Women still aren't taken seriously in construction with Kimberley Chut

0:00I think being a woman and being, I would even say even just a person of colour, you feel like people don't take you seriously or sometimes they feel like you don't know what you're saying or they don't believe you and they always have to double check. And so it's become quite a big learning curve for me to sort of stand up for myself. I was at a moment where I wasn't sure what to do with my career. I was at a moment where I thought I should be a senior, I wasn't sure anymore. And I was told that it would be really good if I just put my stilettos on and could join sales. And I just didn't know what to do.

0:31And especially coming from someone that's so high up, you're sort of afraid to say anything. Every job you're either learning or you're earning. If you're not learning something and progressing your career, or you're not earning good money and having a big passion for it. What are you doing? Three years after we've started this podcast, we thought it was time to make sure that those lessons and the takeaways from our amazing guests were actually actionable, something you can really put into place. So we have launched show notes, a bi-weekly email, get into your inbox, and that will give you the key headlines that is indexable, findable, actionable.

1:12we can really start to make a difference in creating healthy happy workspaces so the link's below or you can head to stansons.co.uk forward slash space look forward to seeing you sign up hey welcome to another episode of space by stansons today i've got kimberly chutt ec1 build head of pre-construction head of pre-construction at ec1 build there we go going around around um thank you Kimberly for coming in I love talking to designers I love talking to end clients landlords but there's something cool about pre-construction the nuts and bolts side of it I understand I think I've always referred to pre-con as like the engine the engine room of construction because your whole job is bringing everything in making it work prepping it up yeah to support delivery yeah and then it hands all over you're such like a middle cog as well right like you gotta pick it up and pass it on oh it's like a relay race it's such a weird space because it really depends on the projects as well where i could be super hands-on even into delivery or i could be really hands-off and sort of say okay everything is everything run with it and it is a very weird middle ground how did you get into it i was an estimator for eight nine years and I really fell into that.

2:36I had a random recruiter message me and was like, have you ever heard of Fit Out? I was like, no, I have no idea which one. And I got a job and I loved it. I absolutely fell in love with it. I actually studied civil engineering at uni. And so I was a big maths and physics person, really, really into it. But when I came out, I just didn't know what to do with myself, as most do. You finish uni, you're a bit lost. And I fell into this and I've loved it ever since. so you just came out of uni into estimating pretty much I I had a small stint as a property manager for a bit because I thought oh I want to do property everyone thinks property is going to be so fun I was so bored I was so bored I was doing it for about eight or nine months and I would spend half my day not doing anything I was like this isn't life I was like what am I doing with myself so I didn't know what I was doing still I was 21 and then yeah I got picked up by a recruiter fell into the world of fit out and i've just stayed your heritage is thailand so my parents are from thailand which means i'm thai um but i was born here yeah so very mixed culture cool there's a word that they use it's lukkwung which basically means like half child and it's more for the people that are sort of both english or like western and asian but I kind of fall into the category because I sort of don't belong to either fully yeah so if I'm over there I'm not considered fully Thai and if I'm over here I'm not considered fully English I sit in a in this in between space yeah I've heard a saying from lots of people that have come from overseas everywhere's home but no one nowhere's home yes exactly and if you know you know that's a very very deep saying it is I could go back to Thailand and then be there for two weeks and think oh I kind of miss England and then exactly the same here I'll be here and think oh I haven't been to Thailand in so long and it's exactly the same I love being in both I don't feel like a fully belonging either though yeah I can imagine yeah and in construction as well male dominated British kind of alpha men what's the hardest thing about having a Thai heritage and being a female in the role I think the biggest thing is having your voice heard and being taken seriously.

4:55I think that's a really big thing for people also in my generation of just having imposter syndrome massively. And I think being a woman and being, I would even say even just a person of color, you feel like people don't take you seriously or sometimes they feel like you don't know what you're saying or they don't believe you and they always have to double check. And so it's become quite a big learning curve for me to sort of stand up for myself. I was always the little kid that hid behind my mom's legs and I never wanted to speak up and I was always really shy and actually having a lot of difficult conversations and lots of difficult experiences throughout my career has formed me into a person that's got quite a strong backbone now I sort of if you don't agree with me I'm it's quite easy for me to sort of stand up and say okay well that's your opinion I'm gonna move on and move and that's it and I've had a lot of experiences in my career where I've had to do that and sort of say, I don't like the way I'm being treated.

