S3: Episode 1: Jeff Fung, Vice-President, Operations, Forever Homes

"We've been able to provide a platform for multiple stakeholders to be successful."

Jeff works in a residential real estate development, family business which has grown, first through his parents' hard work and Jeff joined the team about ten years ago.

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Thank you Jann Danyluk, Career Resilience.

Transcript

  | 00:12 | I'm so excited to welcome you to season three of Career Resilience. My name is Jan Danila. I'm a senior human resources consultant at Ford Keith, a Progressive accounting firm in London, Ontario, Canada.

 | 00:26 | Each week I get to talk with people about their career path and their career journey and maybe we can all learn from each other how to be a little bit more resilient in the challenging world of work. Please check out my website, careerresilience.com, where you'll find season one and season two and now season three. Welcome. Love what you do and do what you love. The best career advice I've received follow the fun.

 | 00:54 | Those opportunities will just organically present themselves. Establish those connections and maintain those connections. Acceptance just means accepting what is. I don't think we should just put ourselves in a box. At the end of the day, it was always me that I said, I'm not doing good enough right now. I want it to always be moving night on Friday night. My guest today is Jeff Sung. Jeff is Vice President of operations at Forever Homes, which is a residential real estate, construction and development firm.

 | 01:27 | He's vice president of operations as I said, and that means he handles the day to day of the business and leads the team. This is also a family business and that in itself has very interesting challenges in the world of work. So, Jeff, welcome to career resilience. Thanks for having me Jeff. I appreciate it. It's just great that you are available to chat with me. So I know we're going to talk about your career and the business and so on, but I thought we could start out by if you could just tell me a fun or random interesting fact about yourself.

 | 02:06 | I guess the most interesting one of the interesting facts about me would be I had the opportunity after university to travel and work abroad of sorts. I went with two of my college friends and we backpacked Europe for about a month and then me and another gentleman, Mike, continued on to Australia where he had study abroad program that he was doing.

 | 02:38 | And I worked for and traveled with him for about six months. So I took about seven months after graduation and traveled and worked in Australia, which was a fantastic experience. Looking back on it, some struggles when we were there with hard to find that first job and kind of make do without having to call home, which we definitely didn't want to do.

 | 03:12 | But it was a great experience for the world and I encourage everybody to do the same, even people that work with me and other trades that I talk to. Yeah. What kind of work did you do in Australia? So my first job was very unsuccessful, but I worked at a call center that sold timeshares or sold arranged timeshare meetings.

 | 03:51 | So that was that lasted about ten days, maybe less seven to ten days somewhere in there. And then after that, I worked for a company that specialized in enthusiast gear and law enforcement gear. They had an online sales kind of department, but also it was like a pick and pack warehouse.

 | 04:21 | They had a small retail shop, and then they had commercial government contracts. You mentioned that you would recommend people do this. Did you feel that you grew up a bit through this whole process? Yeah, absolutely. I think grew up a lot, but also learned a lot about other cultures and other people and other points of view. Travel really does help you with your perspective about life.

 | 04:53 | I really believe that that it's not the same watching it on TV, that's for sure. So I wanted to switch over to talking about your background in terms of education. What did you take when you were in university? I took accounting. I took a business Bachelor of Arts. But a business as a business major with, I guess, a focus in accounting.

 | 05:23 | Okay. Never really got to be wasn't smart enough to be an accountant, but went down that stream, but really appreciate the knowledge there. It's helped tremendously. Yeah, that would be hugely helpful. So thinking about Forever Homes, the business that you're in, can you give me a little bit of background?

 | 05:49 | I know that you're the son of immigrants, so can you give me a little bit of background about the start of the business? Yeah, I don't know if any of us really know how the business started. It was definitely a journey. It started with my mother and father are the founders, and I don't think they really know how they got into it either.

 | 06:19 | Generally speaking, they immigrated in, I believe, June 1990, and I was born shortly after in November. My dad was an entrepreneur in Hong Kong, so they both immigrated from Hong Kong, so he was a business operator in Hong Kong.

 | 06:41 | When he got here, they were trying to figure out what type of work or business they wanted to start, and they took on a bunch of jobs in different industries to get a feel of things. My father started as a waiter at a Chinese restaurant in Masonville.

 | 07:06 | At the time, my mother worked in Delhi at no Frills, and they both worked at the time called Robin's Donuts. I think it was on the corner of Horton and Wellington there is Robinsonut. So they tried a few different industries to see what one they would like to start. The typical ones and ones that were kind of low barriers of entry at the time.

