For more than a decade, architecture, engineering, construction (AEC), environmental, and related firms have been worried about recruitment. Demographics are a key driver of this, with 10,000+ Baby Boomers turning 65 every day (which will soon be 12,000). Talent is leaving the workforce.

Additionally, the AEC industry, among many others, is getting squeezed at both ends. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, college enrollment has been in decline for much of the past decade and has accelerated over the past two years because of COVID-19.

Furthermore, with declining birth rates during and after The Great Recession, college enrollment figures will continue to decline in the coming years. There’s already a labor shortage in the construction industry, and one forecast projects that the industry will need to fill another 2 million positions over the next three years to keep up with demand.

Of course, we’re also dealing with The Great Resignation, with accelerated rates of employee resignations compared with pre-pandemic norms.

Pew Research found that primary drivers for employees leaving their jobs include low pay, no opportunity for advancement, feeling disrespected, childcare issues, and a lack of flexibility. 

In other words, the current market favors the employee, not the employer. This is not a temporary change either; this will be the new norm as employees continue to demand better wages, greater flexibility, continual learning, upward mobility, and more.

This has created a challenge within the AEC industries, as archaic workplace policies, lack of diversity, and general old-school thinking continue to be the Achilles Heel to many firms. It’s no coincidence that less than a quarter of students in college engineering programs are female, and as many as 40% of these graduates never go into engineering or quit the industry altogether. And although 15% of college students in the United States are African-American, only 4% of engineering students are.

At least firms have started trying harder.

Probably the most popular Marketropolis blog I’ve ever written, “There’s a Talent Shortage – So Why are we Chasing Away Half the Potential Workforce?," was published before Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) was a common topic of discussion in design and construction firm boardrooms. But change takes time, and companies need to demonstrate a true commitment to DEI through actions, not cliché website statements about being committed to DEI. 

In some ways, the AEC market space finds itself in the middle of a perfect storm of workforce disruption: talent shortage, quitting staff, lack of diversity, and high demand for services.

I can’t tell you how many clients have recently stated, “We’re not worried about getting work as much as we are worried about delivering the work we already have.”

So what’s a firm to do?

Employer Brand

One of the first things to ask is why a potential employee would come to work for your firm. What is the value proposition that you offer your employees? The employee value proposition is an indicator of your firm’s culture. Just as your corporate brand offers a promise of what it would be like to work with your firm, the employer brand offers a promise of what it would be like to work for your firm.

Here are some questions to ponder:

• What is your vision? Is it a clearly articulated picture of the future? Is it shared openly with staff members? Do they embrace it?
• Do your employees feel a sense of purpose? Do they believe that the work they are doing matters? Both to them professionally as well as personally?
• Does your firm have a learning culture? Are employees at all levels given opportunities to develop new skills while expanding existing ones? Is there a robust mentoring program in place to develop talent across the firm?
• Do you offer flexibility, in both where people work as well as the hours that they work? Or a hybrid model combining in-person and remote work, if applicable?
• Are the proper tools provided – digital and non-digital, in-office and remote – to allow all employees to successfully complete their tasks using the required equipment? Are these tools current and relevant?  
• Does your firm embrace a work-life blend, recognizing that employees have an outside life with families and commitments? Do you offer transparency and flexibility, recognizing that each situation is different? Does your leadership lead by example?
• Do all employees feel valued? Are their questions heard and addressed? Is every space a safe space – where employees feel respected and comfortable introducing new ideas and challenging the status quo?
• Do employees trust firm leadership – and does leadership trust their employees? Are staff given the opportunity to do what they do best without being micromanaged?
• Is everyone on the right seat on the bus? Are they in roles that play to their strengths, not roles that force them into uncomfortable areas of weakness and negatively impact their ability to succeed?
• Are staff compensated fairly at all levels and rewarded for successes? Does your benefits package match or exceed other similar companies?
• Do you provide a fun work environment with special perks or opportunities to actively participate in professional and community organizations?
• Are your employees promoters? Do they recruit others because they have such a positive experience? Are they willing to share their stories with potential employees, write about their experiences, or go on camera?

The answers to these questions are what potential employees are seeking, but if the answers to these questions are not readily apparent, these candidates may not even consider your firm as an option. You’ll never even know they exist.

Employees are empowered like never before, and part of this empowerment is the ability to do their own research, checking out your website and social media, reading reviews on Glassdoor.com, working their network for information and referrals. They are vetting you and you don’t even know it.