5:55So I'm just going to have to walk away. What's the worst thing that's been said to you? I've got two in my mind. Okay. One of them was from a very senior person in a company said, I was at a moment where I wasn't sure what to do with my career. I was at a moment where I thought I should be a senior. I wasn't sure anymore. And I was told that it would be really good if I just put my stilettos on and could join sales. And I just didn't know what to do. And especially coming from someone that's so high up, you're sort of afraid to say anything. Wow. Yeah. The other one, I'm not so sure about. The other one's pretty bad still.

6:34But someone said to me, you should drink a cup of concrete and toughen up. And I just thought, would you say this to a man? If there was anyone else, would you have said this? Is it because I'm a woman? Is it because I'm a person of color? especially with the stereotype of a lot of Asian women especially the stereotype is that we're very submissive you know we have no backbone and we can be walked over very easily and so in those moments I was just like okay well I'm not going to stand for this just going to walk away and yeah and and it makes such a big difference when you're you're in a company that you know appreciates you and know that they don't see you that way but you don't realize until you're gone you know you don't realize how hard it is to be in that situation when you're not appreciated until you've moved on you've never had anything different exactly yeah i've met so many people in my lifetime now that aren't happy in their jobs because abc and they don't realize that things could be better if things were different and they think that what they've got is the best that they can have and i think that's such a big stereotype of the past because everyone's always said you need to stay here for five ten years you don't if you're not happy you're not happy you know i have a big saying of every job you're you're either learning or you're earning right yeah in every job if you're not learning something to progress and progressing your career or you're not earning good money and having a big passion for it what are you doing yeah where do you get your worth from my mum my mum my mum my mum um yeah massively my mum is one of 11 children oh and she um one of 11 children and grew up in a slum pretty much in thailand and her and her sisters moved over here when she my mum was it was about 40 years ago so i think she was about 20 something, 20, 30.

8:35She knew no English. She went to English school here. She picked up two jobs at the same time. She was working her ass off all the time. And she made it to become a really successful businesswoman. She had three kids, single mom, three kids, raising us all whilst becoming the entrepreneur she is. And I just, I look at her and I think, I don't have kids. I don't have a husband. If she can do that with all of that, why can't I you know you ever told her that all the time all the time and she goes it's okay Kim you don't you don't need to work so hard baby

9:17that's amazing that's inspiring that's really inspiring do you feel that obviously it's been tough being a female with a kind of Thai background that that has presented challenges what do you think are the benefits or how it might have helped you I've actually learned that people are so good at their jobs because they've come from different experiences. And the variety of experiences that we have out there, it has built such characteristics for everyone that they're so good at their own individual items. And so the designers or estimators, you can meet five or 10 of them, but based on their different experiences in life, they'll attack a job very differently.

9:54And there's all this saying of a type A or a type B person. I'm all of it combined. I'm absolutely all of it but it's because of my work ethic and it's because of my experiences that I can be pulled pillar to post I won't be happy but I'll do it knowing that there'll be an end goal knowing that there's a light at the end of the tunnel and I think I get that from my mum because she probably worked her ass for five ten years before she saw something coming back I think about her first business that she built she lost 70 grand in seven months and she's got three young kids and it was panic but she kept throwing she kept going she kept going and at the end of it she was she was comfortable she made her money she became successful and it's just one of those things where it builds resilience into you and so I think my experiences of being not maybe not always directly put down but always felt like I was not heard has made me become very resilient and me now having my own team I think it's made me want to be a good manager for them and I think I'm hoping my team would agree that the effort and the attention I give to them and support I give to them makes them want to be better at their jobs as well and it boosts the whole team as a whole.

