At the time, I remember thinking that constantly looking for your next gig sounded like an exhausting way to make a living. No benefits? No career development? Was this new model a good thing?

More than a decade later, how exact was this foretelling in terms of what actually happened in A/E? In our market space, the closest we’ve come to this scenario is outsourcing, and this occurs pretty rarely. Other industries are better-suited to effectively utilize outsourcing than ours is.

However, this doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a change in the A/E consultant’s employment paradigm; change has certainly occurred.  But, unlike the scenario proffered above, this change has been employee driven rather than employer driven.

Our industry generally hires talent for specific types of projects with the inherent promise that a machine is in place to continually “feed” the employees work as key projects pass through the funnel.  While an individual performs a functional (technical) role, they simultaneously glean skills in maneuvering the team, office, organization and market as a whole. Functional skills and organizational skills represent two different axes on the career development chart.

As organizations have become flatter and “corporate ladders” have shed rungs, employees have adjusted the way that they perceive their careers.  Employment tenures are shorter, as in the contract-for-hire scenario, but professionals’ demands for diversified experiences are what is causing this. We now look at each axis to find potential growth opportunities.

For example, Mike can bring his functional skills – highway-centric NEPA planning — to a new employer, where he will apply his expertise to passenger rail corridors.  The resulting experience serves to grow Mike’s functional domain.  Karen can move on to hold the same function in another organization – that of Manager of Traffic Engineering – yet fulfill an additional organizational role of business development lead, a role that was very competently covered at her last employer’s operation by someone else.

Career paths are now plotted in this fashion:  Employees set long-term goals and look for a mix of experiences that add to the figurative toolbox necessary to achieve those goals.  Often, this means making the choice to change employers at each juncture rather than wait out the inertia of an organization which has no desire to shake things up.

The fact is, companies don’t have the infrastructure they used to…the ladder is often very short (and broad), and you can’t ascend it in a direct fashion. Consequently, professionals have adapted. No longer is your career defined by a ladder of progressive responsibilities as you “climb” the corporate hierarchy with an ever-increasing technical or organizational domain in your purview.

Your value today and your ability to contribute to any organization is better defined by the parts in your greater body of work.  If we’ve ever talked, you know I call this your professional toolbox, and in it you hold skills developed while fulfilling a number of different — often lateral — roles that are technical, organizational, and sales related.   Your objective in this modern-day game of life is to collect the right tools to provide you with the foundation to reach your professional goals.

Often, acquiring these tools requires you to change companies and jobs.  From my view, this is the extent of “contract work” in the A/E consulting marketplace…Here YOU, the employee, are in the driver’s seat.

I have been doing a lot of reading lately – some of which, admittedly, is several years old – on the fact that there is a pending significant skilled worker shortage here in the U.S.  No one dares write about this topic now, amidst high unemployment, but the current circumstances are merely distracting us from the truth:  We in the U.S. are not producing the highly skilled workforce, in labor or the professional sciences, which can meet the demands of a normally functioning economy.

At this very moment, several industries are facing a dire skilled workforce shortage.  These industries include healthcare, skilled manufacturing, and engineering.  Yes, I said engineering.  You and I both know that this is a very broad brush stroke, but that’s beside the point.  I can tell you that, in my own experience and from speaking with many collaborators, there is a supply void for engineers in all facets of mass transit, water resources, and energy/renewables/sustainability (According to Manpower’s 2009 Talent Shortage Report , only 19% of companies indicated that they had trouble filling positions in 2009. The #1 recruiting trouble spot? Engineers).  When it comes to infrastructure, there may be a good supply of engineers who know how things have been done, but there is a shortage of those who can meaningfully contribute to the way we will move, drink, power up and live in the 21^st century.  To paraphrase a now defunct automaker, this is not your father’s infrastructure.

Not everyone agrees with the panicky warnings of the skilled worker gap, but all agree that the skills needed to meet the challenges of a modern market are different from those of the past, therefore creating great challenges in certain niches – even amidst “The Great Recession.”

Here are some of the trends which are said to predicate a massive skilled worker shortage within the next five to ten years:

1. Demographics. Baby Boomers are making up a large number of the senior ranks right now, and although they don’t seem to be going anywhere at this moment, when they do decide to stop working, there are fewer workers in the generation succeeding them to fill their shoes.   Apparently, the boomers were so busy working and enjoying their relative wealth, they didn’t see fit to make a lot of babies (also an issue in funding social security).  So, in summary, you have people leaving the workforce in greater number than the U.S. has replacements for them.  This part of the crisis doesn’t even require job growth, since it is all about maintenance of productivity.
2. And speaking of productivity, I have something to share which will be mildly scandalous to my Gen-X peers: When baby boomers do need to be replaced, it is suggested that they will need to be replaced by more than a single worker. Why?  Baby Boomers are renowned “workaholics,” yet their succeeding generation is more likely to hold sacred a “work-life balance” by placing a greater emphasis on home and family.  As such, they are less likely to give up leisure and personal time to the organization on a day-in, day-out basis.  Some scholars (such as those referenced) think this means we of the Gen-X crowd are less productive.
3. Lack of Emphasis in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subjects in education systems throughout the nation. I, personally, think this is a cultural issue and the problem in offering courses of study is a result of the laws of supply and demand.  I believe if communities work collaboratively to place greater emphasis and value upon the sciences, then bright young minds will gravitate in that direction. My hypothesis is based on empirical evidence only, including the fact that I know way too many chemists from Boston (what did Boston do to make this happen?) and the observation that many STEM students are foreign nationals.  (As a solution, my husband recommends mandatory class field trips to the wastewater treatment plant or the county landfill.  I think it’s a good idea, and a great eye-opener. )
4. Limitations on Immigration and Work Authorization will drain the U.S. of much of its STEM talent: Security issues leading to more stringent immigration policies may choke off the supply of foreign nationals who come to the US to study in the STEM disciplines;  Or these students who attend U.S. universities, will unsuccessfully seek work visa status, and have no choice but to return to their home countries to apply their newly-minted knowledge.

I would like to hear from everyone on this topic, but especially corporate recruitment departments and managers everywhere.  Do you subscribe to prognostications of a dire worker shortage on the horizon?  What are you doing to get ready for the crunch?