Juana West knows what it is like to feel the challenge of being a young female in the construction industry.

But the 26-year-old Environmental Health and Safety Manager for Higgins largest region, the Manawatu, continues to prove that passion and self-belief can see your career start to fly.

Health and safety was Juana’s passion when she joined Higgins as an environmental health and safety advisor two years ago.

Since then, big improvements in the company’s safety culture have flowed, with Juana helping to achieve significant increase in near miss, incident and observation reporting, allowing the team to offer employees early intervention with injuries, identify trends and put solutions in place to prevent re-occurrence.

“At Higgins, we believe all injuries are preventable and I stand by that company belief. Coming into a business that has a strong belief that everyone should go home safely makes the job easy.”

Juana also co-developed the Higgins’ lower north island wellness calendar, focusing on healthy habits to improve and prioritise physical and mental health. The calendar included a regional fitness challenge, encouraging people to exercise daily and eat healthy food. In the first year, 25 people signed up with an average weight loss of 5kgs per person.  

“Encouraging construction workers to make healthy choices, helping improve overall mental health, is extremely important because the construction industry loses nearly one person each week to suicide.  So the wellness calendar focusing on healthy habits has an industry-wide benefit,” Juana says.

Two years on, Juana was promoted to EHS Manager Manawatu, responsible for health and safety of approximately 320 Higgins staff, multiple subcontractors, across the region. Her work involves daily promotion of safe working standards, implementing new roll-outs and industry standards and collaborating with experts to think of practical, yet safe and effective ideas to improve the way teams work.

She says she is used to being one of the only female in the room among her predominantly male co-workers, but enjoys the challenge and would love more women to join the industry and believes its an industry that women can thrive in.

“Being a young female in the industry, I don’t necessarily walk onto a construction site and have instant respect. I have to prove myself with my knowledge and ability to listen.  Although this was a challenge, having Higgins believe in my abilities and walking the talk has enabled me to work with my team to create a positive culture change.”

Career-wise, Juana has already exceeded her expectations by achieving the manager’s role by age 25.

“I’m grateful to Higgins for the support, knowledge and constant upskilling I’ve received. I love keeping people safe and knowing I can keep developing my skills to be able to succeed in this.”

Juana completed Fletcher Construction’s ‘women to leadership’ mentorship programme in 2023, which she found invaluable in her transition to her new management role. “The industry-wide connections I gained were also so beneficial and I learned a lot about setting high standards as a leader and the principle that every day you work is your CV.”

Juana says her career growth so far has also been the result of backing herself and believing in her abilities and strengths. “I have self-confidence and don’t mind speaking up when I believe in something,” she says.

“It’s often said that promotion is based on your years of experience. However, I got my promotion based on the potential people saw in me. Higgins took a chance on me and it’s awesome the business did that,” she says.

“Higgins has been tremendously supportive of me and my career development. I strongly encourage other young females to believe in themselves and to strive for the best in this industry.”