest to you to go down that path. Even asking the tough question of, you know, can you tell me about — what are the gaps

9:02that you see with me that I need to fill? Right — where they might have that insight on what you need to do so that you can keep moving forward. Yeah. So sometimes there are some tough questions you need to ask yourself and kind of be accepting of, like, where are my weak spots, where do I need — what do I need to work on — and be willing to take the feedback. Yeah. So with your role with Procore, are

9:26you involved a lot — as far as, you know, obviously with marketing and talent acquisition — are you involved a lot in the formal recruiting process, where you're kind of constantly circling a certain network, searching for potential candidates even if a role is maybe not out there yet, but you know it probably will be — just kind of always having the funnel full? Maybe just give us a little perspective on that. Yeah, so my role sits alongside our talent

9:57acquisition team. I'm a senior talent marketing manager, so I support our recruiters in their efforts. A lot of what I do involves working with them on outreach — so how are they reaching out to different audiences? So we'll create personas of the kinds of individuals that we want to attract. We look at the company overall and ask, you know, who are our top performers, who are mid performers, who are the kinds of

10:30people that we want to attract, what are the qualities and capabilities that they have, what are the behaviors that these people display. And we essentially create that persona. So then we're creating content — that's really where I step in — and I'm creating the content that is going to be appealing to those people. And then I'm enabling our recruiters so that they can confidently go out there, they can reach out to those people, they can hopefully say the right things to them to get them interested.

10:57And even working with them to look at where are they then reaching out to those individuals, right? Are you just searching on LinkedIn? Are you just going to this website? Are you reaching out to specific communities where they're spending time and hanging out, and trying to build those relationships and get it going? So it's kind of the enablement piece with them that most of my focus is. Yeah, it's very interesting. You know, I think whether you're talking or

11:29listening in from a small business — as a technical term, if it's under 500 employees or under 100 employees — or a corporation, your explanation there just gives an interesting perspective into how layered that process is. You don't just end up with these great teams that are acting like a well-oiled machine accidentally. Like, you know what you're looking for, you're extracting the research from your talent acquisition division, it's bleeding into your content,

12:01you're creating content specifically for those kinds of people — both the talent and backgrounds that they have, but also the personalities that seem to be able to work together — and so on. So it's interesting to see the depth that goes into that, to keep that funnel full. And yeah, so, like — when we think of it from the right — you have the thing that you do and how you do it, and that's what

12:32attracts your talent, right? Because they're like — let's say Procore — "Oh, I want to work for Procore because I've heard it's a people-first company. I've heard that they really encourage work-life balance. I hear that there are great career growth opportunities, they offer lots of training, and that their values of openness, optimism, and ownership are ingrained in so many of the decisions and moves that they make." So you take that and you sell that story — hopefully the accurate story — you sell that story to

13:03the audience. So then the people out there that are attracted to that kind of organization — that's who's going to start coming in. Versus if you're just like, oh, you know, you've heard of this company and we do this in the market and we give you vacation, you're going to attract a completely different kind of audience — probably a lot of the people that do what's called the spray-and-pray, you know, they're just applying to anything and everything and not really

13:31considering, as the individual, what do I want in my life, what do I want in my career, how do I want my whole life to look, and considering how career fits into the whole life, right? You're pulling in people that aren't going to do what you want them to do — they're not going to fit into, they're not going to come into the alignment of what everyone else within the organization is doing, when you have that culture where people are living and breathing the values and

14:03treating each other with the respect that you want them to. So, aside from having a system — the finesse of tracking those kinds of people that share those core values — what are some practical steps that you would see taken? You know, whether it's a typical process of hiring, where it's resume, interview one, two, three — like, how do you kind of firm up the decision that this person's core values don't align, even

14:42though they have a great resume, they're not going to fit? And then how hard is it to sacrifice that when you see, hey, this person has a really good resume, but I can just tell, on the core values side — that's got to be tough at times, right? I mean, not to diminish core values, because they're really everything for longevity. I mean, there's no — as hard as you want, as hard as you can, to put

15:14that message out there — to weave, let's say, your values and your culture into your hiring process — so that hopefully as people are coming in, you're getting the right people. The person who doesn't align, they're going to get the red flags along the way, saying, "Oh, you know what, I don't really want to work here. I don't like the messages that they're giving me." When you're in that interview process, the organization, as you're

15:44creating it, you want to be really strategic about the questions that you're asking. You want to be asking very particular questions that are going to dig into how they're responding. So, you know, you've got your traditional questions of, tell me about a time when you did this, right? But if you can look at positioning those questions to wrap around some of the values that you have in your company, then you're going to start to learn a little bit about that person. So, like,

16:15let's just say — I mean, how many people, working at a company, have silos, right? It's one of the most frustrating things in a large organization. And if you're working really hard in your organization to not have silos, to make sure that you have cross-communication, you have collaboration — ask some of your questions built around that. Find out how does whatever individual, how have they behaved in the past when it comes to leading a project, working with a team, sharing information, or whatnot, right?

