Episode 3 “Skills for the Next Generation of Consulting Engineers”
Featuring Akira Jones, Teresa Valentino
Kirsten:
Welcome to Expanding the Possible. This podcast from HH Angus explores how engineering is advancing the built environment, from innovations and building systems to the Internet of Things, from digital services connecting the modern workplace to combating the impact of climate change. We delve into exciting developments in today's and tomorrow's building infrastructure. In today's podcast, we're talking about the new skills that will be needed by the next generation of consulting engineers in order to succeed in their roles.
Hello! I’m Kirsten Nielsen. Joining me today from HH Angus are Akira Jones, a Mechanical Engineer and Director of our Digital Services team and Teresa Valentino, Human Resources Director. Welcome to both of you.
Akira:
Great to be here.
Teresa:
Thank you.
Kirsten:
Akira, let me start with you. You've been a professional engineer since 2014. What are some of the key changes in the role of consulting engineer that you're experiencing since you were accredited?
Akira:
I think based off what I have seen, and it’s largely driven by the fact that the rate of change of technology, even since when I graduated university in 2008 has accelerated exponentially, so that is driving changes in terms of the various tools that we have available and the maturity of tools that we have available. So what we're seeing over time is that there's a larger expectation for a consulting engineer to provide work more quickly, of higher quality and in a more data-driven approach and we're seeing this in a lot of our large infrastructure projects where asset data and the management of asset data is becoming prescribed into the requirements of the project and there's a high expectation for the engineers on these projects to manage the data through the tools that we have available. So, the number of tools that we're having to use is expanding and our scope, beyond just traditional mechanical electrical design, is also expanding. So, there will be an expectation for folks coming out of school that they have some ability to manage, manipulate, and do some level of data science that I don't think was there when I started working.
Kirsten:
Are the new graduates that you are seeing coming out of school now prepared for those changes in the role?
Akira:
It’s never black and white, right, in terms of how to answer that. What I do see in new grads coming into our organization is generally a positive thing because they are being exposed to more things, I think around data science and data management in the programs that they're taking. They are often coming out of school, you know undergrad or they take masters' programs that deal with artificial intelligence and machine learning, which is very relevant to data management and data science and so, we're seeing a lot of that in the folks that are coming out of school. We also see a lot of folks that have an interest in software programming and have done things either through clubs or on their own through their own initiative to learn how to do some basic or even more complex software programming and learning different programming languages, which is also going to be a key factor in differentiating them and the skills that they have using the engineering tools that we have available for us today.
One thing that I would say that we don't see coming out of our engineering grads they don't often have experience in the core tools that we have to do design work and obviously engineering grads that come out of the various disciplines go to a variety of different jobs that have different skill sets, that have different softwares, but folks that are out there thinking about consulting engineering, even some basic knowledge of the design tools that we use would give you a large advantage over the folks that haven’t looked at that kind of stuff.
Kirsten:
Teresa, you and your team are right in the front lines of the hiring at HH Angus. How are our recruiting efforts responding to these new requirements that Akira was talking about, that are being placed on engineers and designers?
Teresa:
One of the things is the fact that we have these new requirements coming through; it broadens up the talent pool a little bit in terms of who we can look at, so we're able to look at some new programs and broaden the talent pool of students we might be looking at. I think as well when we go into the hiring for our graduate and engineers, we are broadening what we're looking for when it comes to the different skill sets and competencies and are asking more targeted questions related to the types of skills that we need. I think part of it though, as Akira mentioned, is related to the pace of change, so I think some of what we are looking for, as things move forward and evolve, is knowing that the pace of change is moving so quickly, or is an important skill around kind of that curiosity and that ability to learn and the hunger for knowledge because we know that the skills that folks are using today, everything is evolving so quickly that folks are going to have to continue to pick up new skills and continue to learn consistently and evolve their skill sets. So that's another thing that we're looking for. Akira mentioned some of the tools, so some of the grads have really great exposure to some of the tools that we need to use that are becoming more and more important in our work today and really kind of looking at folks who through those, whether they had exposure to it through their courses or through interest projects or different clubs that they've been part of, have shown interest, shown an aptitude for learning, being digitally literate and learning some of these new things that are evolving, are always of interest.
