Episode 5 - Bringing men into the convo

Joe McLeod

Joe McLeod grew up in Ontario and developed a love for trees and forests during his family’s annual maple syrup making. He subsequently got a degree in forestry at UBC and worked in various places in Canada and the United States before returning to school in Guelph, Ontario, to study landscape architecture.

Joe has been working with the City of Vancouver Park Board since 2011, initially in a park development role as a landscape architect project manager and more recently as the City arborist - supervisor of urban forestry since 2019.

Amit Gandha

Carla Grimann: This season, we have been talking about supporting women in leadership. We've been talking about the barriers they face as they strive for leadership, the harassment and the barriers that they face throughout their careers. This is Talk it Forward, brought to you by the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, with support from the City of Vancouver and I'm your host

Carla Grimann: On today's show, we're bringing men into the conversation because we need their support to promote equity in the workplace. We'll be talking about why they feel it's important to remove gender barriers. We'll be talking about how they have and have not seen gender equity evolve throughout their careers and how they hope to inspire women to consider trades like Urban Forestry. We'll also be talking about the difficulties of solving disputes and conflicts in the workplace. 

Amit Gandha is the Director of Operations at the Vancouver Park Board. He started his career in 1994. As a temporary employee, he saw a job posting that said tree climber and was intrigued. He started watering and planting trees and progressed throughout the organization by occupying nearly every position in Urban Forestry. And when he started, he felt it was macho work, and only one woman was on the Urban Forestry team. 

Joe McLeod is a Certified Arborist and Landscape Architect, and he is the supervisor of our Urban Forestry team here at the Vancouver Park Board. Joe grew up in Ontario and developed a love for the forest and trees during his family's annual maple syrup-making exploits. He continued his love for trees by obtaining a degree in forestry at UBC and then furthered his education by studying landscape architecture. 

And thank you, everyone, and welcome back to Talk it Forward, where I'm really excited to have two guests on our show. Quite unique. We have been talking about women in leadership and the barriers that they face in the workplace and obtaining leadership positions. And I know I said sort of at the beginning of the show, or in the trailer, that we need the support of men in order to achieve these goals that we're trying to really reach and happy to invite Amit Gandha: and Joe McLeod: from Park Board Operations on the show today. So thank you very much for joining us, guys. 

Joe McLeod: Thanks for having us.

Amit Gandha: Thanks for having us. 

Carla Grimann: First , I really want to say thank you, Amit. This show would not have come to fruition had it not been for you. I remember, probably about was it two years, a year and a half ago, I came to you with this crazy idea. And I remember you talking about your daughter and you said that you know, my daughter, she's super creative, she makes amazing things with Lego. And, you know, one day, she could be like an Engineer or an Architect or something like that and I don't want her to have to go through some of the stuff that women have to go through to do the job that they want. And I'm wondering, what is that? What is it that you see that women have to go through to obtain leadership or to work in a male-dominated workplace?

Amit Gandha: Well, it's, you almost have to prove yourself more so. And I feel like that's never a good place to start from; you're always behind, and you have to do so much more. And it's almost expected to do that much more, to move up. Now, that's in general, as a general feeling, you know, that can be lost. And to be honest, that can be very crippling to somebody who's actually going to pursue something like that. We as parents, you know, obviously I want my children to be successful. But as parents, and as what we experience and what we see, we sometimes will start to mentor and give some direction to our children. And sometimes, we do it in a way to protect them. So you know, a good way to protect them is by working on or eliminating some of these things that are in their ways. So what can we control before they actually pursue whatever career or whatever adventure they want to take? So when you first brought this forward, I was like, this is exactly what the heck we should be talking about is like. How do we remove these barriers for people who do want to succeed and not have to worry about thinking through, what am I going to have to go through to actually get to where I want to be? So what can we do and that's part of this. I mean, part of this podcast is stuff that you're working on is really about eliminating some of that so that I'm not trying to protect my child from trying to pursue something that I already know is going to be daunting. So this is part of it. This is part of removing some of those barriers. So those barriers are kind of gone by the time they are in college or thinking about whatever they want to do in life.

Carla Grimann: Thank you for that. And yeah, again, just thank you for allowing us to do this podcast. Is there anything else that you think is a barrier, or perhaps something in your career development here at the Parks Board and at the City of Vancouver that you have seen that are barriers, or even harassment in the workplace that you've seen? 