 | 07:39 | Restaurants, supermarket, or convenience store. It's important. Or coffee shop, things like that. What's what do you mean, Jeff, when you say low barriers of entry? It wasn't something that took a lot to get started. You could restaurant a little bit of money in the space.
 | 08:07 | You can start a restaurant and same thing with a coffee shop. What kind of business was your dad in Hong Kong. And your mom? My mom had an accounting background as well. She worked for a couple of companies in Hong Kong, British based companies. My father had a commercial printing company. Did they speak English? My mother's English was fine.

 | 08:39 | It was good enough. Mostly she finished high school and also did some postgraduate studies, but she also worked in a British based company, so they all spoke English, and there are some Scottish people there, she remembers, so she had to use English quite a bit. So her English was good.

 | 09:02 | My father's English was and still isn't the greatest, but he had a good mind for business and entrepreneurship and very personable. And a lot of people say he's a pleasure to be around, so I think that helped him, help him a lot here.

 | 09:27 | So, Jeff, are you incredibly impressed by the bravery of your parents? Yeah, absolutely. More and more as I get older, more impressed with it, what they've done and what they've been able to achieve in their time here. London wasn't as nearly diverse as it is now.

 | 09:59 | Right. There's no Internet or technology, really, so Google Translate or anything like that. So they have to trust a lot of people and put themselves out there, for sure. And I kind of talked to my wife now, and they say, imagine us just about the same age as my dad now, moving from Hong Kong to Canada.

 | 10:28 | Imagine if we picked up and moved to Thailand or anywhere else that where we don't speak the language. It would be extremely challenging, even with the technology that we have. So it's quite impressive. And I have a lot more respect as they get older for immigrants and those that have been here for a while and establish the business or life for themselves from another country.

 | 11:04 | Yeah. The courage it takes is kind of mind boggling. Now, for yourself, did you always know that you were going to go into the family business? The joke and that we still kind of talked about today is growing up, I would tell my father that the moment I get my hands on the business, I'm going to sell it. So I never wanted to be a part of the business, never wanted anything to do with it.

 | 11:35 | But I learned to appreciate now and learn about it, and it's great. I don't know what else I would do if I was doing this. Yeah, it's a fascinating business. So did you work in the business as a kid? In various jobs? Yeah.

 | 11:55 | And that's probably why I didn't want to ever be part of the business just as a teenager, or 1516 would be on site sweeping and cleaning and doing all the grunt work, which nobody really wants to do. But it taught me a lot. And looking back on it. Especially. And a lot of the trades that we use now are still the ones from back then.

 | 12:25 | And a lot of them remember me on site. So they have a little bit more respect for me since they know I've done some of it as well and being able to relate to the guys on site and have one talking. At least I know a little bit of what I'm talking about. Yeah, I worked on site growing up in the summers and stuff like that. So at what point did you really know that you were going to get into the business as a career?

 | 12:57 | After I came back from Australia, our family was working on a project. My dad was working on a project which was a student rental building across from Fanshawe, and he was looking for some help with that. So it was either I went out and got a job or I cannot help him and see if I would like the business.

 | 13:29 | I've never really been the best student, so probably my resume wasn't the greatest trying to get a job, so by default, I kind of had no choice and stepped in and helped my dad with that and worked with a lot of people through those first couple of years and really liked it and same thing, never looked back. Yeah.

 | 13:55 | What are the challenges you find in working in a family business? I think the biggest challenge for me has been the work always follows you, even growing up, or my parents are always talking about work at the dinner table when we're driving from home to a restaurant or home to hockey or back from hockey.

 | 14:30 | It always just kind of follows you and it kind of consumes you for better or for worse. So I think that was kind of the hardest part, especially starting my own family and my wife not being from that environment. When we had dinner at my parents’ house, we're just all talking business and she's kind of on the sidelines there, so yeah, I think that can be hard sometimes.

 | 15:04 | Then there's typical stuff where you have disagreements that can carry over into personal conversations or personal things during dinner or whatever. You get upset, you take work home with you, even when it's good or bad, disagreements and power struggles. So it's hard to navigate those things sometimes.

 | 15:34 | Luckily, I don't have any siblings, so I can't really comment on that. But you see that a lot too, with siblings trying to maintain control or certain types of control. Do you ever need to get away from each other? No, I think we all have a good relationship.

 | 16:00 | Me and my parents have a good relationship, which is probably a reason why my dad was okay with me coming into the business, is we had a good relationship, so I don't feel that he's there too much or we see each other too much. Yeah, it's never been a problem for me or us. Yeah. What advice would you give others in your position in a family business?

 | 16:31 | I guess in my scenario where on the incoming generation, my advice would be that you're probably wrong and I've been wrong probably more often than not.