Kirsten:
Just to follow up on something that Akira was saying, Teresa, he was mentioning that some of the students are coming in that they don't actually have practical experience in the tools that we use. What sorts of supports are available through the mentorship program or you could talk about how we ensure that those students are capable of doing the work when they actually get to their first full time job?
Teresa:
Yeah I'd love to, so we have some programs that have been designed that are available to all of our engineering graduates and it’s a triad program. So we offer to them a mentoring program where every graduate is paired up with a mentor who is able to help them in areas that they choose to grow and develop in and areas of interest and pursue particular goals and also that person who's kind of a few years ahead of you who you can just go to as another resource other than your manager and help you along your journey.
We also have a new graduate training program which is a really intensive one-year program that all of our graduates go through. It was bespoke designed to the needs of shortening the learning curve and helping our engineers learn both practical engineering-related elements but also a lot of folks haven't been exposed to consulting engineering before, so learning how does our business work or who are our clients? What are some of the things that we learn from the soft skills perspective? The third part of the triad that we have just introduced this past year that we're really excited about is our rotational program. Our graduates in their first year and a half with us have the opportunity to cycle through the organization, so they can see the different sectors of work, the different styles of leadership in teams and areas of the industry that we're a part of that really help both our leaders understand the skills and interests of our folks, but also help our folks see what they might really be passionate about and want to thrive within. Together, those three, we find it a really powerful tool in helping folks really accelerate their career quite quickly and learn the skills that they need to succeed in this industry.
Kirsten:
Akira, both you and Teresa have touched on the pace of technology change. What character attributes can help new grads keep up with that pace of change, and who have you seen succeed and can you think about why they’ve succeeded?
Akira:
We talk about this all the time. I think Teresa touched on it briefly is that the desire to continuously learn. I will say that to look at the type of work that we've been doing. You know, HH Angus has been around for a long time, since 1919, and even in the time that I was still doing actual engineering work, a lot of the ways that we do that work was largely the same. It hadn’t changed and we had specific rules that we followed and we looked at our previous designs and took, I would say a traditional approach, into the work that we did; however, with the tools that are available to us and the demands that we have as engineers and our obligations to our clients and also to generally society, to meet our greenhouse gas emissions reductions and our energy use target reductions, and generally trying to support our fight against climate change, you want folks that are willing to try and find new ways to do things, right? I think that requires a critical eye in terms of saying “is there a way that we could do this differently?” “Is there a way that we could do this better?” “Is there a way that we can use the tool differently?”
By no means am I saying that we haven't innovated here at HHA because we have, and I think this is a great aspect of the organization here is that we really promote innovation. It's just that the tools that we have available to us versus what we had available to us ten years ago is vastly different, and it's giving us even that much more opportunity to say “can we look at this differently”, and so I think it's that critical eye saying is there a better way to do this and if there is, to find a better way using the tools and can we get the folks kind of rallied around and say let's try something new because that is how we are going to change how we do our work. And I think that is the opportunity.
Kirsten:
Teresa, taking that point of Akira’s a little bit further, some of the most important skills that an engineer can have are the so-called soft skills. In your hiring process, how do you assess those skills whether someone's going to bring those to the table, and, we talked about wanting to learn and continuous learning, is there anything else that you would emphasize in a hiring decision?
Teresa:
It’s important to us that we use behavioural interviewing where we are going into the interview knowing specifically what these skills are that we want to target that actually differentiate success in the role, and we tailor the interview discussion to those particular skills and competencies. So behavioural interview questions would be sort of where folks are diving back into their experience to demonstrate a time when they displayed that skill set. That doesn’t necessarily happen for seasoned folks who have years and years of experience to draw on, but that's something that a graduate can do as well through different projects, clubs or things that they have been a part of.
So I think that that's really important to make sure you are assessing the right skills that differentiate success in terms of the ones that we really think are important in setting top talent apart and helping folks in the organizations thrive.
