5 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org From the PLSO Office not have happened if I wasn’t able to be part of her activities. I like to think PLSO had something to do with that. Bragging about my descendent aside, it’s also given me a little bit of insight about so many of you who run your own small surveying firms. The truth is, when you’re super busy succeeding at your craft, you’re most likely falling behind on something else likemarketing and branding. PLSO offered twomarketing sessions at the conference. The first was “Marketing Your Brand for Recruitment” with Maggie Thornton and JeredMcGrath. Maggie is responsible for developing and implementing strategic marketing and communication plans, researching, and identifying industry trends, leading business development and recruitment, and helping to develop company initiatives, practices, and policies for Westlake Consultants. She provided an introductory course about understanding branding and how it can affect your hiring success, generational differences between Gen Z and Gen Y, and various recruiting vehicles. The session started out explaining that a brand is more than a company logo—it is the entire package that is created to make employees and customers feel and act a certain way. It includes the office environment, fonts, and messaging through things like taglines and proposals. Of course, before any of that may be decided, you have to decide what you want people to feel when thinking of your company. An exercise that the PLSO rebranding task force went through was to tell the group what kind of vehicle described a land surveyor the most. The answer was nearly unanimous—an F150. It was an iconic, classic, dependable, well designed workhorse truck. From there, we worked on how to make people feel that when they thought of PLSO (or really, all of you). It’s something we strive for in everything we do. It also means that I want to convey that feeling to you about me when I’mworking with or for you. At least, that’s the goal. The most interesting part to me about this session was hearing the differences in generational thinking. Everyone thinks we’re all so different. What I got out of it is that, speaking broadly, each generation is productive. We just have different desires and requirements to get there, which is directly related to the life and historic events we’ve experienced. For example, Gen Y (Millennials) grew up during an economic boom, so they are more idealistic. On the other hand, Gen Z (ages 11–26) saw their parents struggle through the recession, so they are more pragmatic. One could argue that most surveyors are pragmatic in general. But remember, we’re talking about how people want to shape their lives. I can tell you from experience with my own daughter that this is really true. She is up-to-date on the news and discusses it with me. She just happens to learn it from TikTok. Gen Z is alsomore ethnically diverse than any other generation in history, which is why Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is going to be a real hot topic you hear about as they get older. But here’s the kicker—Gen Z would gladly take a pay cut if it meant working for a company that shared their morals, principles, and ideals. Guess how that’s shared? If you answered branding, you’d be right. Maggie shared that according to the employment agency Robert Half, the top job search priorities for Gen Z are: 1. Growth opportunities 2. Generous pay 3. Making a positive impact 4. Job security 5. Healthcare benefits 6. Flexible hours 7. Manager they can learn from Gen Z characteristics as a whole include: • 77% expect to work harder than previous generations • 74% prefer in-person collaboration in small groups • 93% desire a manager they can learn from • 91% name professional development and training opportunities as a priority • Desire straightforward feedback and clear performance standards and authenticity Looking at these two lists makes me feel good about the future. Generational differences don’t have to be good or bad. They are just different. It’s like learning a new culture and language. It feels foreign and wrong at first, but once you learn those two things an entire world of opportunity opens up. As you read this, youmay be thinking, “Well, they need to get with the program and conform to the world as it is.” To that I would suggest you ask yourself why you feel that an entire workforce should conform to your comfort level when there are infinite opportunities out there to address their needs and concerns? Nobody wants to spend eight hours a day feeling miserable, and as a company that needs to hire young professionals, you are in the people business. Maggie shared a quote from Morrisey & Goodale’s December 12 newsletter “Word on the Street”: “…Industry leaders need to think of themselves as being in the “people” business— finding, keeping, and developing them. Successful firms do not have the option to be passive when it comes to talent, nor can they wait for a “technology solution” to address their people challenges.” Professional organizations have always known they are in the people business and strive to work on providing ways to develop them. But we can only do somuch without the involvement of our members promoting the profession as well. One such person who has been doing an extraordinary job is Trent Keenan out of Las Vegas. Trent spoke about promoting the profession at the conference on Friday. It was streamed and recorded. So, if you attended the conference, but missed “Mapping the Path for the Next Generation,” it is currently available to watch on theWhova app for the next three months (as well as all the streamed content). Trent heads “Mentoring Mondays,” which is described as an online meeting place for anyone wanting to learn more about surveying. Whether you are a freshman in college or a 50-year professional land surveyor, they have a weekly zoom forum hosted by a rotating series of guest speakers. You can learn more by heading over to www. mentoringmondays.xyz. Trent’s enthusiasm about promoting our profession is catching. In the session, he shares logistics about the profession. Something he shared that I found interesting was that nationally 1,044 people took the FS exam for the first time, with 64% passing. There were 585 repeat test takers, with 46% passing (further diving will have to explain to us what’s going on with the repeat test takers). From there he explained 937 were fully on the way to licensure. From this grouping, the average age passing the FS exam was 34. For the PS exam, 596 were first timers, with 68% passing while the 228 repeat takers experienced a 41% pass rate. This worked out to be 498 fully on the path to licensure. The average age was 38. It seems we as a profession are consistently being found for people later in life, showing how important it is to promote to continues
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