Guest blog
A chartered engineer, David Falzani is president of Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF) which was founded over 25 years ago by Lord Sainsbury to encourage better management skills in UK engineering. David is also chief executive of Polaris Associates which helps entrepreneurial companies develop and grow as well as a visiting professor at Nottingham University Business School where he teaches how to bring technology, innovation, entrepreneurialism together to create successful businesses.
I sometimes get irritated when I see engineering graduate job adverts.
You’ll have seen similarly ‘functional’ ads: no salary details, no passion, no compelling reasons to commit yourself, and if there’s a picture at all, it may well be of someone in a boiler suit or Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) next to a stack of industrial equipment.
After 4 intensive years of study, and itching to change the world, is it a surprise that Generation Y don’t find such adverts attractive?
Focus groups with undergraduates report job adverts as being old fashioned, full of negative stereotypes, too male oriented, bland, boring and uninspiring. It’s part of a bigger problem. The SMF Hard Hat Index highlighted how the profession’s own media unwittingly uses imagery likely to turn off young people.
SMFs’ YouGov poll also asked the public (think about the key influencer groups of teachers and parents) what items engineers primarily wear in an average work day, and unsurprisingly the hard hat came top with 63% of the votes.
We have all heard of the growing shortage in the supply engineers. EngineeringUK estimates that by 2020 1.86 million engineering positions will need to be filled in a country that produces only 46,000 engineering graduates each year.
So,the image of engineering has never been so critical to the profession in its ability to attract, recruit, and retain young persons.
Generations Y and Z are the most brand conscious generations ever. They have been brought up in an unprecedented environment of branded consumer products which deliver deeply rooted emotional value drivers. Think about the success of the iPhone, Facebook, and Instagram’s role using photos and videos in communications. Think modern console games, branded coffee stores, sports clothing brands. Could any of us have predicted 15 years ago that ‘absolutely normal people’ would indulge £700 on a tablet computer that’s so compromised compared to a PC? £1,200 on a ‘consumer’ DSLR destined for use a handful of times per year? £800 on a mountain bike that will be driven in a car to somewhere to be ridden on? £400 on a tattoo? Looking around, all of this is absolutely normal today. My point is not that consumerism has gone mad (although it has, by the way), but that all of the above products deliver far more emotional value than they do functional value. This is the new normal, and the environment that young persons understand intimately.
Image and emotional value are therefore paramount to commune effectively with young persons.
So, it’s an important issue, but without a multi-million pound budget, and perhaps no official mandate, how do we fix it?
We can’t easily change the way that mass media such as the BBC insists on depicting engineering with images of cutting fluid splashing across a 1900s lathe with a brown jacketed operator ‘engineer’. And government, although a logical agency of change, is unlikely to provide a solution.
However, we can lead by example. That’s the key thing isn’t it? Whilst we can’t easily change the outside actors, we can’t really make a strong case if we haven’t even managed to make the changes within our own community.
Here’re some starting thoughts:
- Firstly, accept that the engineer’s natural bashfulness, modesty, and self effacing nature are not assets in communicating the emotional value and prestige of engineering.
- Treat company communication materials as publicity materials, banishing those images that destroy prestige. I’m talking about lazy inappropriate images of PPE and associated text that does not excite or inspire. Yes, I know many engineers use PPE in their role, but it’s the difference between emotion and function. Even Apple’s adverts say ‘user experience may differ’. They certainly don’t show iTunes crashing, or losing your call signal if you hold your phone a certain way, or the maps program directing you to drive across an airport runway.
- Take particular care with recruitment activities. Think about the emotional value that is being portrayed. Choose images and messages that young persons indicate they find inspirational. Use focus groups to guide choices of superior packages. Demand better representation from our HR Depts and recruitment agencies.
- Ask our own magazines and industry bodies to do better.
- If you have them, insist on always showing your designatory letters. They are a genuine source of emotional value to holders, and of marketing value to outsiders. Companies that ban their use are effectively adding to the problem. It’s not a form of one-upmanship over colleagues; it’s a prestigious sign of commitment and professionalism.
Image and emotional value are vital to attract and retain people. We have a vast ‘back catalogue’ of great stories, but we need to portray it more thoughtfully to inspire recruits with great career aspirations and who want to make a difference to our society.
When engineering as we know it today was in its infancy the likes of Stevenson, Watt, Brunel were treated with great respect and as such people aspired to be engineers.
why? Because it had status. So what’s wrong with the picture now, no status, though we still have many great engineers, but very few role models, especially female ones. We as engineers need to make more noise, put ourselves out there and tell every one you’re an engineer.
Then hopefully young people will look to engineering favourably.
Out of Mr Falzani’s 5 thoughts it is the first one ‘accept that the engineer’s natural bashfulness, modesty, and self effacing nature are not assets in communicating the emotional value and prestige of engineering.’ with which I would whole heartedly agree. I would also agree with his points on ‘passion’ and I agree that emotion is important in attracting any one to do anything.
But I think that technical modifications such as the form of company communications etc will achieve little.
