6
New p
The staff up! It’s important for A/E/P and environmental firm leaders to have a staffing plan in place so that the organization can be ready for the next big project. O P I N I O N
O ne of the biggest challenges of managing projects is being able to properly staff up whenever you have a new assignment to tackle. It’s the chicken and the egg scenario, because you don’t know which should come first – the work or the new employee who will do that work. It would be great if there was a simple answer to this question. You go out to meet with a potential client and extol the virtues and capabilities of your firm, while in the back of your mind you are constantly wondering if you have the capacity to do the work. I’ve found myself in this situation more than once in my career, and it’s not the most comfortable place to be. Whenever you get new work you are putting your reputation on the line if you can’t deliver what you say you can.
Randy Wilburn
work presents itself. That’s why it’s important to understand the makeup of your current staff before you go out and hire someone else. It doesn’t matter if you are vacillating between a new project coming down the pike or you are just anticipating future growth; you need to make sure you are hiring the right people and not just making a knee-jerk reaction to some perceived labor shortage. You should have a system in place that can properly support and train new people, regardless of level of experience. This should help them get acclimated quickly to your company and culture. This is where a good training system is worth its weight in gold. Can you bring even the most experienced professional into the fold quickly and with little fanfare, but make them feel like part of the team? You may be wondering what a good training system looks like and, while I know what I would use, the actual ingredients for a training system will vary from firm to firm. Because we serve the design industry, I believe the foundation should include a rudimentary understanding of project management from start to finish, why budgets matter on a job – and how not to “blow” the budget, understanding and embracing the design philosophy of the firm, “You should have a system in place that can properly support and train new people, regardless of level of experience.”
As a recruiter and constant hunter for new talent there is no right or wrong answer to this problem. A lot depends on your onboarding process, how long it takes for you to incorporate new employees into the system: Do you have a systematic approach to training, and can you lay out clear goals and objectives for the new hire that allows them to jump right in and not skip a beat? Obviously, I cannot answer these for you, but they are questions that should be asked and answered every time you go out to secure new work. “It doesn’t matter if you are vacillating between a new project coming down the pike or you are just anticipating future growth; you need to make sure Another challenge that you face is overworking your current staff while you either wait to hire or hire so slowly that you end up limping along on a project that you had high hopes of “crushing” on behalf of a client. Make sure you are fully aware of your current staff’s limitations and what everyone is working on. Is everyone maxed out with work or do some folks have extra capacity and the ability to take on more work? Keep in mind some people can manage more than others and don’t get as frazzled when new you are hiring the right people and not just making a knee-jerk reaction to some perceived labor shortage.”
See RANDY WILBURN, page 8
THE ZWEIG LETTER OCTO
Made with FlippingBook Annual report