Reimagining traditional roles

Tech tools for equitable career development

CARLA BAILEY has over 14 years of experience in the landscape industry, in what she would call “traditional female roles.” Starting as an office assistant, Bailey moved to health and safety and then human resource roles. Along the way, she observed how being pigeonholed results in professional stagnation. This motivated her to help people, especially women, break past traditional roles to find ways to thrive and succeed in landscaping.  

 

Bailey co-founded Women in Landscaping, a grassroots support, networking and education group to help women take charge of their career journeys. She also began to volunteer with her provincial landscape and horticulture trade association, rising to president of her local chapter. Now, Bailey has her own consulting company, Solutions by CB, where she coaches small and mid-sized businesses to establish best practices for developing their employees potential. She is frequently invited to leadership summits and trade shows across North America to share her advice on the value of diversity in the workplace and how technology can help.

Have you observed situations where people get stuck in roles that aren't the best use of their ability?
I've seen it and I've been that individual. “Oh, give this task to a particular employee, because that employee is really good at organization. So no matter what, that employee is always going to do our organization for us.” Well, that employee might be good at it just because they've been forced to be good at it. It's not something they actually enjoy.

There’s a lot of invisible housework, so to speak — it’s about who's prepping for the meeting? Who sets up the snacks and coffee? Who is taking the minutes? Who picks up after events? Those tasks do tend to fall on women. That's not the right way to do things because that's how companies lose good people.

How can technology help with tasks like organizing and taking meeting notes?
There are a lot of ways to automate the minute taking that's also going to build your agenda for the next meeting and that's also going to assign the tasks, and so on. I'm a big fan of Tactiq. It is free for a set amount of meetings per month. I use it during in-person meetings and video calls. It pops up with a fully automated transcription that’s able to summarize what was said and outlines an action list. You can email it to the team so everyone has the same information.

I also use platforms such as Motion or Monday.com where I'm able to say, “This is the scope of the project I'm working on.” It looks at my calendar and my time frames and actually organizes things for me and my team. Some projects might be only three steps, and some might be 45 steps; the app will build the Gantt chart for me. It will build the time into my calendar so I don't triple book myself. And it lays out deadlines along with giving updates. Now I can delegate meaningful tasks amongst my team and focus on work that I’m best at and excited by.

Do you find the fee for subscription-based platforms worth it?
One hundred per cent. And it prompts better customer service. At the end of each one of those steps, the platform reminds you to touch base with stakeholders. When you have happy stakeholders on your project, it's really easy to go back and say, “Hey, I also do this.” For example, if I were a landscaper, I could say to my clients, “I’m so glad you’re delighted with the fence I built — did you know I also do interlock?” Once I already have a customer who’s very happy with me and my skills, they're more likely to ask me back to do something else. The easiest customer to sell to is the customer who’s already in your files.


What are the risks if businesses don't look for technology solutions to foster career development within their workforce?
The first thing I think of is knowledge loss. If you have a 30-year business, a lot of its value — operating procedures, history, personal connections and so on — exists in people's heads. The minute that person walks out the door, you have lost 30 years of information. If we're able to gather that, whether it's through meeting notes, client notes in a CRM or a time tracking app, that information loss is not as tragic as it could be.

People leave when there's no challenge. As a business owner or manager, you have an opportunity to help people grow. If you can do that, you benefit from keeping quality people longer.