Nicole Chabot, B.A., G.S.C.: Workplace Safety and Health

This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands on Treaty One territory, the traditional territory of the Anishnawbe, Cree, Oji Cree, Dakota, and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis nation.

This is Humans, On Rights. A podcast advocating for the education of human rights.

Here's your host Stuart Murray.

When you hear the words heavy construction, what image enters your mind?

Did you know there is a world day for safety and health at work?

Well today on this episode of humans on rights, we're going to bust some myths and learn how an industry the heavy construction industry right here in Manitoba is adapting and adopting both inclusion and diversity.

My guest today, Nicole Szabo is vice president of L Szabo Enterprises Limited.

She is a champion.

She is a leader and she is a glass ceiling breaker and the chair of the board of the Manitoba heavy construction industry.

Nicole chabot, welcome to humans own rights.

Thank you Stuart, thank you so much for having me and thank you for that wonderful introduction.

Well, you know, it's a fascination because I do think and what I'd love to explore with you.

Nicole is the background to an industry that typically has probably been, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, it's probably been a little bit more male dominated and now you're seeing that change and we'll get into some of that Nicole but I'd like to just for the listeners get a sense of who is Nicole Szabo or you're a Winnipeg er where did you go to school and how did you find yourself in an amazing, amazing part of the Manitoba heavy construction industry?

Yeah, thank you.

So my story, I am born and bred Winnipeg er through and through, I lived here my whole life, I am actually third generation and a family business in the heavy construction industry so I came to industry through a different avenue then maybe some entrance find themselves.

But for me construction was all around me growing up, the business was always there, it was started by my grandfather, lucianne Szabo and my father entered into the business with him not long after the business started and they really you know worked on growing it for a really good period of time and I found my way to it almost straight out of university, I did go to school in Winnipeg, I went to the University of Manitoba, graduated from there and didn't really have a direct career path in mind and my parents came to me and said you know the safety stuff is really starting to become something in the construction industry, we think it might be even be a full time job for somebody and we thought maybe you could look at helping us out for a little while while you decide what it is you want to do.

So that's sort of how I got my started construction.

Well interesting Nicole, so your grandfather started the shuttle enterprise, do you recall any sort of notion of how he got involved or were you aware of?

What drove somebody at that point to get involved in the kind of industry that you're involved in.

My grandfather grew up on a farm in the brokerage, he was one of seven Children and you know, farming back then was a family affair and I think they had a couple of slow seasons and my grandfather decided to move to Winnipeg and with a couple of his brothers that they should get some trucks, there was some work happening on the original floodway construction project around that time and that is how my grandfather got his start in the business.

And I should just say that what Chabal enter eligible enterprises limited is is that you really are involved in specializing in sand, gravel, stone, crushing, delivery, roadway, construction and earth projects that's really kind of how it's involved.

And so was that part of what your grandfather really envisioned or has that been sort of a generational change through your grand father, to your parents and now through to you?

I think it's very much been a vision that has changed through the generations.

I think my grandfather was happy to have an opportunity for his family and he probably would be shocked if he saw the scale and scope of some of the projects that we've undertaken.

I'm really proud of, how far we've come and it's amazing to be part of something where you can truly be part of changing the landscape of the community that you live and work in.

And so I don't know if he ever had that in mind when he started this endeavor, but certainly my father had the vision to grow the company beyond trucking and diversify into santa gravel, diversify into road construction and the myriad of other projects we find ourselves on.

So Nicole, you know, I also come from Saskatchewan.

I was raised on a farm, so I know a little bit about sort of that industry and of course when you're farming, it's all about, you know, do you own a half a section of land, a section which as we all know, is a square mile when you're in the industry that you're in the sand and the gravel, stone crushing?

How do you determine where you want to create that place, where you get all of your sand, gravel and stone from?

I'm trying to sort of make the same equation as when farmers buy more land so they can plant more seed and grow more crop or whatever it may be if they're in the cattle industry, I mean it's all about amassing more land to produce revenue ultimately.

