Struggling with staffing
Discussion
My company works in the commercial workspace design/relocation industry and along with many others we are experiencing huge difficulty in finding CAD skilled people and move managers.
The industry is so bouyant at the moment that my clients (who used to have in-house teams which we supplemented on an ad-hoc basis) have lost all their staff to better paying (read overpaying) competitiors and are now outsourcing most of the work to the likes of me. Now that is great on the face of it as we get more offers of work - however, the staff shortage has also been pushed out to us and we simply can't take up all the opportunities out there.
Anybody with reasonable experience is unfortunately out of our price range and the danger of taking on inexperienced staff is that once you have trained them, they move on to another competitor. I already have one person who I've just trained up and although they seem happy and committed to us, I don't really want to put myself in a position where we could easily lose more than one person in quick succession.
I've tried agencies who have all failed me. I'm struggling to find any freelancers who could supplement our team short-term, as they all see themselves as direct competitors (we are a 3-person company with another 3 reliable freelancers in support).
I'm almost resorting to going to the colleges and taking on a leaver for training. Perhaps it would be worth planning to take on one leaver a year and train them up on the job with the expectation that they will leave after a year - then if they stay it's a bonus.
I expect the immediate answer you'll all give is to offer more money, but I already pay a fair amount and offer the kind of flexibility most employers can't match. The simple point being that we're too far down the food chain to charge the amounts necessary to employ experienced staff.
Sorry for the long post and lack of direct questions, but just hoping somebody can suggest other avenues to pursue?
The industry is so bouyant at the moment that my clients (who used to have in-house teams which we supplemented on an ad-hoc basis) have lost all their staff to better paying (read overpaying) competitiors and are now outsourcing most of the work to the likes of me. Now that is great on the face of it as we get more offers of work - however, the staff shortage has also been pushed out to us and we simply can't take up all the opportunities out there.
Anybody with reasonable experience is unfortunately out of our price range and the danger of taking on inexperienced staff is that once you have trained them, they move on to another competitor. I already have one person who I've just trained up and although they seem happy and committed to us, I don't really want to put myself in a position where we could easily lose more than one person in quick succession.
I've tried agencies who have all failed me. I'm struggling to find any freelancers who could supplement our team short-term, as they all see themselves as direct competitors (we are a 3-person company with another 3 reliable freelancers in support).
I'm almost resorting to going to the colleges and taking on a leaver for training. Perhaps it would be worth planning to take on one leaver a year and train them up on the job with the expectation that they will leave after a year - then if they stay it's a bonus.
I expect the immediate answer you'll all give is to offer more money, but I already pay a fair amount and offer the kind of flexibility most employers can't match. The simple point being that we're too far down the food chain to charge the amounts necessary to employ experienced staff.
Sorry for the long post and lack of direct questions, but just hoping somebody can suggest other avenues to pursue?
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I don't know your industry. CAD I understand is a skilled role - but you mentioned another role - that of movers? What does that involve?
Just thinking that if isn't skilled, but requires the usual requisite amounts of organisational skills, common sense, business acumen etc. there must be people out there who freelance in other roles, who might be able to help out when not busy in their own areas?
As an example, I run a training business. I work about 3 days a week in that, and so have a couple of days spare. In those days I do other things not related to my business that pay me some money and interest me. Must be plenty of people like me around with time and business nous who would be interested in supplementing income?
Apologies in advance if this is a stupid idea
Just thinking that if isn't skilled, but requires the usual requisite amounts of organisational skills, common sense, business acumen etc. there must be people out there who freelance in other roles, who might be able to help out when not busy in their own areas?
As an example, I run a training business. I work about 3 days a week in that, and so have a couple of days spare. In those days I do other things not related to my business that pay me some money and interest me. Must be plenty of people like me around with time and business nous who would be interested in supplementing income?
Apologies in advance if this is a stupid idea
I've seen this before in other areas, not industrial space design, but certainly CAD related.
It seems to me that people (business) is tied up with what it "wants", rather than what it "wants to do"!
An accountant could pick up CAD, in his own time. The critical aspect of experience, is the application arena, in your case industrial space design.
When you look at it that way, you realise that you're going to have to train most people to do the job anyhow. CAD they will pick up on their own, if they're anything at or above average intelligence.
If people who you train, leave you for someone else, because of money, then you need to examine your business model to establish why you can't pay your staff like your competitors. Maybe they take less from the business, are more efficient, already have better staff, or better marketing.
In enterprise, standing still, is falling behind.
It seems to me that people (business) is tied up with what it "wants", rather than what it "wants to do"!
An accountant could pick up CAD, in his own time. The critical aspect of experience, is the application arena, in your case industrial space design.
When you look at it that way, you realise that you're going to have to train most people to do the job anyhow. CAD they will pick up on their own, if they're anything at or above average intelligence.