16:52So you can start to learn: is this the person that really thrives in a silo, or is this the person that really wants to build cross-collaboration? And, you know, you get through the interview process and you end up hiring someone and you're like, well, you're not really who I thought you were. Chances are, within a year anyways, that person's going to leave, because hopefully they themselves are realizing that there's a disconnect and they're going to get frustrated on the job and they're going to start looking for other

17:20So you mentioned, I think, the three core values of Procore just several minutes ago. Can we kind of chat about those a little bit? How does Procore land at those core values? Kind of, you know, what goes into the process? Is there meetings — formally with upper management, yearly or quarterly — to say like, we might be shifting a little bit on this one? Just a little bit of

17:50background. Yeah. So our values — and don't forgive me, I'm probably going to get this wrong — somewhere around 2015-ish, maybe, is when we set them. And it was more that notion of looking at how do we behave and how do we want people to behave, how do we want to treat each other, how do we want to build among our colleagues, and how do we want to build that community. And that's how Tooey and the team ended

18:24up with ownership. So that notion of — I mean, it still kind of feels like we're in that startup phase, even though the company's 20 years old — it's still very, we're doing exciting things, we're building new things, we're constantly improving the product. So when we look at that idea of ownership, it's that no matter the project that you're taking, you're taking responsibility for what you're doing and you're going to dive on it. You're not just going to say, well, I tried, and there you go. And that's the

18:54— that's one of those behaviors that we constantly want to see from our employees: that they're going to latch on to something and give it their all. And then that takes us over into openness — that idea that we can speak up, we can be in an environment where it is perfectly safe to speak up and know that our voice is going to be heard and respected by those around us. We don't always have to agree with each other, but it's that notion of

19:27"okay, I see a challenge, or I see a problem, or I don't understand something — I know that I can ask and there's not going to be a repercussion on it." So if we start hiring people who don't live by that value — we have a really kind of fun internal saying, and it's "no brilliant jerks," right? That's one of our rules of thumb. Yeah, right. Don't hire the brilliant jerks. And funny enough, when the brilliant jerks do make

19:54their way in, they honestly don't last very long, because those values are so prevalent in the way that we're working. And then that last one, optimism — it's just, you know, just be forward-thinking. Sure, challenges might come up, but we're going to learn how to roll with them and always keep moving forward. So then, going forward as a company with those values, it's checking in: are we sticking to them? Do they still make sense? I don't know how often you

20:24know, Tooey and everyone meets up to check on that yearly or not, or if it's part of our yearly strategic planning. But you know, it's the reflecting backwards — have we stuck to these in the past year? Do they make sense? And then going forward, do they need to shift at all, or can we continue on? I mean, I certainly worked for an organization in the past where, I think I was there for about three years, and partway through they did change their values.

20:51And it was just the communication of, like, the company has changed, we're a larger organization, we're offering different services now and it doesn't really make sense anymore that we say this is a value — instead it's this. And they gave that iteration of it and the justification of it. And essentially, you know, how does everyone feel about that? For the most part, everyone was pretty happy. So yeah. No, that's great — and that gives a lot of context. I'm wondering, like, if

21:21people are listening and, say, they might be from a competitor of Procore, or they might be in a totally different tech space or a totally different industry, or in the construction industry in any of a thousand different scopes of work on any side of the fence — let's say there are other companies out there that are hiring the brilliant jerks, as you say, or their values are just on the opposite end of yours. It's comical, but

21:53in a sense, like, you know, yeah. So what — can you speak, even from your personal experience or on behalf of the organization, whichever works — to say, like, no, these values actually improve our output? These values actually impact the company — not just improving our financial output, but the quality of life of our workers and the satisfaction of our workers and that kind of thing? Because I think it would be interesting to cross-reference it against the, you know, opposite