Real emotion and passion comes from competing views of the future – and involve an aggressive, passionate (but civilised) argument (aggression is an emotion, don’t forget). Why should ‘engineering’ or engineers be seen as one ‘homogenous’ mass of people representing the same interests or ideas? Perhaps one of the appeals of Law as a profession (ok apart from the money) is that adversarial nature (idealised I know, in old as well as the new media).
Let the public and the young see the passion of engineers by having them publically argue for principled views of the future especially, but not exclusively where engineering is involved– whether it be Energy: Nuclear vs Renewables, Mobility: Expanding Air travel vs cycling. Home Recycling, vs land fill or industrial recycling. Having real civil engineers arguing FOR the benefits of roads or Airports vs other engineers who may disagree.
The subjects do matter – but what really matters is that Engineers demonstrate a real passion – and that means taking sides on controversial subjects with live audiences in public. Maybe the Engineer can arrange this for one session of their summer conference?
A very good article, but substance will be more important than image. While UK Universities continue to offer zero-rigour courses (media, PPE, social studies) real courses such as science and engineering will struggle to compete.
Secondly, the decline in UK manufacturing under Labour (95%) has been so rapid there is relatively little left. Many UK universities have very few links with the SMEs, or wish to..
Lastly, mass emigration of UK-trained doctors and engineers will continue at such a rapid rate the shortage will never be solved.. Why work for Dyson on £35k when you can get £60k starter jobbing overseas??
Perhaps one of the appeals of Law as a profession (ok apart from the money) is that adversarial nature (idealised I know, in old as well as the new media).
Shame on any Engineer who suggests that ‘we’ follow ‘them’.
I have blogged before: imagine as Engineers that
we only offered our skills when we we guaranteed payment, whether we succeeded or not, that we required another group of Engineers to be employed to try to disrupt everything we were trying to do: under the eye of yet more Engineers (set up as wigged and gowned officials) -who had themselves been poachers before they became game-keepers..that we demanded that our profession be split into two parts (senior & junior) both of which ripped-off citizen, corporation and State as they take as long as they can, and complicate and extend every project to increase reward…heavens if we did all that (and had got away with it for 500 years), we would be lawyers. Almost alone amongst our European and International competitors,(*) we(actually ‘they’) still believe that the adversarial method of settling disputes is correct. Others (*) require the judges to ask the questions, NOT simply ‘hold the coats’ during the fight. Manipulating man’s laws to the benefit of whoever will pay the most? Not me!
I have earned my living, like all Engineers,(and those trained in the sciences) manipulating Nature’s Laws to the benefit of all human-kind. I repeat my first sentence. Shame…
Mike B
Status needs to be fought for, not handed out:
Chris’ examples of three Victorian engineers Watt, Stephenson (George or Robert?) and Brunel and their associated status confirm to me the idea that Engineers today need to ‘get out more’ and stick their heads above the parapet and lose their modesty etc.
Watt cannot really be separated from the entrepreneur Matthew Boulton, Robert Stephenson became involved in politics and became an MP and Brunel was as much a businessman as engineer. All of them had a vision of a better future stemming from ideas around The Enlightenment – and delivered ways to achieve it.
Today ‘Progess’ and especially technological progress is as likely to be seen as ‘damaging’ the environment and come up again limits – rather than transcending them as our three high status engineers did. In the process they came up against traditional, vested interests and fought them, thereby gaining status.
Todays’ engineers in general, as Mr Falzani points out, are in general a bashful lot – wanting to concentrate on ‘simple’ (if complex) – technical issues. Dyson is (just about) an exception. If the Institution (or Royal Academy of Engineering) leaders want to be house hold names (and if they don’t the engineers should ask themselves why not) they need to get on to Newsnight, Question Time, C4 news and the Today program by taking up principled but controversial stands against the prevailing orthodoxies of our time. This is not being contrarian for the sake of it (although sometimes I wish some would) – but about joining the Intellectual debates of our time.
Perhaps we need to ensure that there are more positive role models in the fictional media. Characters like Scotty in “Star Trek”, the chief engineer in “Das Boot” listening to the Uboat engine with a beatific smile during the interludes between the action. One of the reasons that Medics and Lawyers, Firemen and Detectives are held in High regard is their prominence in Fictional Culture. To be fair It is easier to see how an entertaining show can be made about a hospital ward or a serial killer than a factory production line. However even when everyday factory life is covered in a drama it is invariably about the management and the workers and rarely touches upon what the factory actually makes and how. Notable exceptions being the movie “Kinky Boots” and the (US) TV Series “Breaking Bad” Another idea would be to create more programmes about Real life Engineers and Scientists. To An extent this does seem to be changing with Steven Hawking and Alan Turing both having Biopics in the news at present. I remember a few years ago a series of short films which included a biopic of IK Brunel and Bazelgette, (and deLessops and of course others) Perhaps there should be more of these and more made of those that have been made. Maybe there is an engineer who is out there like Neville Shute, who wants to Write a series about an Indiana Jones type Engineer racing against time to prevent a Dam bursting
@Mike B. Luckily I have a rather thick skin so being ‘Shamed’ whilst trying to move on a discussion over the image of engineering, which has being going in circles for years does not bother me. I would point out that I did not suggest that Engineers follow lawyers in their professional work capacity as ‘hired hands’ by being adversarial in their work. [There is how ever scope for healthy debate over how a particular job is done with in their organisation of work – but that is getting abit off point. I possibly take a less cynical view than you of lawyers (and other professions) in the UK – and would certainly want a good one if I was being accused of a crime I did not commit!]