What sort of process do you go through or have you gone through in terms of buying land that you can use to create the sand, gravel and the sto crushing that you are involved in.

What, how do you get involved in that?

It's a pretty interesting process and and it's not something that we have a kind of ability to affect.

I mean the sand and gravel and stone that we extract through the mining process is the result of the glaciers receding way back.

When and so we sort of just follow those trails and you know, sometimes it's digging test pits, there are known deposits throughout the province that have been discovered historically.

So it's always an exciting part of our business to kind of go for a country drive on on a sunday and explore some fields where you might, you know, kick aside a bit of the ground and find some rocks, find a deposit that is new that can be extracted at some point in the future.

So a lot of it is sort of informed amateur prospecting.

I know that you know we have outside particularly around Birds Hill.

You know there's a number of places and I guess as you said earlier kind of the geography of Manitoba just has allowed for that to take place.

And so that's kind of a natural where you can get gravel pits and you can sort of explore it from that perspective.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, no, absolutely.

One of our first gravel pit that we purchased is located in the Birds Hill escarpment and we're still there, we have our main equipment yard in our office located in Birds Hill um at the sight of our main gravel pit and in the last I guess eight years we opened up another deposit in the Gull lake area.

And so that was a new deposit to us.

Uh, and so now we're able to offer the products and services in that area that have have been available.

So, you know, something that residents certainly take advantage of when they want to do some driveway work and it's the municipalities for sure, absolutely benefit from it in their road programs through access to local materials.

And so of course the cost is lower when you're not bringing it miles and miles away.

And so would most of the work of L chabot enterprises LTD be in Manitoba or do you have work outside of Manitoba?

We are primarily a Manitoba based business and we work in Manitoba because it's where our deposits are located, it makes sense for us.

We're looking for work in those areas where we can use our products.

So we have gone into Ontario a bit, but we tend to kind of keep to the capital region.

Can you just sort of share some of the projects that you are currently involved in just to get a sense of the scope of what L chabot enterprise LTD does.

Nicole Certainly, yeah, one of the exciting projects that we've just completed was really neat.

We constructed a boat launch in traverse bay and that was for the arm of Alexander massive undertaking and certainly tight timelines for the delivery.

We had about 45 days from start to finish to construct, I guess a residential type boat launch for all of the residents of the area, complete with protective groins to protect it from the water and wave action.

We built rocks cell for fisheries while we were doing that so that we could protect the fish habitat in the area because it's important to recognize that when we are sometimes resch aping the natural landscape, we have to take those factors into consideration so that it's something that we're pretty excited to see residents will be using that.

I mean shortly coming in the next few weeks here if mother nature agrees with us all.

And so we're happy to be part of projects like that.

Some of the other projects we participate on recently, we've been building a few roads in and a couple of our surrounding municipalities.

So the arm of ST Clements, we've worked in the arm of Cartier Rm of broken heads as well as Headingley.

So there are a number of municipalities that we do have contracts with annually and typically is a lot of your work sort of on the horizontal side of heavy construction ie road building and that sort of thing.

Nicole were very much a horizontal builder.

Yes, road construction, large scale excavation and we've diversified.

So that in the winter we do do snow removal with city of Winnipeg, but we also do work on riverbank for mediations and that type of work that can take place in winter because it's well student for the equipment.

Right.

Yeah, wow, okay, so here you are starting off, your parents want you to do a little bit of work around the issue of safety and so you start to get involved in that as you're kind of figuring out what your life journey might look like.

But obviously it was something that got you quite interested and you got more and more involved.

How do you decide at one point that this was going to be where you were going to start to make your mark?

You know, I don't know if I could pinpoint when or how that decision got made, but I know that when I started my career in safety, the first thing was of course to educate myself.

So I went to a lot of training courses primarily through Manitoba Heavy Construction Association.

They were a leader at the time, they continued to be a leader in delivering safety education for our industry.

So I took my training for safety and then as you start to get more immersed because safety is not finite.