22:25values from the ones you just mentioned, which some companies are closer to operating more on that side of things. But it doesn't necessarily mean that — you know, you're not — because you've created such an open space for people to thrive. Okay, so when you think about the values of the company, whatever they are, you're going to have some organizations where those values are a little bit more hardlined, rather than open and more community-driven. When you think about — I guess you want

23:00to look at the objectives that you're setting for your organization and what is it that you really want to achieve. So if you're looking at, let's say, you want hyper growth and you want massive sales right away — what are the key values that you want to put in there to attract those people who are going to be super hungry to make the sale, the people that are going to be super driven to, let's say, work the 80

23:31hours a week that you want them to? And you might burn through people, or maybe you're going to get the people that actually thrive in that environment — because there are people that do thrive in that environment. So you're looking at what are the values then within that environment that are going to be important. There's still going to be that competitive aspect, but then you have to look at how are you building a

23:58camaraderie between those people so that you don't end up with people that just get really upset with each other all the time because they're always trying, like, the one-upmanship and all that, right? Okay. Yeah, well, no, it makes sense. And I think one of the things that you're going to be thinking about always as an ownership group is retention, right? And when you have certain core values, it's a far better scenario for long-term retention,

24:27long-term return on your investment of time and energy and money and those kinds of things. So there's an argument for both. Yeah, there totally is. And I mean, business needs change all the time too, right? You're always going to go into a new period of what your business needs. And sometimes the people that served you well five years ago are not going to be the people that serve you well right now. So I think that kind of goes back to what you were asking before

24:52about how do you evaluate if those values are still relevant, and it's looking at, well, what's the business need right now? So right now, in the terrain, in the industry across the country — and we'll say North America, and other places for that matter that I'm certainly not aware of — the labour shortage is a big thing. So how do you sort of combat that in your position

25:25and in working with talent? How does that play into the strategy and the decision-making, just knowing that a lot of these positions are getting tougher and tougher to fill with the amount of projects and the amount of manpower needed on both the site side and preconstruction and tech? It's a challenging time, I'm sure, for you. Yeah, the labour shortage — and I was thinking about this earlier, in between looking at construction and looking at

25:59tech — I think that we do have some similar challenges, particularly when it comes to attracting new audiences to work for us. So if we look at it from a diversity aspect — how are we looking to educate other groups than who we typically hire, or who our typical employee is? How do we look to educate other groups to say, hey, this is who we are, this is what we do, these are the

26:34kinds of opportunities, and this is why you can come here and feel like you belong in this organization and in this industry. And that belonging piece kind of comes back to the culture and the values, right? So are you creating an organization where — let's just say — where women want to come in and work? I mean, in tech now, this stat is American versus Canadian because it's always so hard sometimes to find those Canadian stats — and in fact, I don't know, come

27:07on, Canadians, get with it! So the U.S. stat for women working in tech is, I think, around 32 percent. At Procore, we're at 38. But women in construction in Canada — I got that stat — I think it's like 11 or 12 or something like that. And then actually, women on the job site is like five percent. And then of course there are other groups to be exploring, whether

27:43it's newcomer groups, whether it's Indigenous populations, whether we're looking at LGBTQ+ populations, etc. Looking at what are you doing not just to attract these groups, but what are you doing to retain them as well, right? Every individual has unique needs, but when we can put people into their categorized groups, there are common needs within those. So how is an organization meeting those needs, how are they serving them, so that they want to stay? And then doing some of

28:17those things. So, like, let's just say — take mat leave, for example. Bringing in women — that's going to be a common need — would be mat leave. So you start providing that, or — I mean, of course you have to provide it — but making it so that people feel comfortable taking their mat leave, even coming back from it, and asking for the flexibility of, like, "Oh, I've got to take my kid to the doctor today," or, "Can I adjust my schedule so that I start at

28:49this time so that I can get my kid to daycare?" Then that starts opening up the doorway to say to the dads, so that they can start feeling like, hey, you know what, it is okay if I ask for that little bit of flexibility, or it is okay if I ask to take my paternity leave so that I can have that time with my new child and my wife can go back to work early if she wants to. I see, you know,

29:18local companies around here, and these are companies who are hiring internal labour. People are getting creative with acquiring talent from — yes, immigrant workers — whether it be from Syria on one hand, or from other places in the Middle East, or from all over really. And it could be farm workers, it could be carpenters. So they're trying to build crews of immigrant workers. And you know, so that's one way. You mentioned

