Transcript

Al
Welcome, everybody to Radio Free Tenacity, the Voice of Worker Safety. Hey, on today's episode, we're going to feature a conversation I had with Julie Van Horne. Julie is an account manager at Whitecap, one of the biggest distributors of construction supplies in the market. Julie is also maybe one of the most insightful voices I've come across, on the topic of PPE equity and proper fitting PPE for women in the workforce.

Al
I found her perspective on how distributors can help safety pros find and implement the right solutions, really enlightening. Hopefully you do too. So with no further ado, here's my conversation with Julie Van Horne.

Al
What are you seeing in the market today? Like, let's let's establish what the demand looks like today in terms of women's PPE. It's availability. It's demand all of that at a high level.

Al
What are you seeing out there?

Julie
Sure. So working for a distributor I get to talk to a lot of people. I get to talk to safety managers. I get to talk to the boots on the ground. I get to talk to superintendents and foremen. And, you know, I get to have good conversations with them, asking them what's going on. You know. What are we seeing?

Julie
How many women are out there?

Julie
I tend to ask the questions, so it isn't, I rarely get a phone call that says, “Hey Julie, what do you have for women's PPE?” It's a rarity. I've gotten it once, but even then it was, what do you have for women's PPE and what's the cheapest thing I can get?

Al
Sure.

Julie
So we are still initiating the conversations.

Julie
Many employees are just assuming that, you know, they can offer just small sizes for women and small men sizes, and that will work for women. And it has over the years we've made it work. But I think what we have to do now is ask ourselves, should we be making do, or should we be looking at things that actually properly fit?

Julie
And distributors often introduce and educate about those things.

Al
It's a little surprising to me to hear that you're not getting any, you know, generally any requests for it, that you're the one initiating the conversation. What do you like, where do the manufacturers, what's their role in, I guess, pushing that awareness or whatever it is? Because I say it's a little surprising because over the last couple of years, it's very much, at least in our industry, been been a hot topic and a very popular conversation to debate.

Al
But it doesn't feel like it's hitting the worksite as much as it is with the distributors and the manufacturers. So is there something that us, Ergodyne as a manufacturer of PPE, can be doing more of to help facilitate that awareness?

Julie
Well, I think the awareness comes with education and education right now comes through conversations. It's something we have to normalize. We have to start talking about them so that it's “Oh, yes. That's right. I do have women on my job and oh yeah, they do need something a little different.” I think for a long time, women on job sites have tried to disappear.

Julie
They don't want to be the woman on the job site. They just want to be a worker, a tradesperson, someone who's skilled, who can do their job. And we've often when you break through into into typically non-female job descriptions, right. When you're breaking that barrier and going in and as a tradesperson and a typically male dominant field, you do things to not stand out so that you can be credited for your work and not be considered, oh, I'm being coddled, or I'm going to actually on the other end of it to you get ones that make it even tougher for women.

Julie
You know, you just want to be treated similarly, right? Not the same because I don't think we can actually treat, you know, women the same as we do men on any job site. But you have to have similarities, right? Not making it to easy for them yet also not putting more challenges in front of them than you would for men.

Julie
I've seen it on both is.

Al
Yeah.

Julie
So...

Al
Yeah, I think that's that is such an important point that I think I kind of want to linger on for a minute. And when you're talking about women just wanting to be credited for the work they're doing, they don't want to stand out as, you know, as different from anybody else on the work site. And it seems I feel like you have more, more experience on job sites than than I do myself.

Al
But from what I've observed, it seems like that margin is so slim in terms of what's going to make a woman stand out and become a subject of criticism or otherness or whatever it is. How does like PPE design what they're actually wearing, how does that connect with that point?

Julie
So, I would say you need if you're buying safety vests, you need to buy safety vests that have a have a man counterpart or a male counterpart as well as a female counterpart, right. That look the same, that feel the same, that function the same, so that the only distinguishing factor between the two safety vests is a slight cut in how it fits, maybe the armholes, but when you look at it, you can't tell the difference.

Julie
So if I'm standing up on on a second floor looking down at people working that I can't tell just by a color or a, oh, that person has two tone where that person doesn't. That one's in orange versus that one's in yellow. Oh that one's got black trim. You want them all to look the same because you want their work to stand out.

Julie
You don't want their gender to stand out.

Julie
Right, absolutely. And from your perspective, what you've seen, the conversations you've had, what does that do to a worker's psyche when they are standing out in a way they don't want to stand out?

