How to Hire & Retain Top Engineering Talent: 5 Perspectives

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MANAGING ENGINEERS,
ENGINEERS , RECRUITING
How to Hire & Retain Top Engineering
Talent: 5 Perspectives
JUNE 20, 2014
We are big believers in the wisdom of crowds,
crowds , so we talked to 5 human resource professionals
actively involved in hiring for their perspective on how to hire and retain top engineering
talent..
talent
Most Popular Engineering
Jobs: June 2014
Interviewed are:
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1. Jeremy Bennett, Vice President of the Engineering Practice for Addison Group
2. Craig Fouts, Sales Director for Aerospace & Defense at Yoh
3. Stephanie Fedoroff, CPA, SPHR, Director of Human Resources at Pennoni Associates
4. Tom Jonjak CSP, Director of Staffing at bb7
5. Michelle Brooks, Director of Recruitment & HR, BeneFACT – Engineers
Despite their diverse industry representation, we think you’ll find there are some common themes
and consensus among our interviewees.
What measures have you taken to attract and
retain engineers?
“To attract top engineers, I want to know the basic human need that is not being met. It’s not
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Brand
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enough to know that they are being underpaid. I need to know why they feel that way. I ask what’s
important to them and hear what they are saying.
What are their ambitions?
What are their expectations from an employer?
Values?
How would they like to be utilized within the organization?
Retaining engineers is
simply a continuation of
the hiring discussion
Retaining engineers is simply a continuation of the hiring discussion. So many successful
companies are terrible places to work, and the breakdown is usually a lack of communication.
Paying engineers at market value, investing in their training, and managing their career
progression are key as well.”
-Jeremy Bennett (Addison Group)
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Engagement with Blind
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“We make sure everyone knows that their efforts do make a difference and that their contributions
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matter to both the success of projects, and ultimately the company’s achievements.”
- Craig Fouts (Yoh)
“I am constantly thinking of better ways to improve communication since that is always a major
concern. I am also looking at trying to find the right balance between a rich benefit program and
the salary needs of employees. Employees at various stages of their career and their lives have
differing needs. A younger person is less interested in a rich benefit package and has to pay off
student loans, they want to buy a home, start a family and they need to start saving for retirement
as soon as they enter the work world. An older employee who has put their kids through college
may be more interested in a rich benefit program.”
How to Hire & Retain Top
Engineering Talent: 5
Perspectives
- Stephanie Fedoroff (Pennoni)
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Do you find it easier to hire or retain top
engineers?
“My experience is that most companies will be good or bad at both. There are a small group of
companies who are able to retain engineers. These organizations typically don’t have a problem
hiring them either. Competent hiring and retention is very intentional.
The opposite is also true for companies who have a hard time retaining engineers. Those
companies usually have systemic flaws with no quick fix.”
- Jeremy Bennett (Addison Group)
“It is easier to retain top talent.
2014 Engineer Hiring
Trends [Infographic]
There is strong competition in the marketplace for top engineers, especially mid-career engineers.
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Once companies hire what they deem ‘top engineers’ they
must provide an engaging and rewarding work environment
to retain the talent. There are simply too many opportunities
for top engineers to seek employment elsewhere if they are
not happy.”
happy.”
There are simply too
many opportunities for
top engineers to seek
employment elsewhere
if they are not happy.
- Craig Fouts (Yoh)
“Hiring top talent is always difficult, no matter which career field you are discussing. Having a
competitive benefit package and a competitive salary certainly helps but it’s not the ‘be all and end
all’.
Company reputation is important.
At Pennoni Associates, we are employee-owned, which is what attracted me to the company in the
first place. These are more than words; they go directly to the heart of who we are as an
organization. I’m proud to be an employee-owner and everything I do reflects that. I think that
being employee-owned helps with recruitment and retention.”
- Stephanie Fedoroff (Pennoni)
“It’s easier to retain (for what we do) because once engineers are here… they don’t really want to
go. We are a consulting firm [so projects change] and our 25-year people are still our go-to
engineers on projects.
As long as you keep them involved, occupied, and a major part of the design team – they’re happy.
Our engineers just want to go to work and have cool things to work on.”
- Tom Jonjak (bb7)
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Applying to Your Job
How do you keep your top producers happy?
