Page 23 - BusinessWest June 17, 2024

need to introduce them at a young age, show them that it’s not just building bridges and wearing hardhats. This is a creative profession, a collaborative profession. If you want to change the world, this is the place to do it.”
And employers know talented young engineers have options in choosing where to make their mark, so recruitment, onboarding, and benefits are all critical.
“When we think about our benefit programs, we need to think about things that are important to the younger generations,” Belitz noted, and these run the gamut at Tighe & Bond from student-loan assistance to wellness programs to pet insurance, but also include a strong focus on mentorship, learning, and professional- development opportunities, including the addition of a female mentoring program last year.
“We’re also always giving back to our communities, and we try to talk about that as much as we can when we’re recruiting people,” he went on. “Hopefully that total package, along with the work that we have in the backlog, is attractive to the younger and mid-career peo- ple, who are the hardest ones to retain.”
O’Reilly, Talbot & Okun, while a much smaller firm, is also in a growth mode.
“There is a lot of work to be done, and the clients need us to get their work done,” Sullivan said, adding that the industry is facing a bit of an experience gap as veterans retire and young engineers replace them.
“We knew this was coming, so you have to invest in your people and make sure that you’re narrowing that gap continuously,” she told BusinessWest. “One of the things that we’ve done — and that I continue to do — is really invest back in people, try to give them the skills and get them the training.
“And not just the technical training, but also business development, project management, and entrepreneurial
skills that get you even further,” she went on. “That’s something that I knew I had to do five years ago, and I’ve continued to do that. We just finished a big team training about presentation skills, whether in a small meeting or a large group, but it was also about team building, communication, and all that.”
Making a Difference
Ellis said Smith has been graduating a few dozen engineers each year, and they’re entering a market that’s tilted somewhat to job seekers.
Conversely, for employers, “it’s very challenging,” Sullivan said. “It’s just really hard to find people right now. We’ve had some people with a verbal acceptance, and then a few weeks later, they get a counteroffer and stay where they are.”
Meanwhile, Ellis hopes more young people — par- ticularly young women — get the message early on that this is a meaningful, impactful career with plenty of opportunity.
“Women are definitely more attracted to engineering when they can be involved in messy, complex societal issues, which actually is what engineering is all about. It’s all about taking math and science and solving prob- lems for society,” he said.
“I say to a lot of young people, ‘you know, everything you can see has been designed by engineers. Engineers literally designed the entire world. You can go into it and move up in the world and make a difference.’” BW
“When we think about our benefit programs, we need to think about things that are important
to the younger generations.”
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