You get to learn a lot about the operations, you learn about the equipment, you learn about people, you interact a lot with people and being in a family business environment, there is a lot of opportunity for one role to bleed over into another and there's not really anybody there to hold you back and say no, you have to fit into this box, they encourage it, they go well if that interests you then of course we could use some help with HR policies, you know, and if we're short staffed in estimating, of course, why wouldn't you learn how to do some of that?

So I think what I enjoyed most was being able to learn about all of the different rules and the different components that made the business run that were part of being an industry and there was nothing really holding me back and and so that I think is to the benefit of the environment that I was into, the credit of my parents.

They never held me back, they never said there was anything I couldn't or shouldn't do you know, they would encourage me to pursue it and of course in a responsible way because I was just learning but certainly that helped make it easy for me to see a spot for myself in this industry.

So, Nicole, I want to talk about two particular areas and I love you to comment on them.

Number one is as it says, you know in your bio, that your family has an indigenous background.

So you are from indigenous roots.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Is that on both sides of your family or how are you an indigenous family please.

So interestingly enough, it is on both sides of my family, with my father's side of the family, they grew up in the bro curry, our heritages Mattei and that is not something that growing up was a huge part of our lives and I think more so because my dad's generation that wasn't something that was looked on as a positive or benefit in any way.

My father in appearance is pretty indigenous and um had some challenges as a youth growing up with that And so I think because of that was never anything that that we championed in our heritage and then through my lifespan obviously it's been something that has become a source of pride.

It has been for sure a journey of rediscovery of who we are and getting in touch with what that means and trying, you know, you're always trying to find where do you fit in, how do we fit into this?

We are not you know immensely in touch with cultural practices and a lot of the heritage but certainly it's something that we are happy that it is now something that is championed, that it is something that is embraced, that it is something that you can say proudly to say we are an indigenous, 100% indigenous owned company.

That's something that is surprise for us and we're happy to be able to share that and say it proudly on my mother's side, Her family grew up north of London are, my grandmother actually grew up on a reservation, her and her siblings and they later moved to Winnipeg and on that side of the family because they were first Nations, they were in a generation where they were definite affected you know by the environment at the time they did not want to acknowledge that they were indigenous and so we have a real loss on that side of being in touch with the culture, being in touch with any cultural practices and I mean it's sad when I think about it, but I'm so happy for where we are at now because now we're in a place where we can celebrate our heritage and hopefully you know try and you can never overcome but but work through some of the hurt of the past and hopefully it's better for the next generation.

I look at my own son and I've definitely spoken to him at length about our indigenous heritage and to see it through the eyes of pride that he has in his generation.

I mean that that is something that that really fills my heart.

I can obviously just here it to how your pride comes through loud and clear Nicole.

So you know, I really appreciate you sharing that and you know one of the things that I just was involved recently and was acknowledging that Manitoba had an anniversary of 150 years as being part of confederation of course one of the unknown facts for a lot of people is that we were brought into the confederation of Canada through the leadership of Louis Riel and through his sort of vision if you will.

And it's amazing that really our first premier of the province of Manitoba, as it was known at that time, was a member of the Manitoba government.

And so that's really the history of Manitoba.

I don't think there's any other province that was brought into confederation.

Um and I albeit it was dragging and kicking at the time, for sure, but it was led by louis Riel and I think that there's great history there that a lot of amount of Tobin's at least as we talked about celebrating the anniversary of 100 and 50 years here that people didn't know.

So I appreciate you sharing the pride and joy that you have with your family and particularly with your son.

I think that's that's really fantastic, I appreciate that.

Nicole.

Let me just sort of go then to the other piece that is interesting and we want to talk about sort of the whole element of from a human rights perspective to have women.

I mean you are as you said, and I mentioned at the top of this, this conversation, you're a glass ceiling breaking leader and in an industry that perhaps I think has been dominated by by men and now you look at the leadership and there's been a number of women who have, I think you're the second chair of the board of the Manitoba heavy construction industry share with me, if you will sort of your view of the industry from a female perspective, some of the changes that you have led or scene and how this industry is growing to make it more acceptable for more than just what people may have thought would go in and this is part of the myth busting.

That is just an industry for for men.

