A few days back I was having a conversation with some of my fellow architects. At one point the discussion moved towards the availability of good architectural staff, especially at the junior level. The complaint was that the entry level architects were not industry-ready, and a majority of them lacked the most basic of design and drawing skills. That this lack of availability of required skills in the youngest generation architects is affecting the design and delivery of projects. This is a problem faced by many architecture firms. My argument was, “How much time and energy are architecture firms investing in training and teaching their junior architects? How many architecture firms today have a culture of mentoring?” The counter-argument to that was, “We don’t have the time to train, teach and mentor.” Well then can you guess who’s losing out here?
For the benefit of the profession, and for the firms themselves, architectural firms should rethink the way they operate and create a culture and structure that enables mentoring. I know, gone are the days of the “atelier” where architects worked in studios under the mentorship of the principal architect. We no longer have a culture of apprentices training under a master. In smaller practices, with less up to 10 employees, it is still possible to have a “studio culture”, where junior architects learn from the senior architects and work under the active guidance of a Principal Architect. This becomes tougher in larger offices. But the need for training and mentoring junior architects is ever more important.
One way that large Architecture firms can create this culture of mentoring and growing, is to hire a batch of interns every year. These interns can be paid a stipend, and a structure within which they learn, under the mentorship of senior architects. The brightest interns can be absorbed as employees. And by the time they are hired as full-time employees on a regular pay, they are already “trained” and on-board. This also ensures a continuous stream of good young architects. It also reduces the attrition rate since employees stick around longer as they enjoy professional development and personal growth.
It is important for mid-sized and large architecture firms and senior-level architects to actively engage in teaching and mentoring, whether at the university or within their own studios. To ensure that there is a continuous stream of good young architects, architecture firms should take up the responsibility of creating a talent pool and nurturing them.
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