If people who you train, leave you for someone else, because of money, then you need to examine your business model to establish why you can't pay your staff like your competitors. Maybe they take less from the business, are more efficient, already have better staff, or better marketing.
In enterprise, standing still, is falling behind.
Edited by dilbert on Friday 6th July 01:19
Stephanie Plum said:
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I don't know your industry. CAD I understand is a skilled role - but you mentioned another role - that of movers? What does that involve?
Just thinking that if isn't skilled, but requires the usual requisite amounts of organisational skills, common sense, business acumen etc. there must be people out there who freelance in other roles, who might be able to help out when not busy in their own areas?
As an example, I run a training business. I work about 3 days a week in that, and so have a couple of days spare. In those days I do other things not related to my business that pay me some money and interest me. Must be plenty of people like me around with time and business nous who would be interested in supplementing income?
Apologies in advance if this is a stupid idea
Thanks for your comments. Just thinking that if isn't skilled, but requires the usual requisite amounts of organisational skills, common sense, business acumen etc. there must be people out there who freelance in other roles, who might be able to help out when not busy in their own areas?
As an example, I run a training business. I work about 3 days a week in that, and so have a couple of days spare. In those days I do other things not related to my business that pay me some money and interest me. Must be plenty of people like me around with time and business nous who would be interested in supplementing income?
Apologies in advance if this is a stupid idea
Move management is the planning and coordination involved whenever a company/department or team need to move. This can be to a new building or just another area within their current building. It isn't particularly highly skilled, but does require a delecate balance of people skills (respectful to client yet authoritive to contractors).
That said, there is no reason why any polite person with some common sense couldn't do the job.
The difficulty lies in availabilty. Most of our work is contract related, so the person would be based at the clients premises full time for say a six month period - so limited availability unfortunately doesn't work, which is one ofthe problems I have with freelancers even within the industry, hence needing employees ideally.
Plotloss said:
Is there an allied trade that may have CAD skill that can be shared for mutual benefit?
Shopfitters or the like?
That's a possibility, good one. Again it would be of limited use due to the on-site requirements of most contracts, but it could help with the smaller ad-hoc stuff.Shopfitters or the like?
dilbert said:
I've seen this before in other areas, not industrial space design, but certainly CAD related.
It seems to me that people (business) is tied up with what it "wants", rather than what it "wants to do"!
An accountant could pick up CAD, in his own time. The critical aspect of experience, is the application arena, in your case industrial space design.
When you look at it that way, you realise that you're going to have to train most people to do the job anyhow. CAD they will pick up on their own, if they're anything at or above average intelligence.
If people who you train, leave you for someone else, because of money, then you need to examine your business model to establish why you can't pay your staff like your competitors. Maybe they take less from the business, are more efficient, already have better staff, or better marketing.
In enterprise, standing still, is falling behind.
I appreciate what you're saying and to some extent agree. However, the position we are in in the food chain means that we have a ceiling limit of what we can charge. This varies from client to client, so for some jobs we have more room to manouvre than others.It seems to me that people (business) is tied up with what it "wants", rather than what it "wants to do"!
An accountant could pick up CAD, in his own time. The critical aspect of experience, is the application arena, in your case industrial space design.
When you look at it that way, you realise that you're going to have to train most people to do the job anyhow. CAD they will pick up on their own, if they're anything at or above average intelligence.
If people who you train, leave you for someone else, because of money, then you need to examine your business model to establish why you can't pay your staff like your competitors. Maybe they take less from the business, are more efficient, already have better staff, or better marketing.
In enterprise, standing still, is falling behind.
Edited by dilbert on Friday 6th July 01:19
The majority of work we carry out is quite suitable for a recently trained, but competent person providing it is supervised and controlled by an experienced person (ie. me). The problem comes when they are trained and have some experience, they can then move to a company further up the food chain (understandable).
What I need is a small team of experienced staff so I can take my company further up the food chain and compete with the bigger boys. To do that I need to hang on to staff as I train them. For the record, on current performance we cannot take on more than one new employee per year without overstretching ourselves.
I know the answer is to take on someone, train them up and pay them enough to stay. I'm just wishing I didn't have to go the route of training someone up.
Just ranting on a forum really with no real question to ask.
Speaking as a former "skilled" CAD person I think it is worth pointing out that there is a vast difference between what some people think is CAD and what others think of as CAD.
From what I can understand, you'll be looking for someone with basic 2D knowledge, possible on something like AutoCAD. These people are ten-a-penny these days.
At the lower end of the CAD spectrum you'll find people who used to draw things on a drawing board and have had to learn AutoCAD to keep up with the times. These sort of people will often be refered to as "detailers" and their role is to just dimension other parts of someone elses design.