I think what I would say firstly is that I'm really encouraged by the changes that I've seen during my time in this industry, from all levels, we're seeing more female business owners, we're seeing more women at all levels, professional levels at the labor force level.

And I think it's encouraging and what's even more encouraging is that we're seeing not only acceptance but the welcoming of that and and really breaking down there is really an intense effort going on to break down the barriers to entry in industry and that comes through having, you know, progressive workplaces that recognize that we as an industry need to be welcoming and accepting of all people that want to work in our industry because we need people were an industry with tons of career opportunities, we have great long term well paying jobs and really being focused on removing those barriers to entry and creating cultures where they're really inclusive and that extends I think to everyone, not just two women, but certainly it for myself, of course being a woman in construction, it's it is something that I think is important that we model for women, what are the opportunities that exist?

And I take it pretty seriously that in my role I have an opportunity to show some people that there are all different kinds in industry.

I am a woman, I have an indigenous background, I am a wife and I'm a mother and I'm very proud to work in the heavy construction industry and we are an important industry.

We are the foundation for nation building and building our province and there is a role for everyone that has interest that wants to be part of this industry.

And so Nicole when you look at the comments you made about how the industry has changed and adapted to diversity?

One of the things that I know I've had conversations with Women of color for example, who will make a comment that in a male area and doesn't just have to the Manitoba heavy construction industry, there's a lot of male dominated organizations operations, etcetera.

When they talk about diversity or you know, bringing in women and so you're sort of saying, okay, well we're bringing in women.

But then you talk about Women of color for example, and they say what yes, you're bringing in women, which is great.

So there's inclusion.

But are you diversifying?

So would you say that both those words inclusion and diversity are happening very much in the Manitoba heavy construction industry as you've seen it?

I would say there are some great examples of companies that are leading in developing, you know, a progressive workplace that is culturally diverse.

That is diverse in all meanings, all backgrounds and inclusivity I think is the next key component that we're all going to be working on because you know, one of the misconceptions is that if you have a diverse workplace or a diver workforce or culture of diversity that you're automatically inclusive and what we're finding is that's not the case, do people feel welcome?

Do they feel like part of the team?

It's one thing to include someone to invite them to the table, but if they're never part of the conversation, if they never feel like they're part of the team then we haven't really finished the work and I think that's the next step that industry is working towards is building a the culture of not only diversity but inclusivity as well.

And so Nicole, can you share some of those things that are happening that you see, you have to really interesting viewpoints on this.

Number one is you are seeing it up close as a professional, as the Vice President of Al Szabo Enterprises LTD and then also you sit as the chair of the board of directors for the Manitoba heavy construction industry, Can you share anything that you're seeing that specifically is trying to advance that conversation or advance that openness so that people of all walks of life can look at Manitoba or just the heavy construction industry, I should say as a an opportunity for a career.

I think there's a lot more marketing taking place now and I think that's really important.

A lot of the marketing does come from organizations like Manitoba Heavy, it involves getting in front of kids at a younger age and making known to them the communities that exist in our industry.

And the other part of that is building tool kits and resources that businesses can access to build these programs.

It's not a huge stretch from I think how safety probably started off, you know, most companies knew it was important, everybody's very focused on having a safe workplace.

And so we all wanted to be leaders in developing best practices and implementing procedures and having a toolkit that we could use to ensure that we were achieving our safety benchmarks.

And I think that now that is going to be flipping over to diversity and inclusivity where again, there's a lot of large employers that have these tool kits and share them with other small medium enterprises.

There are associations like Manitoba Heavy Construction Association that work on building these tools and resources to educate the businesses that are part of industry to help us know what are some of the best practices that are working for other people.

What are some of the policies that people are implementing and how should they be worded and how should they be explained to people?

And sometimes it's things that are as simple as having access to safety information or basic new employee packages in other languages because as somebody new to an industry and maybe new to the this country when you come to a position and you don't speak the language very well, you would feel very at ease and welcome by a company that came to you and said, we have a package for you in your language that you can review or we have someone that can sit with you and go through this with you who speaks your language.