“Top producers should be managed and compensated differently than their peers and shown the
respect they deserve. They should be more autonomous and should be given the opportunity to
stretch while still being held accountable.
Creating an environment where every employee is treated equally is a disaster for a top producer.”
- Jeremy Bennett (Addison Group)
“The difficulty in hiring top producers is finding them. Once a company knows they have a top
producer they go to great lengths to keep them on board.
Most top producers have lofty career aspirations, so to keep
them engaged and happy there must be opportunity to
participate in various projects, and there must be a track for
career advancement.
The goal is to have many top producers, so the difficulty
arises when there are not enough opportunities to advance
Most top producers have
lofty career aspirations...
there must be
opportunity to
participate... and there
must be a track for
career advancement.
the careers of various top producers. In addition, when there
are limited opportunities to take on new projects a company will have a hard time keeping top
performers from becoming complacent and searching for new careers.”
- Craig Fouts (Yoh)
“Communicate as much as possible, which is a two-way street. Showing respect, being
approachable, being flexible to personal needs, acknowledging and rewarding their contributions,
and having a benefit package that takes care of them and their families.”
- Stephanie Fedoroff (Pennoni)
“Keep them involved with where things are coming from – we can get them involved in client
meetings and hearing what their parts are. They can say ‘oh have you ever thought about that?’
and contribute to the business development process. They love that.
And empowering them [in their careers]. Asking, ‘do you want to be in a leadership/management
pipeline, do you want to work on proposals, client meetings, do you want to project manage? Or do
you enjoy engineering and want to continue bettering yourself and learning your craft?’
Giving them options.”
- Tom Jonjak (bb7)
“Hiring and retaining top engineers is never easy. A big challenge in retaining top engineering
talent is keeping them engaged in the work, specifically with projects they consider interesting and
fun. We’re lucky that our engineers are focused on the SR&ED program, so their job involves going
to onsite client meetings and learning about different R&D projects.
Almost every engineer we hire claims this is their favourite part of the job.”
- Michelle Brooks (BeneFact)
What do you think are the biggest threats to
engineer happiness and retention?
“The largest threat to happiness and retention is always
respect.
The largest threat to
happiness and retention
is always respect.
Lack of respect reveals itself in a number of areas: micro-management, compensation and
promotions based on tenure instead of merit, lack of technical resources, no communication on
career progression, and mundane repetitive tasks.”
-Jeremy Bennett (Addison Group)
“Top threats to maintaining happy engineers are:
not enough challenging projects that introduce them to new technologies or methodologies,
lack of career advancement, and
not being heard during engineering design and development stages.
If a company can effectively communicate the how’s and why’s of a project, and allow for top
engineers to be a part of design, development, and problem resolution, the top engineers will have
more buy in on the projects which then leads to retention.”
- Craig Fouts (Yoh)
“I’d say primarily it’s being approached by competition. Employees who haven’t worked anywhere
else, who came to us directly from college, are curious about what else is out there. That’s
understandable and unavoidable. In some ways that’s why I’d rather hire someone with some
experience. They have an idea of how other companies work and have something to compare us
to.
In terms of happiness, poor communication is a big problem, real or perceived, and it’s something
that we have to work on every day. Lack of career direction for those who don’t fit the typical
career trajectory, employee burnout when companies are understaffed, and possibly benefits
and/or salary becoming noncompetitive.”
- Stephanie Fedoroff (Pennoni)
“We can’t forget that… we hired these engineers to fit a certain piece of the puzzle, but that that
puzzle is always changing.
It’s easy to say ‘oh, he’s our best Mechanical Engineer’ and we forget to ask, ‘is it really where he
wants to stay?’. We have all the core utilities still but things have to change or they get stale.
Including for our engineers.”
- Tom Jonjak (bb7)
“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” ― Bruce
Lee
It’s your turn to chime in.
We’d love to hear your advice. What do you or your organization do to attract and retain top-shelf
engineering talent?
Drop a comment below or continue the conversation with us on Twitter (@HireEngineers
(@HireEngineers),
),
Facebook (HireEngineers
(HireEngineers)) or LinkedIn (EngineerJobs.com
(EngineerJobs.com).
).
Photo Credit: Éole
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amanda Orson
Amanda is the Director of Communications for EngineerJobs.com. She writes about recruiting,
hiring, data, and productivity. Chat her up on Twitter @EJAmanda.
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