Harley Whaikawa’s Post

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Director | Veteran | Fire Safety Engineering | Minerva Group QLD

Knowledge gap between cornerstone professionals retiring and their successors, and our new professionals. It is Real and our industry will suffer as we lose the wisdom that comes from those with a life time honing their craft. This is my personal thoughts, so take it with a grain of salt. I see the problem as a two parts 1. Retirement of wisdom. 2. Remote work. Retirement of wisdom. I think we can see this everywhere as those with vast experience hang up their boots (especially since the subject generation also had a high population growth). We should not underestimate their benefit to our built environment and should seek to keep them on within our companies, at least in a part time and non client facing role. This approach allows the wisdom to be passed on but also keeps them connected to our teams, of which many have lead for multiple decades. Taking the project lead out of it, I feel removes much of the stress and makes the role inviting and enjoyable, after all I think we all enjoy passing on our craft to others who are passionate. Remote work. Whilst I love this, as there's nothing better than having both my pups under my desk sitting on my feet while I work, the reality is that we all view this experience differently. Senior staff tend to need little help and can solve 90% of issues themselves, with the odd sanity check over teams. Where I am concerned is our next generation of professionals. I feel that they will learn as a very slow rate compared to my generation (gee I feel old). When I started fire engineering, we sat together, we would all put our fees in bucket for a project and then read them aloud to point out which ones were outlandish, which ones under quoted, where the risks were and why we were going with a certain fee. We would run into a problem and pull everyone to the whiteboard, with the most junior person going first at trying to solve. We would listen in on each other's conversations and you would hear someone yell from the other side of the room, hey what about...! It is not unrealistic to say that I asked 100 questions a day when I started. While I am supportive of remote work and strategies to bridge the gap in learning. I think that each day our new professionals in our industries elect to work from home, it is a vote to learn a little slower. Especially with the upcoming retirement of so much wisdom. Consequences I foresee is promotion of those that may have a fraction of the knowledge of their predecessors to retain them in a labour constrained workforce (this is scary) or delayed advancement in their craft. Neither are ideal outcomes. I realise we have generally opted for hybrid work. I think that we need to acknowledge what that means and take proactive steps to minimise what I foresee as a slowing in learning. Our new professionals should hold the umbrella and learn to deflect rain, allow sun through and shield from wind, but we need to be there to support their growth. Food for thought.

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