 | 16:55 | And the experience of the previous generation is tremendously valuable. And the relationships that they've made in roads that they've made are tremendously valuable. And don't take that for granted. Sit back and listen and observe.

 | 17:19 | Obviously, most people are trying to improve the business and will make mistakes along the way, but positive mistakes. But the experience of the previous generation is probably a lot more useful than the academic knowledge you may have obtained over the course of your studies.

 | 17:46 | Do you think that sometimes what happens is that the new generation maybe doesn't have the same amount of respect for the previous? Because of course, when you're the new generation, you think the ideas that you got are innovative and creative and you know, you did that and that's fine, but, you know, I'm just going to be polishing this apple. The acceleration of technology.

 | 18:15 | There's a big difference between technology from 1995 to 2020 so that acceleration in our industry, specifically technology, hasn't always accelerated.
 | 18:37 | There's not much change in the technology and bricklaying from 2022, so us coming in with cell phones, laptops, this, that, and whatever gizmo, we think that we can improve the process. And I think construction does need that to a large degree.

 | 19:05 | However, it's hard to change an entire industry overnight. So the amount of technology that's available to us and also the accessibility of information, I think gives people like myself a little bit more confidence in trying to make changes or implementing changes that may or may not add value. Yeah.

 | 19:34 | So talk to me about how you have had to be resilient in your own career. I think the biggest part of that is being able to be humbled, understanding. I guess that part of, you know, you're probably wrong.

 | 20:06 | Being wrong and failing is not a bad thing, but people lose a lot of confidence when that happens. Making a mistake is a good thing, but also understanding why you made those mistakes or how to not make those mistakes again is important, and I think that's part of the resilience.

 | 20:29 | Now, you played hockey? Yeah, if you can call it that. I was out there, you're out there. Did that shape you at all? Sports was a big part of growing up for me. I didn't have any siblings, so didn't have any real head to head competition or competitiveness in the house playing games or whatever.

 | 21:02 | So sports was a big thing for me, whether that was at school, hockey outside of school, high school basketball, stuff like that, really enjoyed it. Helped me understand teamwork hard physical work as well. And also a lot of times being able to correlate hard work with results, tangible results, is important to see.

 | 21:33 | So that kind of fostered that for me. I have my questions for you that I wanted to ask what has been the best career advice that you have received? The best career advice I received was that the most important thing is reliability.

 | 21:56 | And you could be the best at something or you could be the worst at something, but if you're not reliable, neither of those things matter. And it rings pretty true in construction showing up is 80% of the work. We can always teach you how to be better at something, but we can't really teach you to be here.

 | 22:29 | You just have to be here. But yeah, reliability and dependability I think are the biggest assets as an employee or even as a person, as a leader. And that was the best advice. If you can be reliable, you can't be replaced. Tell me about the houses that you build.

 | 22:57 | Are they getting more and more complex? Are they getting simpler? Where's your industry going in terms of housing? That's a good question. I would say they're getting slightly more complex, but at the same time some of the processes are getting a little bit simpler.

 | 23:31 | There's a lot of new materials and engineered products that are trying to replace some of the older methods of construction. I think the complexity is benefiting the ultimate product.

 | 23:50 | I think the homes are becoming better and better built and more comfortable or easier to maintain or better environment for people to live in. The types of home we built, we built primarily relatively entry level homes and townhomes.

 | 24:20 | I say the most complex part of things these days is more of the gadgets that people are trying to put into the homes that don't really have too much to do with the actual home itself. But smart homes whether that's smart lighting, smart shower valves, equipment and some of the fridges these days too.

 | 24:48 | They got their WiFi enabled. What do you think Jeff? Of 3D houses. I actually saw my first one in January where it's kind of like a printed house. I think it's a great idea, but I don't know if it works in our climate yet.

 | 25:19 | I think there's still a long ways to go it might work in places like probably typically more warmer climate places or single one or two seasonal places whereas our climate here you go from plus 40 to -40 yes so it's a very large swing yes but I think what I've seen a lot is a lot more modular type building which I think is going to be I hope that can improve and help kind of increase the capacity of building and it can be built in any place.

 | 26:10 | What is modular? What is that? It's been around for a long time but it's kind of getting better but anything from there's all kinds of forms but anything from building. You can build a house in a factory in like four or five pieces and then ship it to site and make connections. It can be very small build formats that are utilized, containers that was a big trend.

 | 26:46 | Other parts of it, maybe on the high rise side, is you can actually order like a whole bathroom that's already pre made and all you have to do is kind of slide it into crane it up into apartment and slide it into place in all different formats. But I think modular building is probably a way to go. It eliminates for us, it eliminates a lot of variables when it comes to weather.