Akira’s touched on, we’ve talked about the ability to learn is important, but I think also in this environment, the ability to be in an excellent communicator, great active listening skills; the ability to communicate technical information to non-technical folks is really important; problem solving abilities, but making sure that we’ve kind of got that curiosity, so we dig into the level that we are solving the right problem and the problem of the client really is looking for. I think adaptability is so important because, as things move and this pace of change, the ability to be resilient and adaptable and pivot and move to what's needed is important. And I think those are some of the ones I would highlight in this current environment.
Kirsten:
Akira, for the people we are hiring today, and those could be new graduates or they can be people who have decades of experience, when it comes to technical knowledge and engineering knowledge, what are the types of things you're looking for when you're hiring. When I started working at HH Angus, we didn't have any work in automated guided vehicles and now that's become quite an important service. And, as you said the pace of change is accelerating and we're moving into these new areas of design and consulting, but there has to be a base level of engineering skill. Is there anything particular that you say, you need this much or you know you need to be constantly updating these skills… how do you assess someone's level of technical skill?
Akira:
If you have graduated from a Canadian accredited engineering university, you can do the technical stuff, right? That is the truth and then we have a lot of folks that are also foreign trained and maybe their educational background, when they come to Canada they go to a masters or they do a technical program at a college. Again, I have a lot of faith in the fact that the folks can do the technical work itself, so I'm never really thinking about ‘can this person do thermodynamics’, right? Or heat transfer? The base level assumption is generally yes.
So, what I'm typically looking for are things that are kind of beyond that. Do they seem to have some kind of interest in software programming or software languages, or do they participate in clubs and whatnot that may have pushed them outside of what they were doing specifically? It may not be technical in the sense, maybe they were interested in some kind of business club or some activity that they have put their energy into, because what that shows to me is that they're willing to try something different, learn something new. The key is the continuous learning piece, and so, whenever I'm looking at interviews, I look to see whether or not that person has shown something within their resume, or through the questions that we're asking that they are interested in continuous learning because we mentioned this so many times, things are changing so fast and the nature of our work is changing, and the demands on us as consulting engineers are changing that you have to be willing to, yourself, change.
Teresa:
I think if I can add to that, one of the other things that would demonstrate to us the fact that folks have been involved in that way is the ability to collaborate and work with a variety of people because the other thing we maybe haven't touched on yet today is the amount of teaming and collaboration that's now required. You're involved in different types of teams in different roles and teams, but also across geographies, and you might also be working in teams where everyone is virtual, or you’re hybrid and some people are in-person.
So the ability to collaborate and work effectively with a variety people and bunch of different environments is also becoming a lot more prominent, so that's where those sorts of things might show up and that’s how you could demonstrate those skill sets to us.
Kirsten:
That kind of leans into my next question which I want to address to both of you and you kind of touched on this, Teresa. This is probably an expression that HR professionals dislike, but ‘hirer on skills, fire on fit’ and people can have all sorts of good club items on their resume, they may have excellent technical knowledge but this is kind of the ‘soft skills’ question again, and the question of fitting in and learning how to be part of a company and being part of a team is a really crucial skill for new grads, I think, and I'll start with you, Teresa. How do you assess that or what is it that you're looking for?
Teresa:
I'm glad that you pointed that out, the piece around the HR professionals because I think that's one of the things that's really important and part of why we make sure that we understand very clearly what the skills and competences, including those soft skills, going in is…because if we go in and sort of, using our gut, looking for fit, there's a risk of bias in hiring and what does that mean. And that could be a whole risk sort of thing.
So, when I think about folks who are going to thrive in the organization, I think again about those skills that we’ve identified, but I also think about the core values of the organization. So our core values are around excellent client service, doing right by our client, innovation and doing right by our people. So, what does that mean from a skill set perspective, and we can target our questions around illustrations around what have they done to push innovation and engineering with their current employer, or how have they made improvements to processes or technology. So those are just some examples where we would look about the innovation question. For a leader, the things that they've done to empower those around them to grow and develop and move them forward in their careers, for example. So really kind of having a clear understanding of those competencies and so that we can move ahead and avoid the risk when we think about fit, and avoid the situation of folks just hiring folks who may be look like other individuals in the firm, or recency bias, or folks who look like them, and we can really leverage the talents of all.
Kirsten:
Akira, how do you assess fit when you're looking to hire for your team?