29:49women in the trades and Indigenous people. And I think about a tech company like Procore — there are so many tech companies out there serving so many different sectors, and there could be lots of highly experienced, talented people that just haven't considered construction as an option. And I'll relate that to — a lot of times what we get on our show and our media platform is people in the industry just wanting

30:20to shed light on what it's actually like to be in the industry, so that those 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds in high school, or going to university, or in engineering, or thinking about architecture — or maybe they have a desire to be out in construction as a project manager but don't really understand what it's like — or they just haven't been exposed to it. And it is a real — it's not just a high-paying opportunity, but great, great job,

30:51challenging, very respectable. Or they might not have thought of that, and they might have thought of tech and something IT on a totally different side, or maybe they're thinking about law school or something else. But a lot of these people could flourish in the construction industry on the management side and the tech side. And I think if we can do a better job — and I'm sure that this is part of the motivation

31:23for a large corporation like Procore — with your content, like you mentioned earlier, which is similar to a lot of what our motivation is, is to just shed light on the opportunities that are out there for people who maybe have a blockage like, "I've never even thought about the construction side of things," because that word can be very broad. And there are so many — does that make sense? Does that resonate? I think when we look at when

31:53we're right now asking ourselves how are we educating people about the opportunities that are out there — my sister-in-law, which I thought was really cool, she recently just started a new job with a company whose name I can't remember right now. But anyways, she was working for ApprenticeSearch.com, and she would travel around all the way across Canada going to different conferences, speaking at different events, going into schools — all these things — to educate kids about apprenticeship and about the

32:30trades, right? So obviously that's not the only program like that out there. But it's looking at, as an industry partner — whether you're in the construction industry or whether you're the construction tech company like Procore — looking at what's in our communities that we can get connected with, that we can help to influence, that we can help to get that voice out there to hit these different audiences, to let them know of what's out there. When we think

33:00about the stereotype — when someone's like, well, if I go work in construction — they're probably thinking of the labour-intensive aspect, and they're thinking it's the long hours, it's going to be so hard on my body, and is this really something I can do for my whole life? They're not necessarily thinking of everything that goes into the construction industry. They're not thinking about what it takes to run the company, they're not thinking about the architects and the engineers, they're not thinking about

33:29all the individual kinds of contractors and all the everything that goes into it, right? So if someone is, let's just say, thinking they want to go into finance, they might just start thinking about banking, or insurance, as opposed to thinking, wow, I could go work in the finance department of a construction company. So I think it really comes down to the individual ownership — one, of the company to get connected with their community, to understand what are

34:03the resources out there that they can latch on to, to get engaged. But then also the individuals within an organization — if you're passionate about what you do, don't be afraid to say it. Don't be afraid to tell people about it. Don't be afraid to go volunteer and do something and talk to grade seven students, and tell them about what life is like and what you're doing, so that you can start to get people thinking

34:33about it from an earlier age. I mean, if I think about my parents' generation — and I'll say that they would have had a stigma against their kids going into construction and going into the trades, because that's where so many of them were, and they're like, "I want better for my kid. I don't want you to do that." But hold on — this is still an excellent career. It's very fulfilling. You're doing something that makes such an impact on

35:06the world around you. Why wouldn't you want to go into that? So there are a lot of challenges that you're fighting when you're going against stereotypes and stigma that can be passed down from parents to kids. But if we just get our voice out there through the initiatives that are already existing — going into schools, getting connected, let's even say with employment sectors, and maybe even ones that are specific to newcomers — then all these tiny little entry points are out there to get that word

35:44out. Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that. And it's not like these things aren't happening — they are. It's just a long shift, you know, to see the fruits of the turnaround of those efforts. So maybe we can talk a little bit about various career paths specifically to Procore. I mean, obviously there are all kinds of different positions that Procore would be offering out of your

36:12headquarters in Toronto, but across — you know, what are, in your mind or for your team, some of the career paths that are really meaningful? Not that any are more than others, but that are on the forefront right now for Procore moving forward. Yeah, so with Procore — one of what I find to be a funny thing is that so many people just think we're a construction company. They

36:45don't think that we're a technology company. So it's always like, actually, we're tech! And it's always fun to educate people on that aspect. But we get so many people from the construction industry who come to Procore because they've used the product and they love the product, and they've come to a point in their career where they realize they want to shift into something different. So one of our — I'm going to say one of our most — rolls that gets slammed like nobody's

37:16business is the SPC. I always get it wrong — senior product consultant? No, something like that. SPC... maybe project? Would it be project consultants or product? Oh man, I don't think we have any — do you want me to Google it just so we can find it? I could probably find it. But anyway, so our SVC roles — because it literally is, you know, someone from the construction industry who can offer their expertise back to the construction industry, right?