 | 27:15 | Building in the winter is not always great, but if you can build it in the factory and just kind of quickly assemble it on site, it takes that weather element out of it and possible quality degradation because of weather. I don't really think it's taken off though, has it? I mean, modular houses, now that I recognize what you're talking about, have been around for a while. But yeah, it's still quite expensive.

 | 27:46 | They're a lot more prevalent in places where trade accessibility isn't available back to careers. And my second question for you in that list is, is there a book or a podcast or even an entertainment show that you have streamed that influenced you or made a difference to you and Navigating Life?

 | 28:13 | I listen often to some more kind of global business podcast. One of the ones I listen to quite often. It's more kind of a news type podcast, but there's a few through The Economist. The Economist, they provide a lot of economic and also geopolitical commentary, which is quite helpful.

 | 28:46 | And they provided in a context in relation to business in the economy. Right, yes. Versus maybe your traditional news outlet. So it kind of not only provides you with the news, but also some context with it. Yes. A couple of books I've enjoyed were more about more, I guess I don't know what you call biographies of different founders.

 | 29:19 | Shoe Dog is one about Phil Knight and Nike and how his journey went, which was very interesting. It was a little bit similar to the sense where Night, this is back in probably the 70s, had to go from America to Japan, so he had to do business in a different country that he didn't understand the language or whatnot and how he navigated those waters.

 | 29:56 | And similar to how my father came in and had to navigate the Canadian culture. Right. Yeah. There was another one, I forget the title, but it was about Starbucks Start, and those two are probably the ones I remember the most. Very good and understanding how those founders, obviously very successful, navigated the early days of those companies.

 | 30:33 | Yes. I always think when I read those types of books, that little did they know what was going to happen with Nike or Nike, however you pronounced it, or what was going to happen with Starbucks when they started out. We know the story now, but they didn't at the beginning. So it's quite fascinating. And my third question is, what are you most proud of related to your career?

 | 31:08 | I don't know. I don't know if there's anything to be proud of yet, Jeff. There definitely is. There's a long way to go still for us.

 | 31:25 | I think the thing that we can be proud of today is we've been around for 30 years and I've only really been involved with the company for the last ten, but we've seen some tremendous growth.

 | 31:44 | I think the thing that we're proud of is we've been able to provide a platform for multiple stakeholders to be successful, whether that's our employees, our trades, our customers, and even our vendors.

 | 32:10 | We've created this vehicle where you can grow with us or even grow faster than us, but we've been able to provide an opportunity for different people to come along on our journey with us. We've had many staff members that have come into our business and then have gone and done their own thing, and I've been very successful.

 | 32:41 | So we're glad to see that. We've seen trades grow with us from a small electrical company to a larger one to a midsize one to a large one and them adding staff and growing. So I think we're proud that we've been able to help people along the way and help them grow because we know there's been a lot of companies and a lot of people that have helped us as well.

 | 33:19 | We didn't get to where we are without anybody. We've definitely gotten here because of people. Yeah. So you're the kind of person who likes a win win scenario. Yeah, absolutely. I don't want to know what's the point of win lose in business. Yeah, it definitely happens.

 | 33:47 | It definitely happens. But that's not what we want to strive for. I think everybody in the value chain needs to win or else is no longer a value chain. A builder shouldn't make all the money and a drywaller should make all the money, and electrician shouldn't make all the money, and a developer should make all the money, and the farmer should make all the money.

 | 34:19 | I think everybody needs to provide value and receive value along the way. And it doesn't work if it's out there. And I think we're seeing that more now is probably in the past there wasn't enough value for some of the trades, and that's why you're seeing a lack of new labor in that field.

 | 34:49 | There's no monetary reward. Why would they do it? Right. Why would we do it? Yeah. So I think it's not sustainable. I think it also this might sound a little sheshy, but I think it also puts a better vibe into the homes that you're building. It makes a better home or a forever home. I love that because people along the whole line care about the product that they're putting together and that's great.

 | 35:21 | Yeah, exactly. They need to be proud of what they're doing as well. It's so important that's everything I had for you is there anything you wanted to add, Jeff? No. I'd like to thank you again for taking the time and having me on, and I appreciate you listening to me. Well, really interesting stuff, that is for sure. And you are in a challenging business, and I think we're lucky to have you in that business.

 | 35:50 | So thank you for meeting with me. So, to our viewers and listeners, thanks for joining Jeff me today. I'm sure you learned a couple of things. I certainly did. If you're a viewer, watch us on YouTube. If you're a listener, find us wherever you get your podcast. And thank you so much and until we meet again.