Akira:
There's a variety of different ways that I do that. Through an interview process, I try and ask some technically-minded questions just to see what the answers are, but often what we're trying to see and what I'm trying to see in the interview is just how that person is able to respond and think within that interview and the type of answer that they provide and, more specifically, looking to see if somebody will provide an answer and dig into it a bit more deeply or questions to get more information a general sense of curiosity in that sense. And then some ability to think critically in their response and provide a detailed answer, even if it's not exactly right or what not, to demonstrate that they're thinking about it, right? I think that is a key feature that is both from a technical point of view but communication point of view. Communication I feel is one of the most key elements within our work. Teresa mentioned it but most of the time the challenges that we face from work are because of communication. Somebody wasn't able to communicate the requirements, or their needs, or the projects needs, or the client’s needs.
Again, it doesn't come down to just being able to do the work. It’s being able to understand if we’re doing the right thing at the right time for the right people, and so communication within that interview process is often something we’re looking at very closely. Another thing I look at, and again, Teresa touched upon it, is diversity of thought. You know, I think our natural tendency is to look for people that are like us but I like to look for people that have a different viewpoint on the same problem and our teams’ success or the digital team’s success has largely been because we have folks from different backgrounds that provide a different viewpoint, even if it's an opposing one so that we're able to have a good, robust discussion talking about what might be the right path forward. There is an expression that we often use and it’s that ‘great minds think alike’, but the actual thing that I learned recently is that ‘great minds think alike, and simple minds rarely differ’, right? So, diversity of thought is the key for our success in this future, so that we can find different ways to do things.
Kirsten:
That’s definitely an important aspect of our hiring process and I want to congratulate you both because I think you're part of that statistic at HHA of a very low turnover rate in staff that I think is admirable, and something that we should all feel good about, that we are making the right hiring decisions and assessing those hires in the right way and giving people the chance to succeed with all those support systems we have in place and making sure those skill sets match and so forth. People who are interested in hearing more about this, I want to direct you to a previous podcast that we did with Akira called The Future of Consulting Engineering and there was quite a detailed discussion on that as well. And with that I'd like to thank you both for joining us today and for your insights on this subject.
Welcome to Expanding the Possible. This podcast from HH Angus explores how engineering is advancing the built environment, from innovations and building systems to the Internet of Things, from digital services connecting the modern workplace to combating the impact of climate change. We delve into exciting developments in today's and tomorrow's building infrastructure. In today's podcast, we're talking about the new skills that will be needed by the next generation of consulting engineers in order to succeed in their roles.
Hello! I’m Kirsten Nielsen. Joining me today from HH Angus are Akira Jones, a Mechanical Engineer and Director of our Digital Services team and Teresa Valentino, Human Resources Director. Welcome to both of you.
Akira:
Great to be here.
Teresa:
Thank you.
Kirsten:
Akira, let me start with you. You've been a professional engineer since 2014. What are some of the key changes in the role of consulting engineer that you're experiencing since you were accredited?
Akira:
I think based off what I have seen, and it’s largely driven by the fact that the rate of change of technology, even since when I graduated university in 2008 has accelerated exponentially, so that is driving changes in terms of the various tools that we have available and the maturity of tools that we have available. So what we're seeing over time is that there's a larger expectation for a consulting engineer to provide work more quickly, of higher quality and in a more data-driven approach and we're seeing this in a lot of our large infrastructure projects where asset data and the management of asset data is becoming prescribed into the requirements of the project and there's a high expectation for the engineers on these projects to manage the data through the tools that we have available. So, the number of tools that we're having to use is expanding and our scope, beyond just traditional mechanical electrical design, is also expanding. So, there will be an expectation for folks coming out of school that they have some ability to manage, manipulate, and do some level of data science that I don't think was there when I started working.
Kirsten:
Are the new graduates that you are seeing coming out of school now prepared for those changes in the role?