What I was suggesting was that Engineers are not a homogeneous group over non technical aspects of their work involving the real social world of politics and culture – with in which the issue of the ‘image’ of engineers needs to play out (whether engineers like it or not). As my post one before last clearly pointed out Engineers and ‘Engineering’ can help to get involved and (re?) develop a ‘status’ only if individually they take a stance over various issues and don’t pretend to speak with one voice on everything (as perhaps we are demonstrating here . To use modern parlance – ‘get out of their comfort zone’.
I do agree with you that engineers should be proud that in their day job they act to ‘manipulat(e) Nature’s Laws to the benefit of all human-kind’. Your concern should be with that part of society – including a significant number of engineers – who oppose that and see it as being ‘wrong’. Having that debate with those people will (whatever the actual details of the debate and which side of it you fall on it) will show that Engineers are not just back room Boffins with a chip on their shoulder. To do that will require a clash of ideas to take place in the public sphere and Engineers cannot always hide behind their professional expertise to do this. They perhaps need to take a ‘View’ as my legal chums might say.
What precisely are the engineering institutions for?
I pay my fees but what do we get from them. A swish office in the heart of London to subsidise, a free cup of coffee, a library few ever use and superficial magazines that are rarely read.
They seem mainly to be about jobs for the boys and nice places to retire to.
If it wasn’t for the fact they’re the portals to CEng status I’d abandon them immediately. They offer poor value for money and I resent their inability to influence this very debate.
Delighted to note a reference to Nevil Shute-Engineer turned author. I have a particular interest in him. As a six-month-old baby I was patted on the head by NSN when he came with my father [who was a civilian attached for the duration to the Special Weapons Development establishment -known affectionately as HM Weezers and Dodgers] for supper one evening in 1941. Shute and father were colleagues. Sadly, father died in 1943 -primarily from ‘the Navy disease, TB- which he caught testing the various enhancements, particularly to submarines, on which he was working. As he was only ‘attached’ to the Navy, he did not qualify for medical support. If any blogger would like to read any part and/or and all of the book(s) and other material I have indeed written on the several topics that we are discussing (and our long-suffering editor knows more) and would like to contact me -mikeblamey@yahoo.co.uk– I would be pleased to offer such.
Best wishes
Mike B
This article is full of tired cliches. I don’t care if the author thinks engineers lack status.. According to who? According to what? That’s a falacy. What does he want? To be followed by a club of fans? A red carpet? Come on..
I love my profession because I’ve always liked to understand how machines work, I like to solve problems and improve things. I don’t give a damn about any debatable perception. It’s not what makes me wake up every day and rush to the workplace.
I agree it’s not necessarily well paid compared with other fields like banking for example but wages are good anyway, and I get the reward in many other different ways too. It’s not all about money, unless you have no vocation in life.
And leave out terms such as “emotional value drivers”!
What the hell does a young applicant know about this pathetic “management speak?”
Use clear plain good old fashioned, emotionally driven English please!
In terms of ‘information’ value, engineering attempts to be a zero information discipline, in that we seek to provide reliable, or even extreme reliability, in the products and services we provides. Such unbalanced probabilities of failure/success makes engineering ‘boring’ from a human drama perspective.
Lawyers and doctors (and many managers) are working at the 50%:50% failure/success ratio, so provide maximum information (measured in ‘bits’). This would exactly match the investigative methods of science where tests are constructed to maximise the information gained by having the most to lose/gain. Many engineering tests are just the opposite (show no failure).
We humans tend to ignore the dependable and concentrate on the uncertain, as if our life depended on it, which in the (evolutionary) past it often did.
If our image (i.e. being noticed as important) is to improve, then in some sense we have to appear ‘less dependable’ and less ignorable on the issues of the day. It’s definitely a conundrum.
A very instructive experiment is to explore the perception of innovative engineering with a non-engineering professional. A Patent Attorney that we use on a regular basis keeps telling me that engineers should not attempt to invent within areas that are outside their direct training and background. This individual is highly intelligent and very capable and in a position to know better although the opinion is deeply held, following such an approach wil result in our houses falling down, our cars disappearing, our roads becoming mud tracks, the failure of many of our medical systems, an inabitily to add this comment since my computer will vanish etc etc etc.
We engineers do not realise how outside the norm we are, we therefore consistently fail to get across the drama and critical nature of what we do as we speak a foreign language accessible only to other engineers.
Nevil Shute Norway was pretty good at getting it across, or so I thought after reading his account of the R100 development, I then lent it to a nother family member (a mathematician) who utterly failed to grasp the tense drama that unfolde within the pages. This problem runs deep so I will stop worrying about it and get on with some more innovation.