Amit Gandha: Well, I'm East Indian. I'm a colored minority. I've been working here now since 1994. I would say I've been quite privileged and quite fortunate, in what I've gone through to get to where I am. But what I've also seen at the same place is, you know, I started in Urban Forestry. Urban forestry is predominantly male-oriented. When I started here, there was one female that worked in Urban Forestry and when I was young, you know, when I started here, I was about 22 years old. And it was just kind of getting on very young, probably naive; just things are happening, things are flowing. But, you know, looking back, and even being in the moment, it's sometimes when you have one female who's pretty much in a male-dominated industry, and at the time, I think we had about 54 55 staff, I couldn't really help but think, how would that person feel trying to, you know, bring things forward, bring forward change? Or even have an opinion? Like how confident would somebody feel trying to make a statement? Or saying, hey, maybe we should be looking at things differently? I always had that feeling that, you know, people just kept quiet.

Carla Grimann: Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, that was 25 years ago, things have progressed, how have they progressed, and I still feel that we have a long way to go, but in that time, what have you seen that has changed that has helped things progress? 

Amit Gandha: I think there have been more discussions; there's been a lot of talks, there's been a lot of, here's what we should be doing and I believe we're at a place now it's really about actions is what's needed. I believe it also has opportunities that come. I know, we've got lots of people that had been quite successful working at the organization, we've got some great leaders; Donnie is my GM. You know, we've got people like Kevin Levitt, which is great to see. Because it can definitely prove that there are opportunities and there are challenges for growth and career, but what I think we need to do is not only now talk about this, but I think what we need to do is an action the support the tools to actually make sure that this is progressing, that we are supportive like it should almost be automatic. I feel like we're doing this podcast about 30 years late. We probably should have been doing this 30-plus years ago.

Carla Grimann: Podcast didn't exist then. But I hear what you're saying.

Amit Gandha: That's true. But the conversation, right, but the conversation is 30 years plus old and right now, as we talk, it still feels like a conversation. So what is the next part of this? And I'm really hopeful, Carla, like this, is, you know, the start of more of actions, the more of supports, the more of, you know, like, let's get this moving, that we're not having this conversation about like, what did you have to go over? You know, what obstacles were in your way? Let's get to the place of like, what made it successful? Like that would be kind of where we need to move to. And you know, we can do a lot of things. This isn't complicated to me. It's a very. It's not. There's nothing really complicated about this. You know, it's just a matter of making it happen. 

Carla Grimann: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the action happening. Definitely. Joe, are you still with us? 

Joe McLeod: I'm with you. Absolutely. 

Carla Grimann: So, Joe, you are now the supervisor of urban forestry. And Amit mentioned that you know, 25 years ago, there was one woman in urban forestry at the time. I'm wondering how many women are currently working in Urban Forestry? 

Joe McLeod: That's a really good question. I'd like to say we've come a long way. But we, you know, in total, we have five women working in Urban Forestry. And that's in a staff group that's now composed of just over 70 staff. So still a long way to go. 

Carla Grimann: It's okay. It's an improvement and we're here today to chat about that. And how can we improve that? So something that I always noticed, though, when I'm in the office, and I walk by your office door, front and center, there is a certificate, and this certificate is for a course called to Be More than a Bystander. And, you know, you don't have your certificate from UBC or your Arborist Certificate. I was wondering, why do you have that certificate front and center? And what is that course about? 

Joe McLeod: The course is, basically, I guess, BC Center for Women in the Trades partnered also with the BC Lions. And I think the I'm not sure if the name of the organization exactly, but I think it's BC, like ending violence as a group or ending violence Association. And it's a three-day course that's really focused on uncovering and revealing some of the biases that exist out there within the world, I would say, and especially within the trades. I was shocked to learn that only approximately 4% of employees in the trades are women in BC, and that's across all trades. And at the time, Urban Forestry was exactly right, and step with that. 4%. So yeah, I mean, I think the title Be More than a Bystander is focused on, you know, ensuring that people feel empowered to speak up when they do witness whether they be micro or macro aggressions, you know, even if they're not in the presence of a woman in the workplace, just, you know, alerting people in the workplace saying, like, Hey, that's not cool, or that's not acceptable,, stepping up. And I think it's very easy to hide from this. But I think it's; I guess I put that there to remind everybody that we all have an obligation here to step up. And like, and I also have a daughter, son, as well. But you know, seeing her growing up in this world is, it's especially salient to, to me and hits close to home. 

