Women building a presence
‘Tradie Ladie’ and engineer break down barriers, writes Nina Hendy.
‘‘I often wonder what the world would look like if half of the engineers in the world were women.’’
Engineer Felicity Furey
Working in a traditionally maledominated field has done wonders for the bottom line, according to Michelle Hargreaves.
She launched her tradie business eight years ago after taking a redundancy from the accounts department at Qantas. ‘‘It was great to walk away from a desk job and get out on the tools,’’ she says.
‘‘I had worked on my own home in the past, so figured I’d start doing some work for rental agents helping sellers get their homes ready for sale, and it grew from there.’’
She’s built her reputation under her business name, That Tradie Ladie, offering a range of home maintenance services, including gardening, tiling, painting, kitchen installation, pressure cleaning and more.
Government figures show fewer than 2 per cent of construction, automotive and electrical tradespeople in Australia are women, putting Hargreaves in a pretty slim minority.
But business is booming, the 50-year-old says. She admits her gender has advantages.
‘‘All my business has come from word of mouth. We had signs on the work vans, but I had to take them off because I couldn’t keep up with the huge number of inquiries we were getting," she says.
‘‘Females often prefer to deal with a female tradie, and pass my name on to their friends, too. Plenty of men hire me because I’m good at what I do, too.
‘‘And I must admit, the look on the husband’s face when he comes home from work to find a woman completing the job that he hasn’t got around to fixing yet is priceless.’’
That Tradie Ladie turned over more than A$250,000 (NZ$267,000) last financial year.
The business has grown to employ four staff, including two men whom Hargreaves describes as gentle, softly spoken guys with the muscles needed for the job. Clients spend between a few hundred bucks and up to A$20,000 on jobs that take anywhere from an hour to several weeks to complete.
But there have been challenges. Finding the right insurance cover, and learning the importance of invoicing on the spot, for a start. ‘‘I used to do all my invoicing each night, but that was exhausting after a day on the tools,’’ says Hargreaves, who works up to 10 hours a day.
‘‘I’ve learnt that the jobs are always urgent, but payments are never as urgent for clients.’’
Even walking away unscathed after falling off a roof hasn’t deterred her, saying she will never go back to a desk job. ‘‘I love that I work in a different setting every day.’’
Don’t let industry norms keep you from turning your passion into a profession, she says.
Being the only woman in the room doesn’t faze Melbourne civil engineer Felicity Furey anymore.
She’s worked as a structural engineer, then worked in project management, and now works as a civil engineer. She’s working as a consultant on Melbourne’s West Gate Tunnel project.
Furey is in a minority. There are
329,957 engineers either working or looking for work in Australia, and just
44,874 (13.6 per cent) are female, according to
Engineers
Australia.
‘‘I’m often the only female in the room, or the only female in a team. It doesn’t bother me anymore,’’ she says.
Furey co-founded a business, the Power of Engineering, which has inspired more than 6500 mostly female high-school students to consider a career in engineering since 2012. That business turns over A$100,000 annually.
For Furey, knowing she’s making a positive impact on the world is a motivation.
She is very conscious that we live in a built environment that has been designed almost entirely by men.
‘‘I often wonder what the world would look like if half of the engineers in the world were women, and what changes women would make to the world around us," she says. ‘‘I’m just glad to be one of them making an impact on projects that matter.’’