37:49These roles open, and we honestly probably keep them open maybe a maximum of a week, because they just get slammed — they get absolutely slammed with applicants, which is amazing, but then it's also like, oh, I'm so sorry, we can't hire you all. So — is this a specialty contractor? Specialty contractor? Google... Google... So so many people, they come in, they see the roles of, "Oh, I can consult on what I know," and they think that's the only entry point

38:20that they want to come in at. But I have people that will reach out to me on LinkedIn and they ask about what can I do at Procore? And my answer is always, well, don't ask me what you can do at Procore — ask yourself what you can do with Procore. Do you want to get into customer service? Do you want to get into that ongoing engagement with the construction audience? Do you want to get into sales? Do you

38:49want to get into pre-sales? Do you want to leverage your knowledge and expertise so that you can help revolutionize the industry and get them on that digital platform — be part of that by bringing them there? So it's kind of that question of what are you more interested in, what aspect of it are you more interested in. That's where the majority of people come in — they're going into either sales or they're going into

39:21one of our customer-facing roles, which — we have so many different job titles here, I'm always like, what is that? Yeah, there are a lot of different titles. We've definitely had people even coming into the engineering side, where — coming from construction, they've gone back to school, they've taken an intensive course on how to be a developer or something like that, and then they're looking to

39:57get that foot in the door here on that side as well. So there are all kinds of opportunities when we look at Procore. Yes, we absolutely love people that are coming in with a construction background, because then you know exactly who you're talking to and why the product is so valuable. But of course it's not a prerequisite. I mean, I don't come from construction — I was like, wow. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. I mean, there's

40:29so much opportunity there. And those customer support roles — it's so crucial. Whenever you have a customer that's using Procore for some of these complex projects, just the constant communication and support — and of course it's going to help if you understand the stresses and the thought patterns and what they care about as contractors and such. But then, you know, if you're in a sales role or marketing, or on the IT side or development side — it's a vast landscape. It really is. I mean, the

40:59— I love this company, and the people in the organization. And one of the things that I constantly notice about our employees is that we really do care about the customer that we're serving. We really do care about that market and audience. And people are always looking at ways of, how can I help you a little bit more, and

41:35what can I do just a little bit more for you? And at one of our most recent all-hands, Tooey was sharing a story of one of our employees, TJ — I've never met him in person, but I just love this guy because he's just like the biggest-heart kind of guy. He's one of our sales engineers. So he was — a friend of his, their son, I believe, was in the hospital, in there for a while getting some treatment. And there was a construction

42:06site across the road, and the kid is just at the window watching the whole time. So TJ's like, "Oh, well, you know, just tell me — can you see a sign or something of who the company is?" And sure enough, it's a Procore customer and it's one of his customers. So he reaches out to his contact and he's like, "Hey, my buddy's kid is on X floor, this window, and he's just having a great time watching you guys and it's really raising his spirits while he's

42:33in the hospital. Can you just wave at him or something?" Well, like — why wouldn't you? So what do they do? They make a sign. The guys on the site, they make a sign specifically for this kid, and they're like, "Hi Timmy," or whatever his name is. And then they actually sent some of their guys over to the hospital to the kid's room to have a chat with him. They invited him over, after hospital time is done, invited him over to the

42:59site, gave him a tour. And it just, you know, makes the kid's whole life, this experience. And that story is just — that is Procore in a nutshell. That is the people of Procore in a nutshell: we're always saying, how can I make somebody's life better? Yeah, wow. That's such a feel-good story and bodes so well for the industry as a whole. Thanks for sharing that. Maybe we can talk a little bit about the Collision event and Tooey, kind of springboarding that event and what it means. Just a little about it. Yeah, so this is

43:31pretty exciting. So there's a tech conference happening in Toronto called the Collision conference, and it's one of the largest tech conferences out there. And Tooey is going to be speaking at it, which is really cool. He's going to be on a panel with the co-founder from Motive and also with someone from Forbes who's a tech contributor. And