11:13I find it simply fascinating how physical space can totally change how we think feel and behave meaning it can pause distractions it can connect us it can mean we do our very best work and that's where stansons steps in this show is created by stansons who design make and install curtains and acoustics to create the perfect environment for people to flourish and do their very best work you've got a project on we know how it feels reach out and we'll start to talk I'm not saying to tell someone to drink concrete is ever right under any circumstances whatsoever but I do know from my own experiences which are very different of course but it's the times when someone's actually been really rude or really unfair or something like that that it's actually built a constitution in you it's built like something solid like giving you a backbone that you're almost grateful to them afterwards almost actually thanks for showing me how not to do it now i know how to do it you do surprise how many people how much i've learned of what not to do in this industry yeah i have had some really incredible managers and also some managers that i would never want to talk to ever again specifically for this but at the same time i have learned so much from each in every experience i've had again of what to and not to do what's the biggest difference between being an estimator or being a pre-con and then having a team to manage i always refer to estimating as being like the dungeon monster which i don't want to say is a bad thing i think it's a great thing sometimes i think estimators are always seen as the weird people of of the industry and and it's not it's just you you like what you like you're good at what you do and sometimes you have those days where you're just going to bury yourself away from everyone put your headphones in and just get on with it pre-con is a bit more i don't want to say salesy but you're taking into account, it's more of leading a client down the road, right?

13:20It was leading them through the whole process, hand-holding all through the process of design, of everything like that, and managing that process. The world of traditional and versus D &B are so different, but I can see more and more now how much they intermerge with each other, that especially with EC1, we're very hybrid. We do a bit of everything. And so developing those skills and those areas have become very important. And now managing a team and trying to understand people's characteristics and understand what they like doing has posed a bit of a challenge of workload almost, of trying to understand, okay, well, you're better at the traditional things, let's give you the traditional things, you're better at design, you're better at D &B, let's give you these things.

14:03And so finding that balance has been interesting. I didn't realize becoming a manager would be so much of managing people's expectations and emotions and everything other than their skill set, you know, because I know certain people will prefer a certain job and certain people won't like other jobs. And so trying to keep people happy at the same time is a big thing of it, which I didn't expect. Great. What's the most common mistake that costs a client a lot of money? Not actually understanding the cost of installation, which seems really obvious but for example if if the client says oh i found this amazing tile it's beautiful but it and it's only 30 40 pound square meter they're thinking oh they're only paying 30 40 pound square meter most and most people don't think about oh actually you also need the grout you also need trims you also need the labor for it you also need the delivery cost for it all of these extra things that people don't think about and and it's a common thing with architects as well no shades of some architects but some of them don't think about it and so when i'm there saying oh that whole floor is going to cost you 20 grand they're like why is it 20 grand the tiles are only eight i was like well because of all these other things that you haven't thought about and so it's one of those things where the price always creeps up because they're not considering all these extra things that are really important trims is a very important one that people always forget because they're just like oh yeah you're tiled and tiled and you're done it's not like that there's so many little little items that people forget i was only laughing because that person's me

15:44i am like looking at this and i'm just like oh that's not that much money i'm like oh what about the trick i can totally everything is you drew me in that that's perfect it's hilarious if a client what's the easiest way for them to save 100 grand there's a saying of slashing burning i hate the saying i absolutely hate it slashing and burning so you've priced everything let's say i've priced everything and and where it's sat at three million they're like and you save 100 grand you have two options you either ve a bunch of things ve-ing is a whole process in itself where you're looking at my favorite one is different tiles love a different tile or just different paint finishes or one i'm looking at most recently is swapping out joinery partitions for really heavyweight curtains massive saving saving about 70 80 brand i know um but there are certain projects where you have already veed as much as possible and at that point you're gonna have to slash and burn to get your cost and i hate doing it because you end up losing the essence of what the job is i think the big problem is that people don't understand the cost of things and so we get to this point of full designs ready we've everyone the client's already putting a lot of money on architects and services designs.

16:59And we get to the point of, okay, well, this is how much the job is going to cost you. And they're like, oh, we're$200 ,000,$300 ,000 in the budget. And the idea of slashing Bernie is painful because the clients have already fallen in love with their big feature pieces. Their big feature pieces might be 10 % of the job, though. That's the problem. I think having a budget upfront is always the way to go. and being very upfront of this is the maximum we could spend and designing to a cost. And what's the most important money that they can spend? If there's one thing that you just don't VE, what must you keep right?

