In April HIA hosted our first Building Women event for 2024, with more than 150 attendees joining us at The Westin Perth.

The focus was on Communicating with Impact. Shona Rowan facilitated a fantastic discussion as well as activities and action plans for everyone to take home and implement into our everyday lives.

Reflecting over the weekend, I realised how important communication is and sometimes how poorly I/we do it. Whether it’s a mumble at home, not giving clear instructions to a colleague and then being disappointed with the outcome or perhaps missing some critical information because it’s the 100th time we have done it, but forgotten it’s that person’s first time.

Communication can make or break most situations; it’s been critical over the last four years to keep staff and clients across the many challenges that have been thrown our way as an industry. The session last week reminded me of how significant it is as a skill, and how important it is to dedicate some time to developing my communication skills to get the right impact or outcome.

While on the topic of Building Women, this week we also kicked off our pilot HIA Building Women Mentoring Program. Fifteen Mentors and Fifteen Mentees have started their training and will spend the next six months supporting each other through the program. We are excited to see it launch and test a format that could have real benefits across the industry on a much broader scale.

Thanks to the Construction Training Fund and the Department of Communities for their support of the program.

Stay Safe!