44:03they're going to be talking about — the title is called "Make the Physical Economy Sassy Again." And really what they're going to be talking about is how can tech be used to better serve industries that are essentially the physical economy. So looking at the more labour-intensive industries, like construction, like agriculture. They're just going to dive into that, explore what it's about, and kind of help to continually drive that message that we're always working so

44:38hard to put out there, but just get that across. Yeah, that sounds like a great — I'm sure that someone like Tooey, your founder and CEO of a global company like Procore — it's probably very hard to tie down. But you mentioned a couple of meetings or where you've met him. Can you tell us a little bit about — yeah, the mythical man, right? You always hear about him, that he's very humble, he's like the salt of the

45:11earth kind of guy, very kind — he'll sit down with you and have that conversation like he's known you forever. And having the opportunity — yeah, I got to meet him maybe like a month or two months ago, I think. That was legit the experience with him. It was really refreshing to see someone at the helm of such a large organization who — he walks his talk, right. He's not someone that thinks that he's a level above

45:48everyone else. He really is that open guy and he's constantly recognizing the work that everyone does at Procore. And he loves shouting people out. Actually, one of our orientation specialists, Ashton — she's pretty much the first person anybody that comes into Procore is going to meet. And he was giving a talk in our Toronto office and he literally called her out and said something really great about her. So I'm just sending her a message like,

46:22"By the way, Tooey just gave you a shout-out," and she's like, "Oh, Tooey!" I'm like, that's just the guy that he is. You know, he really values his relationships with the employees, and he really values his relationships with people in the construction industry, and making sure that everyone's seeing the same guy — everyone is seeing the same Tooey — and recognizing the authenticity of who he actually is. Well, thanks for sharing that, Melissa. I know we

46:55could talk about so many things. We're probably getting close to wrapping things up here. But I'm wondering what are your thoughts on — you know, representing and working for a large corporation right now with Procore, on the marketing and talent acquisition side of things, and with your different experiences throughout your career in career coaching and brand development and marketing and such — you know, if there are listeners tuning in, and

47:28as an entrepreneur myself — kind of relating the stories you're telling and some of the topics you're talking about from your end — for myself, at what point does a company start to think about these things? Company culture. If you're trying to build something from the ground up, a lot of people would think, well, that's fine to spend that time and energy when you have these different departments and you're a major global corporation. But I just have, you know, five employees or a hundred employees or twenty. But I have a feeling it could be more important than you might think. And a lot of people maybe don't have a lot of processes — they're just kind of

47:54filling a few positions here and there, and it's tough to stay on top of all that

48:22when you don't have structure. But any thoughts on the importance of core values even for any type of company — be it big or small, labour-intensive contracting or consulting design-build? I think it's something that maybe doesn't get enough attention. A lot of owners live and die by it and it's the heart of their business. But yeah, any thoughts on, for smaller companies, how they — the importance of it for them, even

48:59though they don't have a vast operation yet. So, no matter the size of the organization — whether you're five people or whether you're 5,000 people — I think it's always coming back to understanding how do you want to do business and how do you want people to know you. So whatever it is that you are desiring in that behavior and in the response from your market, from your audience — whether it's a talent audience or whether it's your customer audience —

49:32you need to show it. You can't just say, this is who we are — you constantly have to show it with proof points. So when it comes to selling to your customers, how are you proving to them that you're going to do what you say you're going to do? And then when you're looking at a talent audience, how are you proving to them — whether you're five people — how are you proving to them that those five

50:03people work together as a team? Or whether you're 5,000 people, what's the promise that you're delivering? And the best way to do that is through your employees' stories, right? So it's fun to do an employee spotlight, but getting your employees to be advocates for you — allowing them to be part of a process, allowing them to feel good about communicating with their network and with their audiences and with people in their community about what their

50:44experience is like. So five people or five thousand — if you have even a five-person team and two people on that team are like, "Oh yeah, you know what, this is a great place" — that's a pretty big percentage. But the voice of the employees is what wins. Just like the voice of the customer is what wins, right? The customer is going to be the one that says, "Yeah, they do a terrific job," or

51:16they're going to be the one that says, "Actually, no, they don't." Your employee is the same. So just always remember to treat your employees well, do what you say you're going to do, treat them the way that you want them to treat you, and the way that you want them to treat your — and that's how you start building up that consistency of experience and of reputation, to help attract. Oh yeah, thank you so much for that, Melissa. I think that's