Akira:
It’s never black and white, right, in terms of how to answer that. What I do see in new grads coming into our organization is generally a positive thing because they are being exposed to more things, I think around data science and data management in the programs that they're taking. They are often coming out of school, you know undergrad or they take masters' programs that deal with artificial intelligence and machine learning, which is very relevant to data management and data science and so, we're seeing a lot of that in the folks that are coming out of school. We also see a lot of folks that have an interest in software programming and have done things either through clubs or on their own through their own initiative to learn how to do some basic or even more complex software programming and learning different programming languages, which is also going to be a key factor in differentiating them and the skills that they have using the engineering tools that we have available for us today.
One thing that I would say that we don't see coming out of our engineering grads they don't often have experience in the core tools that we have to do design work and obviously engineering grads that come out of the various disciplines go to a variety of different jobs that have different skill sets, that have different softwares, but folks that are out there thinking about consulting engineering, even some basic knowledge of the design tools that we use would give you a large advantage over the folks that haven’t looked at that kind of stuff.
Kirsten:
Teresa, you and your team are right in the front lines of the hiring at HH Angus. How are our recruiting efforts responding to these new requirements that Akira was talking about, that are being placed on engineers and designers?
Teresa:
One of the things is the fact that we have these new requirements coming through; it broadens up the talent pool a little bit in terms of who we can look at, so we're able to look at some new programs and broaden the talent pool of students we might be looking at. I think as well when we go into the hiring for our graduate and engineers, we are broadening what we're looking for when it comes to the different skill sets and competencies and are asking more targeted questions related to the types of skills that we need. I think part of it though, as Akira mentioned, is related to the pace of change, so I think some of what we are looking for, as things move forward and evolve, is knowing that the pace of change is moving so quickly, or is an important skill around kind of that curiosity and that ability to learn and the hunger for knowledge because we know that the skills that folks are using today, everything is evolving so quickly that folks are going to have to continue to pick up new skills and continue to learn consistently and evolve their skill sets. So that's another thing that we're looking for. Akira mentioned some of the tools, so some of the grads have really great exposure to some of the tools that we need to use that are becoming more and more important in our work today and really kind of looking at folks who through those, whether they had exposure to it through their courses or through interest projects or different clubs that they've been part of, have shown interest, shown an aptitude for learning, being digitally literate and learning some of these new things that are evolving, are always of interest.
Kirsten:
Just to follow up on something that Akira was saying, Teresa, he was mentioning that some of the students are coming in that they don't actually have practical experience in the tools that we use. What sorts of supports are available through the mentorship program or you could talk about how we ensure that those students are capable of doing the work when they actually get to their first full time job?
Teresa:
Yeah I'd love to, so we have some programs that have been designed that are available to all of our engineering graduates and it’s a triad program. So we offer to them a mentoring program where every graduate is paired up with a mentor who is able to help them in areas that they choose to grow and develop in and areas of interest and pursue particular goals and also that person who's kind of a few years ahead of you who you can just go to as another resource other than your manager and help you along your journey.
We also have a new graduate training program which is a really intensive one-year program that all of our graduates go through. It was bespoke designed to the needs of shortening the learning curve and helping our engineers learn both practical engineering-related elements but also a lot of folks haven't been exposed to consulting engineering before, so learning how does our business work or who are our clients? What are some of the things that we learn from the soft skills perspective? The third part of the triad that we have just introduced this past year that we're really excited about is our rotational program. Our graduates in their first year and a half with us have the opportunity to cycle through the organization, so they can see the different sectors of work, the different styles of leadership in teams and areas of the industry that we're a part of that really help both our leaders understand the skills and interests of our folks, but also help our folks see what they might really be passionate about and want to thrive within. Together, those three, we find it a really powerful tool in helping folks really accelerate their career quite quickly and learn the skills that they need to succeed in this industry.
Kirsten:
Akira, both you and Teresa have touched on the pace of technology change. What character attributes can help new grads keep up with that pace of change, and who have you seen succeed and can you think about why they’ve succeeded?
Akira:
We talk about this all the time. I think Teresa touched on it briefly is that the desire to continuously learn. I will say that to look at the type of work that we've been doing. You know, HH Angus has been around for a long time, since 1919, and even in the time that I was still doing actual engineering work, a lot of the ways that we do that work was largely the same. It hadn’t changed and we had specific rules that we followed and we looked at our previous designs and took, I would say a traditional approach, into the work that we did; however, with the tools that are available to us and the demands that we have as engineers and our obligations to our clients and also to generally society, to meet our greenhouse gas emissions reductions and our energy use target reductions, and generally trying to support our fight against climate change, you want folks that are willing to try and find new ways to do things, right? I think that requires a critical eye in terms of saying “is there a way that we could do this differently?” “Is there a way that we could do this better?” “Is there a way that we can use the tool differently?”