17:36I don't think people understand that the lights are not just plonked anywhere. There's a whole lighting design that has to happen. There's whole lux levels that need to be measured, the same as all the mechanical. All the levels need to be to a certain standard. it's very difficult to downspec mechanical and electrical. And so what I've ended up doing quite recently is when clients are feeling like they need to save money, I will tell them what their base level costs are without anything architectural. I'll tell them your mechanical, your electrical, your builder's work is going to cost you this much to just get you an open space.

18:14And then you only have this much to play with for anything architecturally. and so it's very difficult to bring any cost down on mechanical electrical unless you're looking at different manufacturers and even then it's quite difficult important to keep the lighting right 100 yeah definitely i like thanks for thank you for pointing that one out because it's it's easy isn't it it's easy to spend the money on the pretty little fluffy bits but some of that base level is actually people's health and well-being yes exactly that so yeah no that's great oh amazing and when you've been doing projects you've learned from your mistakes what's the biggest mistake you made oh there's so many i don't want to doesn't everyone um we're humans aren't we you definitely learn from your mistakes i think it's not my mistake i'm going to call out someone else because i can't actually think of mine you put me on the spot i once had an old manager we walked around site and the project manager said guys can i just show you something like okay we walked around site he said oh you see do you see this this shaft and we're like yeah he was like so a lift is meant to go in here we were like oh where is it i don't know you didn't price it i think there's three lifts on the job and this manager my old manager didn't price one of them and it was like four floors and i was like oh my god no and it's one of those things that i will never forget always check the list now and so i was like panicking all the time um actually i can tell you what one i've forgotten it was awful on the all the uh all the dry lining there's something called letterboxing and it's where the services will run through the dry lining through the partitions obviously um i completely forgot it and it was like i think i was like 30 40 grand what to cut all the just to cut holes in the dry lining so that the services can run through it you know what it is is i just was not thinking you just feel you make a room and I'm like oh yeah all the services will just you know sit there I know but be kind to yourself and I say this to everyone actually in pre-conny because like pre-conny that's a new word um because that you talked to me about like the tiles you haven't think about the grout and think about the trims and think about the cuts and think about the labor think about the wastage I'm like oh there's so much to it suddenly and that's just the tiles yeah and then when you're doing a whole building floors potentially all on plan it might not even be there to sit and I'm like yeah how how do you price that like how I used to I used to have one manager that would say you win jobs by forgetting things but you also make enemies with your project managers and you do not want to make enemies with your project managers so 100 it's very difficult to to keep everything in mind yeah i wonder if a project can ever be priced perfectly no i think this is a big thing with uh quantity surveyors and estimators i think a lot of people in each job think that they could do the others it's very difficult to to go from estimating to qsing and vice versa because you come from such different mindsets i will not look at the exact detail of every single thing because you can't you're you're running three or four jobs at a time pre-con side whereas a qs is dedicated to one job and so the level of detail you both go into you could never do each other well i wouldn't say never but it's very difficult to interchange because your attention details completely different what's the best thing you've ever been told the best thing i was gonna say it's not your fault that's a good one i like that um the best thing oh it's a very sweet one but um when I joined EC1 there was a big thing of you're such a breath of fresh air and I thought that was the nicest thing um and it was it came at such a pivotal moment in my life where I had a few previous managers tell me that a really good skill that I have they would say a soft skill is I have good people skills and that's something that I never thought I could have or did have I was always thought I was really shy and awkward so to be told that I have good skills talking to people was actually very sweet when I joined EC1 and I had that thought in my mind I was like oh maybe I do have good people skills and then to be told you're a breath of fresh air I think was so so nice and so comforting after being in in a few situations previously that I wasn't so happy with I think that's the just to put it in a nutshell like we were talking before about the challenges of thai and women of color and female i think that's the beauty of having people from different cultures is the breath of fresh air is how we think differently how like you might just approach something completely different way around to somebody else and it neither is wrong it's actually brilliant when you've got both well this is exactly what i mean about people are so good at what they do when they come from different experiences and they come from and they've learned from their own their own experiences and we can all come to the table and attack it from different points of views and it's it works so well what was one thing you would say to your like self 10 years ago to not be afraid people talk about the sunday scaries i have been in situations where i've cried on a sunday because i was like i don't want to go in that's how bad it's been and i'm sorry no it's not that's not great it shouldn't be happening it's not at all and i just thought you know if i could tell her it doesn't have to be this way you can go and be so happy somewhere where you're celebrated and you're supported and loved don't be afraid yeah such a beautiful answer i'm really glad i asked that that's a really really that's a really i think that's an encourage everybody can be encouraged by that at clarkville you guys had the the blind boxes and i sat there and i was like i know I'm going to get an overthinker because that's who I am and I said I don't want an overthinker I want something else I want something else and I got the overthinker and I was like the world knows the world knows I'm an overthinker.