Carla Grimann: What did you learn in the course? Or did anything stand out for you when you took the course?

Joe McLeod: I think what stood out is, at one point, there was an opportunity for everybody to share kind of a story or a personal story, in which they were witness to or a player in something that really woke them up to the challenges that women face, you know, not just in the workplace, but in the world in general—and hearing those stories that everybody had. I mean, it was pretty emotional, I think, for everybody to hear those stories and share them. And you know, it was all men in that program. And without fail, every man in that group, I think there were about 15, or 16, men all had a story without fail that was emotionally jarring to hear, like what they had witnessed or what they'd experienced, or in some cases, what some individuals had been perpetrators of, and had since, you know, obviously, come to terms with that. So it was that was, I think, the most compelling part of it and everybody's commitment to, you know, trying to move things forward and in a more positive direction. 

Carla Grimann: That’s good,  I think that, you know, it's obviously going to take a lot of time for us to make these changes. But if we had a magic wand and could change something automatically next week, what would that change be? 

Joe McLeod: It's not just something where the City of Vancouver, in this case, as the employer, can make the change, right? It's systemic like we all have a role to play. But one of the key players here also is we have two distinct unions that, you know, represent employees that work at the City. And so those unions need to be in step with where we're going and represent the employees in a positive direction. Right. And I think that's really challenging. And I don't pretend to know the answer. But I that's where I think we all have a role to play and, but we all need to be on the same page. 

Carla Grimann: Yeah. And I think that, you know, that is difficult. For listeners that work in an environment that is not unionized. Just a bit of education, the union does have to represent both sides of the workers. There are two sides to the story, and whether they agree or disagree, they are obligated to represent each employee. So it's tough. It's tough. So. 

Joe McLeod: Ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, I think I speak for all for us all when I say I want the best for everybody. I want everybody to be the best version of themselves and self-actualize, and realize their dreams. And yeah, I don't want barriers, you know, holding people back. So that's, 

Carla Grimann: yeah. I mean, that's why we're here today is so that both of your daughters don't have these barriers.  

Joe McLeod: I mean, one thing that I've been experiencing with my daughter is she's she started playing hockey this year. And for me, that was important because when I grew up in Ontario, none of the girls played hockey. And girls were relegated to playing ringette. And it was; I think it was disempowering because my interpretation of ringette was that the boys would use hockey sticks when their hockey sticks broke; they would give them to their sisters, and then the sisters would be left with a stick to play ringette with. So none of the girls had ringette sticks. They had broken hockey sticks. And I didn't; my sisters were older, and they weren't involved in ringette or hockey. But, you know, friends that I had with sisters that played ring at I always shook my head and been like, why don't they play hockey, but they're stuck with these broken sticks. And I think that's a maybe a bit of a parallel to other, you know, circumstances in the world today. And we still have a long way to go.  

Carla Grimann: That is a really good parallel, actually. Does she root for the Habs? 

Joe McLeod: No, she roots for the Avalanche. But, and she does not have a ringette sticks. She's it's very clear that you have a hockey stick, just like your brother. 

Carla Grimann: Nice. I am glad to hear that. And I'm sure that Donnie Rosa, who used to be a professional hockey player in her time, would be glad to hear that as well. Can I ask you guys, was there any time in your career where you saw harassment occurring and you didn't do anything about it? And if you could go back in time and change that, implement some action? What would you have done?

