We spoke to Laisa Pickering at the Line Mechanic Competition. This competition was part of the Annual Connection 2024 event in Te Awamutu. Laisa is a PTE Trainer/Assessor for MITA Consulting Limited, a nationwide operator specialising in cable jointing and line mechanics. Laisa is very knowledgeable about the line mechanic world.

Laisa is an excellent example of how women can succeed in construction and infrastructure. She inspires others, especially women, and demonstrates her determination and desire to succeed.

Read her story in the interview below.

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Your career started in Fiji forestry, and then you came to New Zealand to obtain civil machinery licences. Can you tell us more about that?

As a young girl, I often built and fixed things with my grandfather at home. After leaving school, an Australian boss from a timber company whom I met through family friends asked if I was interested in working in their joinery workshop because they needed someone skilled with power tools and detail-oriented. They required small wooden boxes to be made for a new client, Sandollars or Pure Fiji, to precise measurements. I needed a job, so I accepted it. I was the only woman in the plant, apart from one in the office.

You shared your desire to become fully qualified. What did you want to study, and did you encounter any barriers to gaining a qualification, e.g., full-time training, as you needed to work?

When I arrived in NZ, without any formal qualifications, I found work in civil construction doing labouring jobs and then progressed into operating heavy machinery and running small sites. My husband urged me to study since I was doing supervisory tasks after a few years in civil. A university career advisor showed me where to start, but full-time study wasn’t an option, so I had to find other ways to gain qualifications.

Coincidentally, after meeting with that career person, you were working on a project, and there were line mechanics also working on that project. You mentioned your curiosity about what they were doing.

Yes, I was operating diggers then, working on a subdivision development project. Usually, we would dig the trenches and move on, not seeing the cables being laid, and then we’d come along and fill the trenches. This project was a smaller one, so I got to see the cable laying process.

I started asking the Line Mechanics questions about their job as I was looking to upskill.

They said I had the right skills and more because of my civil experience. They also said they were hiring and offered work-based training. I went home, updated my CV, and gave it to them the next day. I didn’t hear anything for a while. I kept copies of my CVs in the car and would hand them out to other Line Mechanics I met on the job. It ended up that the HR lady who eventually employed me a year later said that three different people handed in my CV over time.

What was the work culture like in a male-dominated industry?

There are many supportive and encouraging men that I have worked with in all my jobs who did and do so much for women in trades, but every now and then, you come across someone who can make life a living nightmare. I came across one such person when I was new to the job who knew how to speak in my native tongue. He would say derogatory things to me when he knew that no one else would know what he was saying. I tried all the things I could to avoid him. During my three-month review, when I was asked how it was going for me, I was honest as there were times when I thought I would resign. Fortunately, the company had robust anti-bullying and harassment policies, so they were able to support me through this ordeal, and he was dealt with.

This experience helped me to support a young female tradie who told me she was experiencing harassment at work. The year I mentored her was predominantly spent supporting her through this, which I found frustrating as we could have utilised this time looking at other ways to boost her career. There is still a lot of work needing to be done in anti-bullying and harassment, with an emphasis on bystanders and their role. And although it’s not an employer’s job to teach you morals, I think that they should draw a clear line in the sand for everyone on what appropriate and inappropriate behaviour looks like and follow through with consequences if these are breached in order to give people affected by this behaviour the confidence to speak up. Most people affected by this behaviour just resign, and nothing changes.

Now, after starting at MITA Consulting Ltd, you are a Trainer/Assessor in Level 2 electrical unit standards, Level 4 and Level 5 apprentice qualifications. What would you say to females about becoming a line mechanic and gaining electrical qualifications as a career?

It’s a great job that offers great career pathways. There’s always something new to learn and do. Things change all the time, including new technology and you can work anywhere in the world. Everyone is so dependent on electricity these days; you won’t be short of work.

What particular moment or memory from your career stands out for you and why?

Some of the memories that stand out for me are jobs I did with my teammates in some of the most rural and hard-to-get-to places where we carried everything onto the site and helicopters flew in and stood our poles and equipment.

Coordinating and coaching an all-female line mechanics team, where the women all worked for different Lines Companies, and we won 2^nd place in the annual line mechanics competition.

Achieving my ‘Gloving’ (Glove & Barrier Line Mechanic) qualification.

I enjoy sharing my knowledge with others, so training comes naturally. My next step is to gain a Level 5 Adult Education qualification and improve my skills in training and teaching adults.

Outside of work, you mentioned you work with school kids, participate in the ‘Inspiring the Future’ initiative, work with community advisors, and participate in career day workshops. Can you tell us more about that?

Inspiring the Future is quite a bit of fun. It’s a program where volunteer role models get invited to schools. You get to meet the kids who are learning about different careers. You walk in, dressed in mufti so you don’t give any clues on what your job is and sit on stage. The kids get to ask questions to try and guess the type of job I do. Being a brown Pacific Island female, they usually guess primary school teacher, labouring type-based job, or traffic management. I then change into my Line mechanic PPE, and I always get squeals of excitement. I then get to share what I do and my journey to get there.

There are not many Pacific Islanders in the industry. Companies bring them in from Tonga and Fiji for work. It’s quite sad for the islands to lose talented people that they have trained, but in saying that, these Line Mechanics are also keen to come to NZ in order to upskill and better themselves and their families, so we are happy to have them. They bring a lot of skill and diversity to the industry.