24:21Maybe he's just there because he's come out of you and it's now in a model form but he's not within you anymore. He sat on my little computer thinking and I look at him I'm like I'm not going to be you. It's actually probably the best one to get. Just a reminder yeah no that's cool and what do you what do you say to yourself like in 10 years time where do you want to be in 10 years time yeah i would love to be a pre-construction director and i would love to help my team grow even more i'm so big on development of of someone i have a thing where if you join my team i will go through a plan of how we're going to get you to the next to your promotion and i and i do that for everyone because i know if i'm invested in if they know they're invested in and i'm investing in them as well then they want to do better and we can help the team grow and so i would love to be a pre-con director and just watch my team flourish honestly it's such a big part of of it because the jobs will come and go the jobs on a conveyor belt in and out in and out in and out but my team are here and physical people that i i just want to boost such a great attitude i love your ethic i love you are a breather for a share you are thank you you really are that's cool can make you blush are you a dog or cat person i'm a dog person are you a tea or coffee a tea oh this is all i don't like caffeine i not that it doesn't agree with me i just it does nothing for me i could take a pre-workout shot and go to sleep yeah i don't know what's up with me so you're a tea i'm a tea person but i also just it's more of a coziness not a flavor thing i don't really care about tea or coffee i'm a water person which I think is so boring but so good for you it's so good for you are you a night hour or a early bird I'm an early bird gym before work weight training or cardio both I hate cardio absolutely hate it but I have to do it um but I'm up at 5 30 I'm at the gym by six I'll do weight and then I'll do like half an hour of cardio afterwards and then I'm showered and off to work massive do you track your calories i track it all my new thing is i know the world is all weird about ai right now but with claude track my calories i track my weight i will track every single thing my sleep and i send it to claude every day and it creates a whole list of what i have to do to like as if it's a game and i'll say okay this is my goal and i'll be like okay well you had really good sleep last night maybe you can do a few more steps today and it will tell It's like my personal trainer and nutritionist all in one.

26:56Whoa. So how do you track your sleep? I don't have it on today, but like a smartwatch. Yeah. So you just put that data into Claude? Yeah, I literally, every morning, I screenshot it all because it's all on my phone anyway, and I send it to Claude and I'm like, do your thing. My next question was going to be, what's your favourite app? Don't tell me, Claude. It's not. It's not. This is a really rogue one. Reddit? No, you're not the only one. No, okay, fine. I love Reddit. I think it's just so interesting. It's just like people talking very openly and anonymously about all their experiences. And it's so good to get feedback from.

27:35Nice. Yeah. I like that. What's in your handbag? What's two things that are always in your handbag? Oh, it's not in there right now, but it's always a tape measure. It's a disto. Oh, it's awful. We're really big nerds at EC1, But when we, we're massive nerds because if we go for a night out, me and the PMs, how high do you think the ceiling is? Oh, you're joking. Oh, no, we're such nerds, honestly. Oh, you're joking. I'm not playing with it. No, don't. It's really fun though. I bet it is. I think when you work in construction for long enough, you get to the point of knowing sort of how long things are or how big things are.

28:13and all the men that didn't have distos on site will do their big long strides and be like yeah that's six meters because they know how long their steps are i've got little legs so i don't know but i've discovered from on me from here to my from here is a meter you learn the weirdest things and that's six inches and that's one centimeter i don't know why i would need to know any of this I have no idea why you need to know, but that's great. It's one of those things where people think you're such a weirdo, but it's just, you know. Of course I do. It's things you pick up. Oh, dear, you do have to be weird, don't you?