Amit Gandha: Well, I could probably think back may be several occasions when I first started here, and the sort of back in the mid-90s. And it was even sometimes just simple as a tone that you would hear as a response back. You wouldn't think much of it at the moment, or you know, but in hindsight, you got it at every element of what we're talking about today. Hidden and just the tone. And it was almost done in a way that it was, you know, it was done. It was derogatory; it was negative, and it was almost punitive. But it was at the cost to get a laugh in the male-dominated kind of workplace sometimes. And so when you're first you, perhaps you're at a place of what did I just hear? Wasn't that just wrong? And why is nobody saying anything? And so, you know, if you're new, and you may, you may hear something like that, and you're just uncertain, you're kind of stuck, you're almost paralyzed to say something because either you're afraid that if you say something, it's going to be held against you, you're going to fall out of favour or any other concerns, whatever you think maybe you know, the fact that you're not saying anything, it's a very weak default place to go. But it's an easy one. And I think a lot of people go there on a very regular basis because you're not sure what to say. And as you, as we know, we morph, and as we grow as individuals, it's okay not to know what to say. But the fact that you should say something is more important than not knowing what to say. And trying to interject and saying, wait a minute, that didn't sound right. Or what did you say? Or what the heck was that? And then have a conversation because you don't even know where you're going with it. But the point is, like, you have to support each other. So, you know, going back to your question, have you ever heard anything like that? Or have you witnessed anything? You know, I would say, yeah, I, I, I'm positive. I did, like, I know I did. And so, what could have I done better? And at the moment, you know, I was, I was one of probably many that were paralyzed to, to say anything, or afraid to say anything, or didn't know what to say. And so, you know, I mean, those are things that, you know, when you come on as a new employee, we probably don't discuss those kinds of things, or we didn't anyway, back in the back in the 90s, or when I started, but those are the types of discussions we should be having. I know we talk about policies; we talk about respect in the workplace kind of stuff. Those are great. Those are great tools. So when something goes wrong, and you need to use something, to have a conversation, but giving the tools to people to say hey, this is the kind of stuff we expect. We want things brought forward. If you hear anything or you see anything. We need to address those. This is not some stuff that we should be just parking because you got to support each other here in the workplace. And so maybe those are the kinds of things that we need to move forward. Because back then, I mean, it happened. And it's unfortunate, but nothing was done. And to be honest, that person who's not here today, because they've retired, didn't hear any other, then they didn't get any support, and they left this workplace, having that still as part of them leaving this workplace, which is not a good feeling. It can't be a good feeling. And I would feel like crap if I was retiring, knowing that my time here wasn't enjoyable. 

Carla Grimann: Yeah, that's, that's hard to go I think your whole career like that. Right? 

Amit Gandha: Yeah, it's hard to walk those shoes, right.

Joe McLead: Yeah, I mean, jumping, I guess, I can't, I can't think of a particular instance in which, you know, something's been said, where I didn't, you know, step up or say something. But, um, I guess what one perception, though, is that I just look at how many workplaces I've worked in prior to the City of Vancouver, and also the City Vancouver is like, there's so much. It's just a societal observation, there's obviously so much emphasis on physical appearance that society puts on women, and when that transfers over into the workplace, that's, that's really unfortunate because it adds this whole other set of criteria and set of you know, checks and balances and kind of power struggles and, and power dynamics into the workplace that yeah, I certainly don't envy all the BS that women have to go through in the workplace and to the point that Amit made earlier, about women having to work harder, like, you know, I think about when I was working very early on as a landscape architect, and it was all deadline-driven work, it was non-unionized. So you know, you may have to work till midnight, on a deadline. Well, it almost seemed that women would voluntarily work until midnight, in the hopes of getting a promotion or getting advancement or falling in the right light with their bosses, and I can think of, you know, working in the City of Toronto, for a planning and landscape architecture firm and where you leave, you know, eight o'clock at night after you work on a deadline and without fail, like the majority of the people that were there later, were women. 

Carla Grimann: And And that comes with a consequence.

Joe McLeod:  21:07 Well, yeah, often health consequences, right. 

Carla Grimann:  21:10 Yeah. And I think that's not healthy for anyone, right? 

Joe McLeod: No, no, it's not.  

Carla Grimann: So yesterday, I sent an email out to the women in park board operations that are on the leadership team. And they asked me to ask you a couple of questions, very simple ones. So they would like to know, how is the Park Board supporting more equity and inclusion for women within the workforce? Park Board specifically? 

