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 industry must attract 349,000 workers in 2026 (ABC)

Highlights:

• The construction industry will need to bring in 349,000 new workers in 2026. This is to simply replace retirees rather than support incremental growth.

• The industry needs to attract fewer workers than in recent years, a decline that can be traced to extremely modest spending growth forecasts for 2026 and 2027.

• Nominal construction spending declined ~1.5% over the past year, translating into roughly a 5% decline in real terms after inflation.

Commercial builders are losing their appetite to build anything but data centers (WSJ)

Highlights:

• Commercial real estate construction is poised for little or no growth this year. The exception is data centers with an expected rise of 23% in spending in 2026.

2025 ends with continued weak business conditions for architecture firms (AIA)

Highlights:

• Project delays remain a widespread challenge for architecture firms, with 90% reporting significantly delayed projects over the past six months.

• The Midwest region continues to be a bright spot with an ABI of 51.7, the only region with a positive score.

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Management Perspective

There has been a shift towards more pay transparency.

Glassdoor launched in 2008, and over the years, it has accumulated a plethora of data and gained a lot of popularity. Salary surveys have become more prevalent. Some states now mandate businesses to post a realistic salary range with each job posting. And the biggest shift of them all: younger generations openly talk about how much they get paid.

There are even social media accounts dedicated to someone walking around, stopping random people on the street, and asking them what they do and how much they make.

I don’t think this is inherently good or bad. Like many things, there are pros and cons.

The issue I see is that many managers are still operating as if they have the informational advantage.

This causes many obvious issues. The most significant one is trust.

Your employees will give you more when they know you are giving it your all for them. It’s a two-way street. If they find out you are underpaying them compared to someone sitting next to them or even at another company, they’ll put forth less effort, start looking at opportunities elsewhere, or both.

The engineering industry is usually slower to adopt changes than other industries, and the pay transparency issue is no different. This cultural transformation has been spreading across other organizations, and I’ve been seeing it more and more in engineering.

Ultimately, pay transparency isn’t pushing for everyone to be paid the same.

Instead, salary needs to be tied to a person’s capabilities, responsibilities, and overall value they provide to the organization. With those metrics backing up pay levels, employees will understand where they fit in and how they can climb higher.

Here’s the biggest impact I see for managers: there will be a wider chasm between good and poor managers.

The good ones will set expectations and metrics around compensation levels, then challenge and support their team to grow capabilities and associated benefits.

The poor managers will keep compensation decisions a mystery, driving top talent away and causing long-term organizational issues.

Management Insights

Adam Grant (organizational psychologist and professor) on the difference between strong and weak leaders:

“We learn more from people who challenge our thought process than those who affirm our conclusions. Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker.”

—

Carl von Clausewitz (General and military theorist) on theories:

“Too many theories try too hard to be laws.”

—

Jack Welch (former CEO at GE) on job security:

“Any organization that thinks it can guarantee job security is going down a dead end. Only satisfied customers can give people job security. Not companies.”

Management Resource

Why AI boosts creativity for some employees but not others (HBR)

AI is a powerful tool, but its impact is not evenly distributed. This article explores who reaps the most reward from utilizing AI and how organizations can look to better capitalize on the opportunity.

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

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Send me an email at [email protected]

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

Collin

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