Ruth Pollard is no stranger to hard work and determination. After five years in the construction industry, she's celebrating her first Pride in the Job Quality Award. Ruth shares how being a woman in construction has shaped her journey and what this award means to her and her team.
My name's Ruth Pollard, I'm a site manager for Taylor MP over at Newton Park for East Midlands.
When we got the e-mail in the morning I couldn't quite believe it to be honest.
Yeah, it was an amazing feeling, really good, really positive.
It was great for the whole team.
The team worked really hard this year so it's it's great that they get the recognition and the trades as well.
They've all come on board, they've all put the hours in and they've also responded to my never ending list.
So it was, it was a really good, great achievement for everyone.
Ruth is such a hard working woman.
She's here crack her dawn all day, every day and she's really good to work with.
She's always on the ball.
Everything you need you want, she's always there to give it to you.
So working for Ruth is really good.
Our biggest challenge is turning the site around.
We took on the site in December so we've had to settle a lot of the trades, reorganise a site and just kind of set standards on the site.
So it's been a a year of trying to change the site really for the better and improve all the standards.
You've got to make your mind up that you want the award.
We went to the awards a couple of years back and saw people on the stage winning and I think that's where I decided that's where we wanted to go.
It's very inspirational working with Ruth.
We are an award-winning site team because we all care and we all put that passion into it, so it's nice to be actually recognised for what we do.
I think as a woman in construction it is changing now.
You do get questioned a bit on the roll while you're in the job.
Your existence in the construction industry is under initially a bit more scrutiny.
If anything it makes you work that much harder and it makes you want to succeed even more.
So it's not always a bad thing, it spurs you on to to do better and it's obviously worked with getting the award this year, so it's a great industry to be in.
We welcome anyone on our site, Females Race Village and it doesn't matter.
There's a place for everyone on site and it's definitely changing for the better.
We don't accept people that don't agree with diversity inclusion.
I think this is a winning site because of the team, the work that the team have put in this year and just the general environment of the site.
We've worked hard to get it organised to make it safe for the trades.
It's generally a great place to work.