Amit Gandha: I mean, we have a recruitment process. So you go through that, you go through the process of itself, but I think I was speaking with recruitment probably a few months ago because we have to obviously work within our collective agreements when we put postings out. So we do that just like anything else; you put it out. And the challenge right now is, I don't know, maybe it's just timing. But right now, getting just applications is difficult. We're just not getting even many people applying for work. But within that lens of, you know, trying to make it more equitable, I would say Park Board in general and Park Operations when we look at our trades, and it's more it's primarily driven by like we have our Gardeners Trades. And I think in some certain segments, the park board has done quite well. I think the equity ratio, for example, with our horticulture is quite mixed; I would say it's almost a 45 55 split, which is pretty good when we talk about ratios for trades. But when I go back to a place like Urban Forestry, which is, you know, I think Joe had mentioned there's five, five females, in comparison are in a ratio of 70 70 plus staff, how do we improve those numbers? Like how do we get more women in the workplace? And, and so part of my conversation at the time with recruitment was. Well, part of it is we're not getting women into this trade, even just to go in for training, because there's a block there, there's a block for some reason, and what is that block? Is it because for what he wants to get into this trade, because of historical kind of past practices, not just here at the City, but across the province across, you know, of the country itself? What could we be doing better to promote opportunities in jobs because it is a good-paying job. It's, I would say, it's a very enjoyable job. It's a great job; you're working outside, you're working with nature, you're working with trees. There are a lot of positive conversations going on out there about trees, and we talk about climate change. We talk about sustainability, yet we can attract women into this trade. What is stopping that that conversation was like, you know, can we have people going to schools, can we get these conversations going? I remember when I was young, we used to have trades, come to schools and talk about the different things. So maybe, the lens needs to change, maybe the approach needs to change? Because I guarantee you right now, over the next three or five years, are we going to get more females applying for Urban Forestry jobs or trades that really don't have high percentages? I don't know. But it doesn't sound like that's going to happen right now, organically, unless we actually put some effort into it.

Carla Grimann: I agree. I agree. So hopefully, some young women are listening to this and going into Urban Forestry has piqued their interest. And they look into it further. And you know, it might take many years, but maybe we will get some more of them applying. So you just never know. Before we wrap up, though, is there anything else that you wanted to communicate out about, you know, supporting women in the workplace and women striving for leadership positions? Any last thoughts? 

Joe McLeod: Yeah, as a parting word, I say stay strong and don't give up. And also, don't be afraid in this day and age to, like, don't just suck it up, you know, so to speak, like, speak up. And because I don't know, speaking for myself like, I want to hear about the challenges and issues that women face in our workplace. Because we don't know necessarily what all these barriers are or what all these challenges are unless we're made aware of them. And so yeah, speak up and we want to support and expand opportunities for women and balance the representation within our workgroup because it makes the group as a whole much stronger, right?

Amit Gandha: I mean, this part of what we're doing today, just the conversation, that's great but this is just like I said earlier; this is a conversation. What I would like to see through next is outcomes, things that we will action. So when we want to grow this, we want more equity; we need to start thinking about everything that goes along with that to make us successful. We have work yards that need to be updated to have equity kind of related spaces; our places should be set up, running, ready to go. When women come into the workplace, we shouldn't see a washroom with one stall for one, one space for a woman and 90 for men. We need to start thinking about those kinds of things. I know, I know we are because we're talking about those kinds of strategies. So that's great; those conversations are also happening. Then when we start bringing people in, you know, when we have more women coming to the workplace, it's also again, going back to bringing our staff along in this, they're part of this as well. So you know, we talk about men are part of the solution, well, then all of us are part of that solution. So the entire workforce needs to be brought along on this positive, here's what we're trying to do. Here's our narrative we want to change; we want to give them the tools, the means and support as well to help support this action so that when women are coming into the workplace, they're welcomed. And I, I do want to say I'm super, super happy that you're doing this; this is not easy. You know, and so I do want to recognize you for what you're doing too. Because this is just one chapter in this journey. And I'm glad you started this. So thank you for what you're doing too.

Carla Grimann: Thank you, Joe and Amit, for joining us today on Talk it Forward. And just thank you for being along for the journey and your words and your support. Thank you so much.

Amit Gandha: Thank you.

Joe McLeod: Thank you, Carla. Appreciate it. 

Carla Grimann: This has been Talk it Forward. And thank you for joining us on today's episode, where we hope to inspire more women to enter the trades and more women to enter into operations and reach for leadership. Thanks for tuning in. If you'd like to learn more about how the City of Vancouver is promoting women in the workplace, visit vancouver.ca/womensequity.