And that's something that for us at Chabot Enterprises, we have a very diverse workforce.

We are always working on the in activity and I think that will continue to be a work in progress, just like safety is, but I'm very proud to say that we've been diverse for a very long time and we have a number of champions within our organization who are happy to act in that capacity where they will, you know, talk to each other one on one and sort of build that sense of community within our community.

So I think that has really worked for us.

Yeah, I know that's fantastic.

And I know that one of the other elements when I sort of look at the website, the Manitoba heavy construction website and the history and what they're working on is that there is an opportunity because the industry is able to draw from married, diverse communities because there's multiple entry points and that's, I'm taking that right off.

You're not yours, but the Manitoba heavy construction website that there's multiple entry points.

And so there's a laddering opportunities via job experience and training.

And so what you're speaking to is ensuring that there is an acceptance and understanding that as maybe new Canadians who don't have english as a first language and they arrive as they start to develop that, that you're recognizing that to give them training or safety or elements around the job training that would be in their own language.

Is that what I'm understanding?

Absolutely, yeah.

It's really important that they have access to that information that they feel welcome and part of our team.

And then, you know, it's, it's a two way street.

They recognize we want you here, we've gone to the extent of creating this package for you.

And so, you know, hopefully that then for them goes, this is a place that I want to be and and they want me here, I can see it because of the work that they've done to create this for me and Nicole in the time that you have your third generation, How have you seen the impact of machinery versus the labor that used to go into a lot of things and I can even sort of just think back at my time, you know, on the farm.

I mean there are a lot of things, there's a lot of manual labor of course, you know, then you get sort of things that come along like rock pickers and so things machinery that makes things a little bit easier.

Have you seen that come into the industry that has helped to sort of advance the productivity and how you can be more efficient in what you're doing in terms of your industry, We definitely have seen growth and innovation in our industry.

I don't think that they will ever engineer the labor component completely out of construction.

There's just always a need for that hands on work that cannot not be replicated in any other way yet.

But there's definitely been innovation changes to machinery to make it more efficient.

Things like machine grade control and gPS.

The fact that you can build a model on a computer and loaded into a machine and have accuracy within millimeters that has definitely, you know, transformed our industry.

And so Nicole on that.

Is that something that you can learn on the job or would you go to say a university or Red River College to get that kind of training, where would you learn some of that to adapt to the innovation of the industry?

Yeah.

So the technology I just spoke about, I give a pretty specific example.

So for people that aren't in industry, I'm talking about machine grade control, something typically on the graders that are making the roads flat and smooth right before we're gonna pave them.

And so the operator running that machine actually can and should get training on how to properly use the GPS machinery that's on board on that equipment.

Now we can get our operator try training from a multitude of providers.

A lot of the machine dealers will provide that training.

There are also training courses that they can take through also the machine dealers, but the other part of it is somebody has to build that model and that's where our engineers are.

C E T.

S are project managers come in and certainly those are courses that people can take at University of Winnipeg, University of Manitoba, Red River Technical Call College.

They all have programs that feed into the jobs that we have in our industry.

Okay, now a C E T is, oh, I'm sorry, a similar engineering technologist.

Got it.

Okay.

No, listen, I just, there's a lot of acronyms out there, so it's always good to know what that is.

So Nicole, a couple of other questions I'd love to just explore with you.

We all have lived through and still the tailings of Covid are very much alive in everyday conversation.

What impact, if any did Covid have on the heavy construction industry first and foremost, I think I'm really proud of how our industry went through Covid.

I think we were very nimble.

We were very quick to adapt and I would probably credit that to our long history and dedication with safety and health.

Industry has long been focused on practices and procedures to keep our people safe.

And so when the pandemic arose, the industry came together pretty quickly and find, you know, what are our best practices?

How are we going to protect our people?

What are we going to do to keep people safe and did it with, you know, again being very quick at getting it all together, but putting it in a way where it could really be delivered to our people in a way that they understood it made them feel safe about coming to work and let them know that their employers are taking this seriously.

But at the same time we are an essential service.

Everybody that I know in industry kept working excellent.

