Hey, it’s Collin. Welcome to Engineering Echelons, a newsletter full of ideas and insights to help engineers excel at management.

Here’s what I’ve got for you this week.

• New and noteworthy news

• A management perspective to consider

• Leadership insights to delve into

• And more…

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Alright, let’s get into it.

Noteworthy Headlines

Construction job openings drop again as hiring slows in October (ENR)

Highlights:

• Openings declined 18,000 from September and 36,000 from a year earlier, marking one of the lowest sustained vacancy levels since before the pandemic labor-market spike.

• Between 2018 and 2022, job openings frequently exceeded 4%-5% of the workforce, and the quits rate approached 2.5%, signaling intense competition for skilled labor and rapid job-switching. The current quits rate—closer to 1.4%—indicates workers are staying put and contractors are holding onto staff even as project pipelines soften.

ABC: Construction industry to face ‘real risks’ in 2026 (ENR)

Highlights:

• Modest growth is expected in 2026, but there are real risks. Stubborn inflation and stubbornly high interest rates will continue to suppress growth in construction spending.

• Survey respondents cited insufficient demand for construction services as their biggest challenge, marking the first time in recent memory that a lack of skilled workers had not been the leading concern.

WSP Global to acquire TRC Companies in $3.3B deal (Reuters)

Highlights:

• The deal is expected to be low- to mid-single digit percentage accretive to WSP’s adjusted net earnings per share before synergies.

• The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2026.

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Management Perspective

When asked to describe their responsibilities, managers (especially new managers) oftentimes list off technical and project delivery work first. These include projects they are designing and reviewing, tools they are developing and refining, and codes and standards they are staying up-to-date on.

Then they say something like this, “On top of all that, I lead the team.”

This may seem nitpicky, but leadership responsibilities are part of your role as a leader, not something that’s an afterthought on top of technical work. It’s all combined and proportioned to fit within your specific leadership role.

This should be reflected in your utilization rate. Leaders typically have lower utilization rates to account for the non-billable work they need to perform (one-on-ones, timesheet review, business operations meetings, marketing, etc.).

There are two common pitfalls here:

1. Leaders who are new to their role hang on to their previous responsibilities longer than they should.

2. Utilization rates are too high because they are set from a purely financial perspective.

For the first point, there are always transition periods, but they need to be well-defined and restricted to a limited timeframe.

For the second point, utilization rates need to be set from both a top-down perspective (what the business needs to meet financial goals) and a bottom-up perspective (what each leader needs to do to be successful). From there, a more pragmatic utilization rate can be set.

Leadership is unique in professional services industries: the managers are typically also the people who know the technical aspects of the business. Therefore, they are called upon to perform the actual work of the business to varying degrees based on position, capacity, and business needs.

While there are many benefits to this (resiliency, mentorship, etc.), leaders can get burned out by being spread too thin among the various business and technical domains.

What this means for you: evaluate the proportion of technical and leadership work you are doing and compare that to what you need to be doing. It’s normal to have short-term discrepancies. If they are lasting longer than a couple of weeks, reprioritize your responsibilities by delegating more technical work to your staff or borrowing labor from other teams. And ask your manager for support to get you on the right track.

And if you’re a leader of leaders, check in with your reports to make sure they are putting in the necessary time to be proper leaders for their teams.

Management Insights

L. David Marquet (former Navy submarine captain) on setting goals:

“The problem with specifying the method along with the goal is one of diminished control. Provide your people with the objective and let them figure out the method.”

—

Adam Grant (organizational psychologist and professor) on detachment:

“Attachment. That’s what keeps us from recognizing when our opinions are off the mark and rethinking them. To unlock the joy of being wrong, we need to detach. I’ve learned that two kinds of detachment are especially useful: detaching yourself from your past and detaching your opinions from your identity.”

—

Morgan Housel (author) on the asymmetry of growth and destruction:

“Growth is driven by compounding, which always takes time. Destruction is driven by single points of failure, which can happen in seconds, and a loss of confidence, which can happen in an instant.”

Management Resource

Say goodbye to the billable hour, thanks to AI (WSJ)

There has been mounting pressure for professional services firms to implement value-based fees instead of time-based. This article delves into how AI may continue this push.

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Did something strike a chord? Tell me about it.

Or…

• Let me know if you’ve found something worth sharing.

• Let me know what challenges you’re having as a manager.

• Let me know what challenges you see other managers having.

Send me an email at [email protected]

Looking forward to hearing from you. See you next time.

Collin

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