You will also have kitchen designers and B&Q staff that use tailored software to design things. These sort of skills can be learnt by anyone and its dangerous to assume that these people are "CAD designers".
At the top end you'll have qualified engineers who are using 3D CAD as a tool to design a product.
The skills needed for each of these areas are vastly different.
I appreciate that this may be "teaching granny to suck eggs" but as a qualified engineer the use of the term "CAD designer" is one of those things which bugs me - a bit like the man who fixes washing machines and calls himself an Engineer.
From what I can understand, you'll be looking for someone with basic 2D knowledge, possible on something like AutoCAD. These people are ten-a-penny these days.
At the lower end of the CAD spectrum you'll find people who used to draw things on a drawing board and have had to learn AutoCAD to keep up with the times. These sort of people will often be refered to as "detailers" and their role is to just dimension other parts of someone elses design.
You will also have kitchen designers and B&Q staff that use tailored software to design things. These sort of skills can be learnt by anyone and its dangerous to assume that these people are "CAD designers".
At the top end you'll have qualified engineers who are using 3D CAD as a tool to design a product.
The skills needed for each of these areas are vastly different.
I appreciate that this may be "teaching granny to suck eggs" but as a qualified engineer the use of the term "CAD designer" is one of those things which bugs me - a bit like the man who fixes washing machines and calls himself an Engineer.
Goochie said:
From what I can understand, you'll be looking for someone with basic 2D knowledge, possible on something like AutoCAD. These people are ten-a-penny these days.
Cheers Goochie, all good points and I totally agree. A CAD person is just that - not an engineer, draughtsman etc. unless specifically skilled in that area.The people I use/need do use AutoCAD for the majority of our work and the specifics of what we do could be picked up by anyone who can use the software - I would not go quite as far as to say anyone can pick up AutoCAD, although any PC literate person with an understanding of what a drawing should look like should manage OK.
However, these people are not ten-a-penny these days - at least not in terms of seeking employment. This is the problem I have.
There seems to be an awful lot of companies who are willing to use CAD people who have little or no knowledge of the area they are working in, in an effort to save a few pounds over an established company. This fuels the belief from a lot of individuals, that they can do better alone rather than working for a small company and specialising in a particular industry, hence an abundance of freelancers working 2-3 days a week any very few people looking for full time employment.
groomi said:
dilbert said:
I've seen this before in other areas, not industrial space design, but certainly CAD related.
It seems to me that people (business) is tied up with what it "wants", rather than what it "wants to do"!
An accountant could pick up CAD, in his own time. The critical aspect of experience, is the application arena, in your case industrial space design.
When you look at it that way, you realise that you're going to have to train most people to do the job anyhow. CAD they will pick up on their own, if they're anything at or above average intelligence.
If people who you train, leave you for someone else, because of money, then you need to examine your business model to establish why you can't pay your staff like your competitors. Maybe they take less from the business, are more efficient, already have better staff, or better marketing.
In enterprise, standing still, is falling behind.
I appreciate what you're saying and to some extent agree. However, the position we are in in the food chain means that we have a ceiling limit of what we can charge. This varies from client to client, so for some jobs we have more room to manouvre than others.It seems to me that people (business) is tied up with what it "wants", rather than what it "wants to do"!
An accountant could pick up CAD, in his own time. The critical aspect of experience, is the application arena, in your case industrial space design.
When you look at it that way, you realise that you're going to have to train most people to do the job anyhow. CAD they will pick up on their own, if they're anything at or above average intelligence.
If people who you train, leave you for someone else, because of money, then you need to examine your business model to establish why you can't pay your staff like your competitors. Maybe they take less from the business, are more efficient, already have better staff, or better marketing.
In enterprise, standing still, is falling behind.
Edited by dilbert on Friday 6th July 01:19
The majority of work we carry out is quite suitable for a recently trained, but competent person providing it is supervised and controlled by an experienced person (ie. me). The problem comes when they are trained and have some experience, they can then move to a company further up the food chain (understandable).
What I need is a small team of experienced staff so I can take my company further up the food chain and compete with the bigger boys. To do that I need to hang on to staff as I train them. For the record, on current performance we cannot take on more than one new employee per year without overstretching ourselves.
I know the answer is to take on someone, train them up and pay them enough to stay. I'm just wishing I didn't have to go the route of training someone up.
Just ranting on a forum really with no real question to ask.
I've seen two or thee (literally - I'm no guru here) companies go from one man bands up to businesses of four or five, and I find that process fascinating. I've seen it work twice and fail once. It must be the hardest thing in the world to achieve in an unfavorable market. It seems to me that it only really works in favourable conditions.
When the conditions are favorable, its all about risk and luck, and the odds are usually even.
The greater the challenge of the business function, the more difficult things are in the short term, but if you get through the greater the chance the business has of succeding in the long term. If at first you don't succeed, try something different.
Good luck.
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