Employees and leadership of WDS Construction gather at a University of Wisconsin basketball game.

This is why your employer brand is so critical. And the employer brand cannot simply reside in the minds of your human resources team; it must align with what you truly represent as a firm. And it must be encompassed in your marketing messaging because it is more important than ever to promote it externally.

Your website should showcase company culture. Your social media activities must go beyond specific messaging for your target markets and also focus on your people and the employee experience you offer. Your presence at recruiting fairs must embrace this brand, and your employees need to be front and center in the recruitment process. Every staff should be able to articulate your employer brand and answer the questions, “What’s it like to work at your firm?” and “Why would I want to work there?”

It is not going to get any easier to attract talent, and many firms are struggling just to maintain the talent they have. The elements that make an employer brand successful are also critical to the retention process as well. However, if when addressing the myriad questions above you didn’t know some of the answers, or the answers were “no,” then you have some cultural gaps that must be addressed to keep the people you have while attempting to expand your workforce.

For example, the recent Work Reimagined Employee Survey found that 87% of employees want flexibility in where they work while 88% of employee want flexibility in when they work. This is of course far easier to achieve with knowledge workers (office staff) than with field staff, so how do you fairly create an environment for all staff, regardless of if they need to be behind a computer or on a construction site? 

Your actual policies go far beyond employer brand, of course, but must be reflected in your employer brand. This is where authenticity plays a major role. Sure, it is easy to claim that your firm is a great place to work, that your employees love being there, that professional development is part of your culture, or that you offer a flexible working environment. But do you really? If you promote flexibility and work-life blend and your employees are on social media or at professional societies claiming that your firm is a sweat shop where everyone must be at their desk ten hours a day, there’ a bit of a disconnect.

Current and potential employees have their radar up for inauthenticity and they won’t simply trust you at your word. Either they’ve been burned in the past, or someone they know has.

Your company must demonstrate that you’re the real deal if you want to become a destination for talent while retaining the talent you have. And you need to back it up with actions, policies, and culture.

Only when you are able to articulate these actions, policies, and culture in your marketing messaging, backed by authenticity and employee promoters, will you have a strong employer brand.

Do you have the employer brand necessary to attract talent?

Connect with Scott Butcher on LinkedIn.

For more than a decade, architecture, engineering, construction (AEC), environmental, and related firms have been worried about recruitment. Demographics are a key driver of this, with 10,000+ Baby Boomers turning 65 every day (which will soon be 12,000). Talent is leaving the workforce.

Additionally, the AEC industry, among many others, is getting squeezed at both ends. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, college enrollment has been in decline for much of the past decade and has accelerated over the past two years because of COVID-19.

Furthermore, with declining birth rates during and after The Great Recession, college enrollment figures will continue to decline in the coming years. There’s already a labor shortage in the construction industry, and one forecast projects that the industry will need to fill another 2 million positions over the next three years to keep up with demand.

Of course, we’re also dealing with The Great Resignation, with accelerated rates of employee resignations compared with pre-pandemic norms.

Pew Research found that primary drivers for employees leaving their jobs include low pay, no opportunity for advancement, feeling disrespected, childcare issues, and a lack of flexibility. 

In other words, the current market favors the employee, not the employer. This is not a temporary change either; this will be the new norm as employees continue to demand better wages, greater flexibility, continual learning, upward mobility, and more.

This has created a challenge within the AEC industries, as archaic workplace policies, lack of diversity, and general old-school thinking continue to be the Achilles Heel to many firms. It’s no coincidence that less than a quarter of students in college engineering programs are female, and as many as 40% of these graduates never go into engineering or quit the industry altogether. And although 15% of college students in the United States are African-American, only 4% of engineering students are.

At least firms have started trying harder.

Probably the most popular Marketropolis blog I’ve ever written, “There’s a Talent Shortage – So Why are we Chasing Away Half the Potential Workforce?," was published before Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) was a common topic of discussion in design and construction firm boardrooms. But change takes time, and companies need to demonstrate a true commitment to DEI through actions, not cliché website statements about being committed to DEI. 

In some ways, the AEC market space finds itself in the middle of a perfect storm of workforce disruption: talent shortage, quitting staff, lack of diversity, and high demand for services.

I can’t tell you how many clients have recently stated, “We’re not worried about getting work as much as we are worried about delivering the work we already have.”

So what’s a firm to do?