Julie
Well, I mean, we can think about that as being humans, right? You can put that in, in very different things. I've asked a question of a safety director, you know, do you have kids? What happens what happens if you go to you sign your kid up for basketball and you show up and the coach says, hey, listen, we don't,

Julie
we don't have the exact same vest for your kid, or the exact same jersey for your kid as we do for the rest of them. It's still blue and it still has our name on it. And, you know, it's still the same cut. It's just light blue. But everybody else is going to be wearing navy. How does that how does that make you feel?

Julie
How how do you think that's going to make your kid feel, right?

Al
Yeah. Right.

Julie
And then how do you as a parent feel about that? You know. Because I think, you know, you don't. And what I hear is that's going to make him stand out, that's going to make him feel excluded, that's going to make them feel not part of the team. That's going to make them feel like they're not wanted.

Julie
And all of those things translate to how any worker, not just a female, but any worker that shows up for a job who is given, PPE or equipment that doesn't fit, that doesn't that excludes them, makes them look different. And if we want to, if we want people to stay, if we want them to feel included, if we want them to feel empowered, we need to respect that part of it, right?

Julie
Show up. You know you've got an employee starting. Make sure you've got the right equipment from them, for them from day one.

Al
Preach Julie! I love it, I love it. How do people usually react to that when you when you put it that way?

Julie
They kind of stop and they, they, they take a deep breath and they think, oh wow, I've never thought of it like that.

Al
Yeah.

Julie
And that's it seems crazy when you put it that way, because we think about being inclusive and we talk about being inclusive all the time. But when we sit back and we put it in real world situations, I think it hits differently with them.

Julie
You know, they they go, wow, I didn't think about it like that. I didn't realize that. And those are the conversations that we're having, the conversations to, to spark that “ah-ha moment” like, oh, this isn't just I mean it's about safety both physically and mentally.

Al
Yeah. I just got some goosebumps. I love that. Like that's that's really ...

Julie
You re frozen!

Al
Ah, we were rolling too, where was I? Oh, yeah yeah! I wanted to maybe connect the dots then like you've, you've established that, you know obviously it's important for women to have proper fitting PPE. We've also established that there seems to be a disconnect maybe out in the field in terms of awareness or what's appropriate for women workers to be, to be wearing and to be outfitted with.

Al
I think it makes sense then to maybe kind of pivot to, you know, the realities of sourcing the PPE a little bit like the the availability of PPE and any specific maybe challenges to serving the category. I was wondering maybe if you could maybe speak high level on that, maybe there's some low hanging fruit in terms of just kind of the systemic challenges in the, in the supply chain to getting the PPE there to the safety managers.

Julie
Well, I think we're doing a lot better than we did. Right? As far as having availability. One thing that I ran into last week with some safety vests was minimum purchase requirements. You know, we have to be and my point was, you know, I had,

Julie
I think there were like 20 and we're not talking about 500, 600, you know, because we're, we're we're talking about starting and when and when things begin, it isn't like I'm going to buy 500 women's vests. Just not going to be that way. It's like, well, I don't know if this really matters or not. They're still testing it and still, you know, trying it.

Julie
So we start small. And even as a distributor, I start small because I don't want to go out and and get the I mean, I want those $500 or 500 vest orders, right? But we all have to, to do it right, we have to do it slowly, in my opinion. Because there's going to be some things we need to change.

Julie
So I went in and I, you know, met with a company they bought a very high, a high value vest. They wanted 20 men's and they wanted 5 women. And your minimum is 24 order on this particular brand. And they said, well, no, no, no, no, no, no, you have to have 24 men's vests and 24 women's vests.

Julie
And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is what are we doing? You know, that was my question. And, you know, I'm like.

Julie
“Why?” Why are we self-imposing those kinds of restrictions on ourselves. You know, we're not going to sell them that way, that we don't have that kind of balance yet. You know, you're looking at, you know, maybe 11% of the market or 11% of the workers construction, in construction are women. And then when you really dial it down to the boots on the ground women that where the PPE every single day, that is more like, you know, 2 to 8 or 2 to 6%, maybe 2 to 4%.

Julie
You know, you're looking at. Yes, the women in the offices, they need safety vests. You're right. They do. But they don't need harnesses. They’re probably going to have one safety vest their entire career. Right? Unless you have a brand change and then they'll have a second one because it's just not getting used.

Julie
Where the women in the field they need, those are the ones we're most concerned about safety wise. Right? They're the ones in harm's way every single day. So imposing those kinds of limits on ourselves, like requiring us to sell more than what we actually need, kinda shoots ourselves in the foot.

Al
Yeah, yeah.

