Culture is key for millennials in architecture, engineering

Look around in today’s workplace and it is very obvious that today’s workforce is undergoing significant fundamental changes. Every day we observe that:

10,000 baby boomers are turning 65, and there is a growing number of them heading into retirement.

Gen Xers are running businesses and organizations.

Millennials (the oldest now in their early 30s) are preparing to and moving into the business mainstream, including in architectural and engineering firms.

The diversity of generations in the workplace and successfully navigating this personnel change is a real challenge to the architectural and engineering community.

Today’s architectural and engineering offices provide evidence that walls are coming down and floor space is opening up into trendy new designs. Where small break-areas used to be common, now there are cafés and lounge areas that offer employees a relaxing escape.

Workdays are sometimes cut short to accommodate volunteer work by employees. It is more common for employees to occasionally telecommute.

Millennials are the real driving force behind these changes. Millennials typically include anyone born between 1982-and the early 2000s. There are about 80 million millennials, and they are taking on the workforce.

While baby boomers and Gen X made up more than half of the workforce a few years ago, studies indicate that by 2020 they will be outnumbered by millennials.

The architectural and engineering community is a completely different industry today than it was at the time the previous generations entered the workplace. This means the work environment needs to adapt, and architects and engineers who are running companies need to be prepared for the millennials.