Employer Brand

One of the first things to ask is why a potential employee would come to work for your firm. What is the value proposition that you offer your employees? The employee value proposition is an indicator of your firm’s culture. Just as your corporate brand offers a promise of what it would be like to work with your firm, the employer brand offers a promise of what it would be like to work for your firm.

Here are some questions to ponder:

• What is your vision? Is it a clearly articulated picture of the future? Is it shared openly with staff members? Do they embrace it?
• Do your employees feel a sense of purpose? Do they believe that the work they are doing matters? Both to them professionally as well as personally?
• Does your firm have a learning culture? Are employees at all levels given opportunities to develop new skills while expanding existing ones? Is there a robust mentoring program in place to develop talent across the firm?
• Do you offer flexibility, in both where people work as well as the hours that they work? Or a hybrid model combining in-person and remote work, if applicable?
• Are the proper tools provided – digital and non-digital, in-office and remote – to allow all employees to successfully complete their tasks using the required equipment? Are these tools current and relevant?  
• Does your firm embrace a work-life blend, recognizing that employees have an outside life with families and commitments? Do you offer transparency and flexibility, recognizing that each situation is different? Does your leadership lead by example?
• Do all employees feel valued? Are their questions heard and addressed? Is every space a safe space – where employees feel respected and comfortable introducing new ideas and challenging the status quo?
• Do employees trust firm leadership – and does leadership trust their employees? Are staff given the opportunity to do what they do best without being micromanaged?
• Is everyone on the right seat on the bus? Are they in roles that play to their strengths, not roles that force them into uncomfortable areas of weakness and negatively impact their ability to succeed?
• Are staff compensated fairly at all levels and rewarded for successes? Does your benefits package match or exceed other similar companies?
• Do you provide a fun work environment with special perks or opportunities to actively participate in professional and community organizations?
• Are your employees promoters? Do they recruit others because they have such a positive experience? Are they willing to share their stories with potential employees, write about their experiences, or go on camera?

The answers to these questions are what potential employees are seeking, but if the answers to these questions are not readily apparent, these candidates may not even consider your firm as an option. You’ll never even know they exist.

Employees are empowered like never before, and part of this empowerment is the ability to do their own research, checking out your website and social media, reading reviews on Glassdoor.com, working their network for information and referrals. They are vetting you and you don’t even know it.

Employees and leadership of WDS Construction gather at a University of Wisconsin basketball game.

This is why your employer brand is so critical. And the employer brand cannot simply reside in the minds of your human resources team; it must align with what you truly represent as a firm. And it must be encompassed in your marketing messaging because it is more important than ever to promote it externally.

Your website should showcase company culture. Your social media activities must go beyond specific messaging for your target markets and also focus on your people and the employee experience you offer. Your presence at recruiting fairs must embrace this brand, and your employees need to be front and center in the recruitment process. Every staff should be able to articulate your employer brand and answer the questions, “What’s it like to work at your firm?” and “Why would I want to work there?”

It is not going to get any easier to attract talent, and many firms are struggling just to maintain the talent they have. The elements that make an employer brand successful are also critical to the retention process as well. However, if when addressing the myriad questions above you didn’t know some of the answers, or the answers were “no,” then you have some cultural gaps that must be addressed to keep the people you have while attempting to expand your workforce.

For example, the recent Work Reimagined Employee Survey found that 87% of employees want flexibility in where they work while 88% of employee want flexibility in when they work. This is of course far easier to achieve with knowledge workers (office staff) than with field staff, so how do you fairly create an environment for all staff, regardless of if they need to be behind a computer or on a construction site? 

Your actual policies go far beyond employer brand, of course, but must be reflected in your employer brand. This is where authenticity plays a major role. Sure, it is easy to claim that your firm is a great place to work, that your employees love being there, that professional development is part of your culture, or that you offer a flexible working environment. But do you really? If you promote flexibility and work-life blend and your employees are on social media or at professional societies claiming that your firm is a sweat shop where everyone must be at their desk ten hours a day, there’ a bit of a disconnect.

Current and potential employees have their radar up for inauthenticity and they won’t simply trust you at your word. Either they’ve been burned in the past, or someone they know has.

Your company must demonstrate that you’re the real deal if you want to become a destination for talent while retaining the talent you have. And you need to back it up with actions, policies, and culture.

Only when you are able to articulate these actions, policies, and culture in your marketing messaging, backed by authenticity and employee promoters, will you have a strong employer brand.

Do you have the employer brand necessary to attract talent?

Connect with Scott Butcher on LinkedIn.