By no means am I saying that we haven't innovated here at HHA because we have, and I think this is a great aspect of the organization here is that we really promote innovation. It's just that the tools that we have available to us versus what we had available to us ten years ago is vastly different, and it's giving us even that much more opportunity to say “can we look at this differently”, and so I think it's that critical eye saying is there a better way to do this and if there is, to find a better way using the tools and can we get the folks kind of rallied around and say let's try something new because that is how we are going to change how we do our work. And I think that is the opportunity.
Kirsten:
Teresa, taking that point of Akira’s a little bit further, some of the most important skills that an engineer can have are the so-called soft skills. In your hiring process, how do you assess those skills whether someone's going to bring those to the table, and, we talked about wanting to learn and continuous learning, is there anything else that you would emphasize in a hiring decision?
Teresa:
It’s important to us that we use behavioural interviewing where we are going into the interview knowing specifically what these skills are that we want to target that actually differentiate success in the role, and we tailor the interview discussion to those particular skills and competencies. So behavioural interview questions would be sort of where folks are diving back into their experience to demonstrate a time when they displayed that skill set. That doesn’t necessarily happen for seasoned folks who have years and years of experience to draw on, but that's something that a graduate can do as well through different projects, clubs or things that they have been a part of.
So I think that that's really important to make sure you are assessing the right skills that differentiate success in terms of the ones that we really think are important in setting top talent apart and helping folks in the organizations thrive.
Akira’s touched on, we’ve talked about the ability to learn is important, but I think also in this environment, the ability to be in an excellent communicator, great active listening skills; the ability to communicate technical information to non-technical folks is really important; problem solving abilities, but making sure that we’ve kind of got that curiosity, so we dig into the level that we are solving the right problem and the problem of the client really is looking for. I think adaptability is so important because, as things move and this pace of change, the ability to be resilient and adaptable and pivot and move to what's needed is important. And I think those are some of the ones I would highlight in this current environment.
Kirsten:
Akira, for the people we are hiring today, and those could be new graduates or they can be people who have decades of experience, when it comes to technical knowledge and engineering knowledge, what are the types of things you're looking for when you're hiring. When I started working at HH Angus, we didn't have any work in automated guided vehicles and now that's become quite an important service. And, as you said the pace of change is accelerating and we're moving into these new areas of design and consulting, but there has to be a base level of engineering skill. Is there anything particular that you say, you need this much or you know you need to be constantly updating these skills… how do you assess someone's level of technical skill?
Akira:
If you have graduated from a Canadian accredited engineering university, you can do the technical stuff, right? That is the truth and then we have a lot of folks that are also foreign trained and maybe their educational background, when they come to Canada they go to a masters or they do a technical program at a college. Again, I have a lot of faith in the fact that the folks can do the technical work itself, so I'm never really thinking about ‘can this person do thermodynamics’, right? Or heat transfer? The base level assumption is generally yes.
So, what I'm typically looking for are things that are kind of beyond that. Do they seem to have some kind of interest in software programming or software languages, or do they participate in clubs and whatnot that may have pushed them outside of what they were doing specifically? It may not be technical in the sense, maybe they were interested in some kind of business club or some activity that they have put their energy into, because what that shows to me is that they're willing to try something different, learn something new. The key is the continuous learning piece, and so, whenever I'm looking at interviews, I look to see whether or not that person has shown something within their resume, or through the questions that we're asking that they are interested in continuous learning because we mentioned this so many times, things are changing so fast and the nature of our work is changing, and the demands on us as consulting engineers are changing that you have to be willing to, yourself, change.
Teresa:
I think if I can add to that, one of the other things that would demonstrate to us the fact that folks have been involved in that way is the ability to collaborate and work with a variety of people because the other thing we maybe haven't touched on yet today is the amount of teaming and collaboration that's now required. You're involved in different types of teams in different roles and teams, but also across geographies, and you might also be working in teams where everyone is virtual, or you’re hybrid and some people are in-person.
