A challenge for the component industry is brewing no matter if you are located in an area where new home construction continues to be strong or your market is slowed by the combined effects of high interest rates and stubbornly high inflation. Be it single family or multi-family, new designers are not entering the industry as quickly as old grey hairs like me are leaving.
From the mid to late 1990s until the 2008 crisis approached, component designers were in high demand, commanding ever higher salaries. The conditions at the time led Thom McAnally and I to create the Component Systems Institute to help train new designers for the industry. In many cases, design capacity was the limiting constraint for truss plant capacity across North America, and design salaries climbed from the demand pressure. As the market slowed and even collapsed, designers that had been hired at high salary levels were often the first to be let go, as business owners understandably sought to cut costs. We’ve seen that many designers left the truss and component industry, never to return. Some eventually returned to the business as word of increasing demand brought experienced people back, but it certainly feels like the designer shortage has stayed with us throughout this recent boom.
Today, we are once again looking at an uncertain economic future, combined with demographic factors common to most industries that see workers transitioning to retirement at a faster rate than they are being replaced. Understanding that it is important to keep an eye on the bottom line, component manufacturers also need to try to maintain a long-term view of the importance of skilled designers to their long-term business success. To the greatest extent possible, component manufacturers need to continuously find and develop new designers. Some will be the backbone of your business in the years to come, and some will flame out and be gone before you know it.
So, if you’re looking for designers, where can you find them? Here are a few suggestions.
Local community colleges and trade schools: Graduates of these programs will usually have CAD experience, along with some experience reading blueprints and spatial aptitude. I would encourage you to think about engineering technologists, drafting, and carpentry programs. And while it may seem counterintuitive, I have a caution about recruiting from architectural programs – those programs offer many of the proper skills, but in my experience people in these programs have an artistic/creative need that isn’t met long-term in a component designer role.
Your existing employees: Aside from the positive aspects of having your current employees see the possibility of future advancement, promoting from within offers other benefits as well. One of the big wins is that they are already local, so they probably are less likely to leave the area where they have an established network of family and friends.
Local framers: While many framers will happily work their entire careers on site, I have met more than one who is tired of working bent over in the hot sun/freezing cold all day every day. So long as they are intelligent and comfortable with technology, they can become great component designers. They are already familiar with reading blueprints and visualizing how that translates into the final building. Plus, their insights may be a real benefit to your other designers as well.
Of course, both Thom and I are always here to help you find experienced designers, so be sure to reach out if that is what you need. Just don’t forget that those experienced people needed to start somewhere, and it’s up to all of us to keep filling that void.