Covid-19 has thrown a number of curveballs at us over the past 20 months, with lockdowns altering our levels of human connection, daily routines and productivity.
While we’ve (theoretically) made it to the end, many of us are sitting in places that we would not believe we would be. Whether it be a change of scenery or pace, a new job or a new career, the pandemic has most certainly been a catalyst for change, on both a personal and political level.
Refining the effects of the pandemic to the built environment industry led us to speaking with some of Australia’s foremost design practices. We wanted to ask them all as to whether the pandemic had hurt their pursuit of new staff or the growth of their respective practices, and as to whether or not they’d struggled to find the ideal candidate for certain roles with a limited talent pool. Here’s what they told us.
Alex Symes: Founder, Alexander Symes Architect (pictured left)
A&D: Have you encountered any staffing issues since the beginning of the pandemic, and if so, how have you counterracted that?
“In terms of our practice, we've got all hands on deck and everyone has stayed around despite what has been going on. We’re actually going through a growth phase at the moment and are currently bringing in two new people. We’ve also been looking for people with expertise in sustainability.
“Effectively, my recent experiences in the market have been that there aren't so many experienced architects looking for work, it's more so recent graduates, which doesn’t really have much to do with the pandemic.”
A&D: Obviously with borders being shut there has been a more limited talent pool on offer in terms of finding the ideal candidate. What have you done in order to mitigate this?
“We recently had an experience where we went out trying to find certified passive house consultants that were also architects to help fulfill our role of catering for passive house design. We’ve got a number of certified passive house projects, but it's too much for me as the only certified passive house consultant to do, so we went out to the market and asked people about their capabilities as a certified passive house consultant, or whether they’ve been involved in high end residential.
“Unfortunately no one came back who met all that criteria, so as a result, we’ve taken the best candidates from an architectural perspective, but then found infill resources for that certified passive house. I'm required to fill in those skill sets, but if anything I suppose it's just about being agile to fulfil your resource needs and in this digital world of being able to video conference, you can be a little bit more non-location in terms of who’s part of your team.
"I think it’s a matter of time until there's more people that are trained in Australia in passive house guidelines, it's just that there’s only so many people that train and there’s sort of a limited capacity at the moment which forced us to pivot."
Jan O’Connor: Managing Partner, environa studio (pictured middle)
A&D: Have you encountered any staffing issues since the beginning of the pandemic, and if so, how have you counterracted that?
“We’re not seeing any staffing issues personally, we’ve got one person that is leaving after Christmas, but that’s more specific to her husband moving. We’ve actually managed to put on a new staff member three weeks ago, so we’ve been able to deal with the pandemic rather well in spite of its challenges.”
A&D: Obviously with borders being shut there has been a more limited talent pool on offer in terms of finding the ideal candidate. What have you done in order to mitigate this?
“We've never had a need to look overseas to find staff members and I don’t know that I would specifically.
“We have a very multi-cultural office which we pride ourselves upon, with a number of Chinese, Mexican, Spanish, French, PNG, Vietnam and Korea, but they’ve all had Visa’s while they were working with us, or are Australian residents, so even with the pandemic we’ve never been one to look overseas to fill roles.
Michael Wright: People and Culture Principal, Hames Sharley (pictured right)
A&D: Have you encountered any staffing issues since the beginning of the pandemic, and if so, how have you counterracted that?
“While we are aware of reports of higher turnover occurring globally, our focus on providing all our staff with the requisite skills to take on any challenge internally means we are able to utilise our existing teams across projects better. However, as we continue to grow and win more projects, we always focus on ensuring we have the right-sized team.”
A&D: Obviously with borders being shut there has been a more limited talent pool on offer in terms of finding the ideal candidate. What have you done in order to mitigate this?
“We are really excited about our work with universities and see finding, growing and developing young talent as our crucial process. We are currently working with our internal research team to bridge the gap between academia and practice, which is done through our new event space in Perth and adjacent professor partnerships with Emil Jonescu and Khoa Do from Curtin Academy.