51:45an interesting correlation. It really is the same level of importance, even if it's a much smaller operation — very much the same as with an operation even as big and as vast as Procore. And I think probably a lot of people are accentuating, or putting out, their core values even subconsciously, whether they realize it or not. It's interesting what you said about Tooey as a CEO and founder of a company — if the values of the company are

52:20perfectly in line with his values as a person, as a human being, when you meet him — and that's no mistake. So I think a lot of people are probably doing it whether or not they put a lot of thought into it or not. But it's very interesting to get your thoughts on that. Is there anything else that you want to share with us on behalf of Procore, on behalf of the topics we've discussed here today

52:47that maybe we haven't touched on? There's been a lot of talking points, but yeah. I'll just add on there — you know, when we're thinking about how are we communicating who we are as an organization to talent, it's not something that we just do at a time when we have to hire. It should be something that you're doing constantly and consistently throughout the course of — I mean, even when you're in a hiring lull, which I believe we're in

53:21a little bit of a lull right now — and in construction, even though that lull is happening, it's even more important right now to be communicating out there that this is who we are, these are the opportunities that we have, this is the experience you're going to have as an employee. So that when you get out of that lull and it's time to hire, you've made it so much easier for yourself at that point, because you've been spending that time building up that awareness with that external audience, as

53:54opposed to radio silence — and all of a sudden you've got that hiring spree happening and people are like, "Well, who are you and what is it like and why do I want to work for you?" Because it's — always think about it from the applicant's perspective: take a moment and think for yourself, "I've got to go apply for a job," and you're saying to yourself, "What am I going to get out of it?" That's what every single applicant is asking: what am I going to get out of it?

54:21So if we can tell them constantly, right from the get-go, what's in it for you — then it makes that decision easier for them. So regardless of what labour markets look like, the value of telling the experience of what it's like at your organization as an employee is 100% all the time. Wow, for sure. And something just came to my mind too — for me personally, it's a unique journey within the construction industry. I'm

54:54not going to get into it and bore our listeners with my personal stories. But one of the things I know is what it's like to be on a job site and work on a job site — as a carpenter, in the interiors trades. And one of the things — being in those positions on job sites — and I hope that we have listeners tuning in that are on job sites, who work

55:23so hard and actually help build these buildings — boots on the ground. Much respect for these guys. It's nice when you get that affirmation, and they need to know that they're appreciated. It's such a different thing to be on the other side of the fence within the industry. I can't think of better terms than blue-collar and white-collar just to separate those two. But if those kinds of employees

55:49are listening in, they'll get a glimpse into — this is just one topic of culture, core values, marketing, talent acquisition, looking ahead at who we need to hire, we need to prepare, we need to think of — the vast amount of energy that goes into the thought process of just what we've talked about today. That's not even to mention your estimating department or your other operations or, you know. So

56:20it's good for both sides — this constant, mutual conversation when people are listening in, just to get a glimpse into, hey, you know, maybe some people think your owner's driving around in a truck all day, but actually there's so much going on behind the scenes. Because it's a different world, yet we co-exist in the same space. I hope that conversations like this will work both ways — like, oh geez, I never

56:51realized the thought that goes into, on the other end, just staying prepared and keeping the outlook ahead of, you know, who are we, and filling important positions and those kinds of things. So I wanted to just mention that — it's kind of on my mind, just from being through a career journey on job sites and then more into estimating, project management, and ownership and that kind of thing. So yeah, it's been a great

57:22conversation. Really appreciate your time. Procore has just been — Kimberly and the team and Arabi and all the others — for us at Atlantic Construction media and podcasts, they've been amazing. A great partnership for us. And it's easy to see the truth in everything that you're saying today. You know, in our experience working with them, it's a lot of passion and it's a great culture, a great group to work with. So on behalf of our team, I

57:54want to thank the Procore people and you, Melissa, as well for your time today. Well, thank you for having me — I really appreciate it. It's been a fun change of pace in my day to hop on this call with you. And anybody that knows Procore — hopefully, just hearing me talk about the way that our employees interact — I hope that if you have had experiences connecting with anyone here, I hope that you

58:22pick that up. I hope that you feel that vibe. Awesome — yes, let's hope for that. And hope that our listeners tuning in will give you a shout-out and come your way for some future employment. Okay, take care. Thanks. Cheers. Thank you.