I remember the Great Recession and how many displaced candidates we had. Some stayed active but many went their way, finding new industries and career paths. From where I sat, it was 5 years of trying to find jobs for folks, knowing it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Single Family was practically dead, but Multifamily was doing well so I focused our efforts there. It seems like history is repeating itself, but hopefully not to the extent it did back then. Multifamily looks strong and Single Family is fading.
After the Great Recession, I was amazed how quickly employers rehired experienced designers. Although many had found work in other fields during the recession, their value was in their abilities as Senior Truss Designers so back they came. I placed more designers in 2012 than in the 5 previous years combined, but what struck me most was the average years of experience that truss designers had. As part of our Truss Design Skills Evaluation, designers are asked to list their years of experience in truss design, wall panel design, and EWP design. Then, their numbers are compared to the averages of all of the designers we have tested over the years. Well, in 2012, those numbers took a big jump!
What I saw was a 4–5-year jump in the averages. While younger designers left the industry, older more-seasoned designers stayed. The result was scores went up, but so did age. We went from an average of 6–8 years to 12+ years of experience.
When the recession ended and hiring came back strong, it was clear that we were going to have a shortage of Basic and Intermediate designers. Design Managers told me that they could only afford so many Senior Designers in their department. They had to balance high earners with lower experienced designers who could be productive on easier work. I can’t count the number of times I heard “Where are the young designers?”
The answer was complicated, because the blame lay at the feet of the questioners. During the recession, they retained the best people they could, usually senior designers. When Basic and Intermediate level designers disappeared, they couldn’t fathom why I couldn’t snap my fingers and have a room full of folks ready to get back to work. To complicate matters, advancement for Senior Designers during the recession came from the Multifamily sector. While Single Family was getting back on its feet, I was still placing Senior Designers into Multifamily jobs, further depleting the designer pool for Single Family.
What I should have said, and wanted to say more than once, is “you didn’t create any designers for 5 years, so where are they going to come from?”
Depending upon your outlook, this time around Basic and Intermediate Design functions can be outsourced to companies like Platinum Global, a MiTek/Berkshire Hathaway company, or All Points Technical, our newest advertiser. They provide the same services once relegated to Basic and Intermediate Designers, and they do it on-demand. While many MiTek companies are using off-shore services now, it may become more of the norm industry-wide in the future. It’s possible this could be a trend driven by another recession.
Consider how most design managers felt about remote designers back in 2015. There were a few remote designers out there, but most had earned the right to work remote part-time or even full-time after spending years at a company. I was told often by Design Managers that they had no system to manage remote designers and measure productivity. They stonewalled, until COVID made it one of the only options available if you needed designers. Managers who had never considered having a majority of their staff as remote have no problem with it today. They now have systems to manage as effectively as if someone was in the office.
So when we hit the next bump in the road, like another recession, outsourcing design off-shore may become as common as remote design is now. Like the transition from in-office to remote, circumstances create opportunities. You may find it more convenient to staff a percentage of your department offshore, to allow flex in your capacity. Still, remember to plant a few seeds and grow a few designers in-house for those key positions the current crop of Senior Designers fills now.
Will the coming New Year continue our descent into another recession? If it does, will new trends emerge during or after it? The distribution of designer positions may be shifting again – will you be ahead of the curve or part of its creation?