Julie
Luckily the communication was there to where the vendor said, “You know what? All right. Okay, I get it”, you know, but you have to come back for it. And that's where the fighting is always going on. That's where you've always got to have people pushing back. And I'm not saying that there aren't advocates out there for women in the construction industry that are males, but I'm more apt as a female to push back than what a male is going to push back, because we're still we're still educating everyone on the importance of women's PPE.

Al
Right. Well, yeah. And that's, I mean you just you just nailed it. That's where the communication comes into play. But that's, you know, also takes an added degree of effort to, to advocate for what seems to be a pretty simple semantical kind of a kind of a thing. Right? I mean, what, like what you said. “What are we doing here?”

Al
I mean, 24 men's vest and whatever you said five women's vest. Like it shouldn't be a battle, but,

Julie
Yeah. And additionally, I think that if we have things that, you know, the pushback was, well, it's a different style. It's that won't necessarily, this logo won't necessarily fit on the back. We might have to do it twice. Right? These logos. Well, I mean if they kind of look the same. I mean if they're the same, not kind of if they are the same cut and the same style.

Julie
They should, you know, this shouldn't be a problem. You know? And I guess those kinds of things when we're looking at, you know, when we're talking about manufacturers, those are some of the things they could look at. You know, the consistency across the availability.

Al
Yeah. Yeah. Believe me, I'm taking notes. I'm bringing all this back to the team. It seems like in a perfect world, we wouldn't even be categorizing it as women's PPE. You know? I mean, we don't categorize anything as men's PPE. It's PPE or women's PPE. And it seems like in a perfect world, the women's fit would just be part of the full size run where I'm picking a women, a woman’s small in this vest.

Julie
Yeah, like t-shirts.

Al
Like t-shirts.

Julie
Right?

Al
Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. But we know the world doesn't make sense all the time.

Julie
No. And for the record, that was not an Ergodyne that that sent me through that. You know, it was it was...

Al
Duly noted. But these are conversations where we're having all the time here at Ergodyne as well. So we don't flinch for, you know, any any critique. Are there any PPE categories where finding strong women's offerings is easier or harder, or is it all kind of just a little bit difficult at this moment?

Julie
I think there's some that were some that we are finding, that that are easier and some that are more challenging.

Julie
But it's improving and it's improving and there's some, you know, I can say some categories are making great improvements where others are still lagging behind a little bit. Right? So some things we've had this year safety vest where we're we are seeing more of the mirroring the sizes like men's to women.

Julie
We are we at least have that option now. It used to be I'm going to say safety vest. You know “Julie, why does why do women's safety vest costs more than men's safety vests?” And I'm like “hmm” my first reaction was they don't. But then I'm like, wait a second, maybe they do.

Julie
Let me look. Do we have a “pink tax” on this?

Al
Pink tax? I haven't I haven't heard of that.

Julie
Well a lot of times it's like razors. You'll find a man's razor and a women's razor and the same razor, but this one's pink, so it costs, you know, $2 more, right?

Al
Right.

Julie
We call that, us women call that a “pink tax”. But so I looked and really, truly, if you were, if you were comparing “Cut A” in a men's or a vest in a men's cut, and then the same “A” vast and a women's cut, they were within, you know, $0.50 of each other, you know, really close. But the problem there was that you had men's vests and then you had women's vests.

Julie
They didn't match up. They didn't, or they picked a man's vest that didn't have a women's equal. So, you know, you can buy, you know, this middle of the road vest. And but there was no middle of the road vest for women. So you had to buy, you know, a more expensive vest. So instead of making all vests, men and women's cut, they, you know, they may be expensive vests in women's and then then had cheaper options.

Julie
So I've done some research on that and picked, you know, you know, I got my kind of good, better and best, if you will, like who's got who's got the economy vest that matches both. Who's got the the middle of the road vest that matches both. And then who's got the Cadillac and you know and I think that's, that's, you know, good.

Julie
We've done that with vests and that we’re great. So I've seen some really big improvements there. The other improvement category I found is with harnesses. There have been some manufacturers that have in the fall protection side of it that have really stepped up and said, we're building this for a woman, for a woman's body. And here's the things that are challenging and they've really addressed it.

Julie
And the funniest part is when you when you start talking to them and they go, “oh yeah, that's because there was a woman designer on it”. And you're like, of course.

Al
Wow...

Julie
Shocking!

Al
Imagine that...

Julie
But then on the back side, when you call a manufacturer and you say, “okay, what do you have in the way of a woman's harness?” And they say, “oh, well, it's this one.” Okay. “Well why?” And they go, “because that's because it is.”