So the ability to collaborate and work effectively with a variety people and bunch of different environments is also becoming a lot more prominent, so that's where those sorts of things might show up and that’s how you could demonstrate those skill sets to us.
Kirsten:
That kind of leans into my next question which I want to address to both of you and you kind of touched on this, Teresa. This is probably an expression that HR professionals dislike, but ‘hirer on skills, fire on fit’ and people can have all sorts of good club items on their resume, they may have excellent technical knowledge but this is kind of the ‘soft skills’ question again, and the question of fitting in and learning how to be part of a company and being part of a team is a really crucial skill for new grads, I think, and I'll start with you, Teresa. How do you assess that or what is it that you're looking for?
Teresa:
I'm glad that you pointed that out, the piece around the HR professionals because I think that's one of the things that's really important and part of why we make sure that we understand very clearly what the skills and competences, including those soft skills, going in is…because if we go in and sort of, using our gut, looking for fit, there's a risk of bias in hiring and what does that mean. And that could be a whole risk sort of thing.
So, when I think about folks who are going to thrive in the organization, I think again about those skills that we’ve identified, but I also think about the core values of the organization. So our core values are around excellent client service, doing right by our client, innovation and doing right by our people. So, what does that mean from a skill set perspective, and we can target our questions around illustrations around what have they done to push innovation and engineering with their current employer, or how have they made improvements to processes or technology. So those are just some examples where we would look about the innovation question. For a leader, the things that they've done to empower those around them to grow and develop and move them forward in their careers, for example. So really kind of having a clear understanding of those competencies and so that we can move ahead and avoid the risk when we think about fit, and avoid the situation of folks just hiring folks who may be look like other individuals in the firm, or recency bias, or folks who look like them, and we can really leverage the talents of all.
Kirsten:
Akira, how do you assess fit when you're looking to hire for your team?
Akira:
There's a variety of different ways that I do that. Through an interview process, I try and ask some technically-minded questions just to see what the answers are, but often what we're trying to see and what I'm trying to see in the interview is just how that person is able to respond and think within that interview and the type of answer that they provide and, more specifically, looking to see if somebody will provide an answer and dig into it a bit more deeply or questions to get more information a general sense of curiosity in that sense. And then some ability to think critically in their response and provide a detailed answer, even if it's not exactly right or what not, to demonstrate that they're thinking about it, right? I think that is a key feature that is both from a technical point of view but communication point of view. Communication I feel is one of the most key elements within our work. Teresa mentioned it but most of the time the challenges that we face from work are because of communication. Somebody wasn't able to communicate the requirements, or their needs, or the projects needs, or the client’s needs.
Again, it doesn't come down to just being able to do the work. It’s being able to understand if we’re doing the right thing at the right time for the right people, and so communication within that interview process is often something we’re looking at very closely. Another thing I look at, and again, Teresa touched upon it, is diversity of thought. You know, I think our natural tendency is to look for people that are like us but I like to look for people that have a different viewpoint on the same problem and our teams’ success or the digital team’s success has largely been because we have folks from different backgrounds that provide a different viewpoint, even if it's an opposing one so that we're able to have a good, robust discussion talking about what might be the right path forward. There is an expression that we often use and it’s that ‘great minds think alike’, but the actual thing that I learned recently is that ‘great minds think alike, and simple minds rarely differ’, right? So, diversity of thought is the key for our success in this future, so that we can find different ways to do things.
Kirsten:
That’s definitely an important aspect of our hiring process and I want to congratulate you both because I think you're part of that statistic at HHA of a very low turnover rate in staff that I think is admirable, and something that we should all feel good about, that we are making the right hiring decisions and assessing those hires in the right way and giving people the chance to succeed with all those support systems we have in place and making sure those skill sets match and so forth. People who are interested in hearing more about this, I want to direct you to a previous podcast that we did with Akira called The Future of Consulting Engineering and there was quite a detailed discussion on that as well. And with that I'd like to thank you both for joining us today and for your insights on this subject.