Ever wish you could leave the plumbing and rewiring to someone a little less macho, and a little more, well, like you? Enter Home Jane, an all-female crew of tradespeople dedicated to fixing and bettering homes in London
Home Jane is the brainchild of Jo Behari, a former marketing executive looking to branch out on her own and spread the word about good handywomen. While we traditionally associate men with heavy-duty hands-on labour, more and more women are donning overalls and toolbelts and proving they can more than handle the load. And Behari is keen to help them launch their careers while offering the many lone home-dwellers like herself another way to go for domestic service.
“I bought my first place last year and I had various people in to do different jobs,” she says. “I generally felt a bit vulnerable having these gruff guys coming in and out at different times and having to wait in for them. There are more and more women living on their own like me and I thought there must be a better way. I realised there are actually quite a few women out there working in the trades but no real big business so I thought I could help to raise their profiles.”
Home Jane has only been up and running for about nine months, but Behari now has about 10 servicewomen on her books, for whom she takes care of all the admin, advertising and PR. “They range from general handywomen who do a bit of everything to carpenters who have 20 years of experience,” she says. And, Behari is open to working with all manner of skillsets. “We would welcome any women in the trades environment looking to take on more work. We’ve just taken on a furniture restorer, now you might not expect to see that listed next to handywomen but it might be just what someone is looking for.”
Men may still have the monopoly on manual labour but the tides are slowly turning, thanks to the increasing number of institutions offering DIY-inclined women the chance to make it more than just a hobby. “The number of tradeswomen is growing,” says Behari. “There are a number of initiatives now encouraging women to make the break from their careers and change to retrain in various services as well as courses for young women looking to start out in a trade. Not everyone is suited to working in an office and the opportunities are increasing for women to get into these industries.”
So, how is Joe Public responding to this gender shift? “There is definitely a market for it; when I started out I thought it would be older people, but there are actually a lot of young women who have just bought their first property or who don’t yet have a particularly big property portfolio who feel more comfortable having women in their homes; people who want to take the time to have someone come round and fix the boiler or whatever but also can’t afford for people to be late.” And Home Jane claims to differ from the average contractor for more than just the obvious sexual distinction. “We give people a set appointment so if we say a plumber will be around at 10.30am, they will be there as close to then as possible and if for some reason they can’t, they will phone the client or us and we will let the client know for them.”
The business is not even a year old but Behari has already had to take on admin staff to cope with the influx of work. Three of the tradeswomen on her books are booked up until June and Behari will have to keep recruiting more and more handyladies to keep apace with the surge in demand. “Business has taken off way more than I expected for our first year,” she says. “We’ve had an amazing response: some lovely letters from clients and great feedback from people in the industry too. Sometimes we have to work with other men on a job and I thought they might be a bit negative about working with women but we have had some really positive comments.”
In fact, one of the Home Jane carpenters, based in north-east London is so busy on her patch that she hasn’t got the time to venture any further afield. As such the company is reliant on sub-contractors for various services in some areas of the capital. However, not only is Behari hell-bent on filling such voids with her own people before too long, but she has plans for greater domination as well. “I’d like to see the business take off on a national level. I get contacted by women all over interested in joining a service like ours and there is definitely a demand for female-only tradespeople all across the country.”
So, with such enthusiasm behind them, will we be seeing a more equal ratio of tradesmen to tradeswomen any time soon? Behari says not. “Because women are keen to stay within the domestic sphere and reluctant to go on-site there is a definite imbalance but there are a lot of initiatives and organisations trying to change that.”
For more information about Home Jane or to book a tradeswoman visit www.home-jane.co.uk