Al
Yeah.

Julie
But “why?” “Well, because I was told it was because that's who we are marketing it to”. But “why?” Why is it a women's or why is it a women's harness? And, and you know, you kind of shy away when of those because they can't explain it. And it that tells you it wasn't made for a woman, it was just marketed to one.

Al
That's an extremely good point, and I can't imagine another category of PPE where proper fit is more important than a fall harness. Right? I mean.

Julie
But yeah, but you know what? That what's crazy is I was doing a, a talk, oh, during Women in Construction Week for a large job site. And you know, when I go and I speak, which isn't totally often, but when I do, I like to work the room, I guess I like to talk to every person that I can and say, what are your challenges?

Julie
What are you finding? And I walked up to one one table at an event and one of the girls was laughing. I was like, “what are you laughing about?” You know? And she's like, “oh my, my friends are always laughing at me because my harness hangs down below my knees.” And that was like, “why are we laughing?”

Al
For real. Yeah.

Julie
But you can't, you know, you can't really act like that. You have to be like, “what are you talking about, girl?” Let's, “who do you work for?” “What do we who do I need to talk to?” Because you're just like. That is so not cool.

Al
Yeah. No. Absolutely, absolutely. I think I think kind of as we wrap up this conversation, I feel like it'd be we would be remiss not to kind of pick your brain and help the audience kind of understand how distributors like you can help them navigate this improving, you know, improving journey, but still, still a journey. Where do they start and how can you help?

Julie
Sure, conversations are the most important. Having the conversations and then trust, right? Trust is huge. The safety manager and the people in the field. They have to trust that the person they're working with, number one, has their best interest at heart, that they're not going to oversell them on something they don't need. And that's that's really important that we they don't get offended by questions asked because we have to ask lots and lots of questions.

Julie
And and sometimes safety managers have to be vulnerable in those conversations as well. Being willing to admit that there's a gap there because we don't want to as humans. We want to be like, I've got this. I'm the best at what I do, and you're not better than I am. And I'm like, you know what? You're probably not, but I am better than you at some things and knowing how to navigate and fill those gaps and then allowing us to work with them and, and identify the gaps or look at the gloves and not just say, you know, these are the things that we do, and these are the gloves that need to be done,

Julie
and these are the workers that we have, and giving us all of the information so that we can really do our due diligence and find the right, the right equipment for them. I think we forget that distributors have lots of different options, and we have to sort through those options to get to the right thing. It's not a one size fits all kind of situation.

Julie
It's not a one-brand-fits-all situation. So you know where we're at right now and we're in my location. What I'm doing currently is trying to figure out what they actually need, having those conversations. What do they need? What are they going to sell? Talking, again conversations. Talking with the employees. What are you actually going to wear? What are you what is actually comfortable.

Julie
Because we all know that fit is is important for comfort. And if it's comfortable, you're more apt to wear it. If it's uncomfortable, you're not going to wear it. You're going to avoid it. You're going to throw it someplace. You're going to actually be like, I don't want to wear that. So if it's broken, I'm not going to wear it, right?

Julie
Well, we don't want we don't want that to happen either. Finding things to protect the investment as well, and understanding that we're trying to see a big picture for them, as opposed to just coming right in and just wanting to solve this one little problem. I've got one person with a small hand, so I'm going to sell them this one glove.

Julie
But I want to look further. Is that glove that I'm selling. Does it fit? Is it comfortable? Does it make sense for the work that they're doing, right? All of those things are important. So trust is very, very important. And understanding that we're there to help them be safer. PPE is not where you start a safety culture. It's your last.

Julie
It's like the last hurrah, the last point before an accident happens. So to obviously not where we start, but it is where we kind of come to an end. And all of a safety program is important as as total, right. You can't just have a fall arrest system without having a proper harness. And, you know, everything works together.

Julie
And if we look at the big picture and we're able to help them fill in the gaps, that's that's what we do. That's what we're supposed to do. That's one of the most important things that we, we’re charged with.

Al
Amen. Julie, this is everything I hoped it would be, and more. You, it's obvious the world would be a better place with more Julie's in it. And, you know, I think I think you've.

Julie
I’ll tell my brothers you said that.

Al
Please do, please do. You've left safety managers with a lot of insight and things to think about. And I can't thank you enough for joining us.

Julie
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Al
All right. And there you have it. A wonderful conversation with Julie Van Horne from Whitecap. Hey, if you want to get connected with Julie or anybody else on her team, please do check out the episode overview for more information on exactly how to do that. Thank you everybody for watching and listening. Stay safe out there people.