You know, it's interesting how you here.

I mean, it's a conversation that I would have to say that with the heavy construction industry and then just coming directly to, you know, shovel enterprises limited.

The notion of working from home is probably not an option.

Yeah.

We don't have operators that can work from home unfortunately.

Right.

One of the things that I just wanted to get your sort of thoughts on and you, you touched on it a bit, but you know, this is a podcast about human rights and humans on rights is the name of it as you're aware, I just wondered if there was anything that you think that is happening specifically in the role of the industry that they can champion this whole anti racism in the workplace.

You know, there's definitely been work being done in the industry, there are associations that are champion diversity and and diverse backgrounds.

The Afro Canadians Construction Association is one that comes to mind.

I was on a panel recently with their President and I think the most important thing that I've heard that is being done is to have these really fresh and open conversations about, you know, what is racism, What does it look like?

And when you call something out and you name it, then people are more aware of it and you can have a better understanding.

There's a lot of times people don't necessarily know that what they're doing is wrong or they've always heard it that way, or set it that way.

And really having those frank and informed conversations with people goes a long way.

If you call somebody out on bad behavior, they're much less likely to replicate it.

Yeah, I think that, you know, there's a lot of unlearning that has to be done before you kind of learn the other side.

So, you know, I appreciate your comments on that.

There's a thing called World Day for Safety and health, why do you think that's an important place to be in a human rights conversation.

Well, I think one of our basic rights and desires is to be safe.

So I think from a human rights perspective, that's a very basic element and myself being a safety practitioner as my background, I take safety very seriously.

I think it's very important.

The responsibility that weighs on us to make sure that all of our people go home every day at the end of the day to their families is something that you can't put a price on that.

There's nothing more important than that.

Yeah, no, thank you very much for sharing that.

You know, I've got two questions before we close out and one of them was I just wondered what is one message that you would like listeners to think about when considering an opportunity in the heavy construction industry.

I would like people to think about the heavy construction industry as an option for them.

I would like them to know that there are so many different roles that are available to people in our industry.

We're moving away from the stereotypes of the past, you know, it's not always dirty and dusty, I mean it certainly is a lot of the time, but there are all kinds of roles for all kinds of people.

There are technology based roles, there are engineering roles, you know, you can be an owner and I think that we need to be having those conversations with our kids because there are a lot of really long term well paying jobs in our industry.

You know, anybody listening, obviously Manitoba heavy construction has a great website, which I've been on and there's lots of information to gather if they're interested for sure.

So people can go to that website and I'll make sure that on our, our liner notes that we have that website listed.

So if people want to sort of have a look at that Nicole, the last thing I'd just be very interested to find out is on your resume.

You talk about the fact that you're an amateur wine snob.

I'll just let that one go.

But you also say that you are a collector of fine rocks and iron now, where if I were to come into your home and say show me your collection of fine rocks and iron, what would I look at?

Well, it's sort of a play on words for those of us in industry.

So most of my fine rocks are in my pits and they're for sale.

Got it.

Although I do keep a container of them on my desk and the iron, that's all the equipment.

So really just a play on words for my friends and iron industry.

Okay, so it may be better talk about sort of the the a wine snob, an amateur wine snob.

If somebody were to say to you Nicole, I want to buy you a bottle of wine to celebrate, what would you request?

Well I'm still super amateur.

So I love when people just bring me a great bottle of wine, but there's nothing I love more than a crisp new Zealand Sauvignon blanc and sipping that on a hot day out on my deck.

There's nothing else.

I love more and that's after knowing that a good day's work has been put in and that you are continuing to build the foundation of this great province we called Manitoba.

Nicole.

Thank you so much for joining me on Humans on Rights.

Thank you for sharing.

It's been a delight to talk with you and get to know you.

And also now I know that when I'm having experience on some of Manitoba's uh finest, finest highways that I'll know who is directing them and who is making it happen.

So thank you for taking some time to chat with me today Nicole chabot, I really appreciate your time and thank you Stuart.

It's been a pleasure, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Humans on rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart, Murray.

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