28:57You do. To get through, you have to be weird. To be in construction, you have to be a bit strange. And you have to have a sense of humour. 100%. Oh, my goodness. I was talking to Emma, one of our designers, and she has just moved over from Australia recently, and she was telling me how different the humor here is here compared to Australia and I think we were just saying it's because English people like to talk a lot we love to talk and we love to just like gap a little bit and we just have to make jokes it's usually at our own expense but but that's the best thing isn't it we we love to make fun of ourselves yeah I think quite sarcastic yeah super sarcastic I actually love British humor yeah it's just it makes that also makes me feel like i'm at home thai humor is very similar it's very um it's sarcastic but it's also very blunt but in a cutesy way so i love it it's it's so fun favorite food oh my gosh this is really specific in thailand on the beach sticky rice gai yang which is like some chicken and som thang which is a spicy papaya salad i'm done it needs to be on the beach it needs to be salt in the air and what are you drinking with it a thai iced tea a thai have you ever heard it's bright orange i don't know how to explain it it's bright orange it's got condensed milk in it thick no it's sweet it's sweet yeah it's very sweet fruity no it's very creamy it's like it is a tea but it's very condensed milk creamy i don't know how to explain it i'll bring you one yeah yeah i've been introduced to tim tams from australian they're great i'm all about different cultures i feel really sad but i think they're better than penguins oh a million times better than penguins i feel really bad saying that because i grew up with penguins but they're much better than penguins that was my first thing as soon as i ate one i was like nah the penguins are out i actually can't have penguin anymore no and have you done the tim It has to be a tea because it's thinner than a coffee.

31:06And you suck your tea through it like it's a straw, a peach corn. And then you eat the Tim Tam and it's all like warm and melted in the middle and just beautiful. Yeah, but that's my Australian podcast guest told me that. That's amazing. And we did it and so that was very cool. Yeah, I have to try that. I'll try that. But I'm all about foods from different countries. It's amazing. What's your favourite colour? Actually, a burnt orange. That's cool. That was going to say. It works. I didn't realise that I loved a burnt orange until I had a friend do, I have bridesmaids dresses in burnt orange. And I was like, they look amazing.

31:43But I would say it changes quite a lot. I feel like people always stick to their favourite colour. Mine changes. I'm a seasonal person. Oh. Yeah. I think it's got even trends. Oh, massively. Stuff suddenly becomes acceptable. When all the millennials were doing everything in their forest green, I was all for it. I'm a millennial I was all for it yeah yeah I'm a millennial all right that's cool and how would um your colleagues describe you Emily the designer how would she describe you Emma Emma she says I'm really bubbly which is nice yeah um she made this one comment at Carcanwell is um I my hair's very red and I really like curly hair and I'm quite short and I would run around and be like are you guys okay hey do you want to do this do you want that and she was just like I'm just like a little fireball and I actually think most of my friends as well would say the same thing I'm always just running around trying to be there for everyone do you need that do you need this and that's yeah I think my team just very punchy which which again I think if you ever speak to some of my old colleagues some of them would say that's not who Kim is but it's because you couldn't I couldn't be myself in certain environments but when you get to an environment where you can flourish and you can be bouncy you can be yourself it makes a world of difference you know you are able to flourish but then the other side of it is you have flourished yeah so you have developed you have got that backbone you have got that confidence in yourself and able to be yourself so that's great too right exactly so you got to celebrate that yes exactly that yeah that's it's it's amazing it's really good and last question what do you listen to to when you need to like focus pressures on so when i was when i was at uni yeah i used to listen to um that lo-fi girl on youtube you know the one that she's just nodding all the time all the time but i actually can't anymore i just i can't listen to music it's gonna be awful i actually watch things in the background on my phone in the corner is netflix on something like a murder mystery or whatever it is and i'll work towards like i'll work during that i can't actually listen to songs because i want to sing but if i'm watching someone talking about a murder mystery i'll be fine and i'll lock in and get my work done amazing amazing answer kim thank you so much for coming on sharing all that about your heritage your personal career the role and then just loads of random questions that I just thought up on the spot but um yeah really insightful really enjoyable thank you thanks for having me and please like and follow the show help us get more great guests like Kimberly on and we will see you next time