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The Importance of Workforce Development: Why

it is critical & A few ideas to help you get started.

By: Trent J. Keenan, PLS

At the 2022 Western Regional Survey Conference, multiple panels
focused on brainstorming the best ways to train and support employees
using workforce development and this is an abstract article based on
these discussions.
It’s common knowledge in the surveying profession that new talent
is hard to find. That’s why in addition to attracting new talent, we
need to be focused on another critical task: keeping existing talent.
Keeping existing talent doesn’t just mean retaining your existing
staff roster for decades. It means keeping employees in the world
of surveying and not losing talented individuals to related trades or
industries such as construction and engineering.
The recent downturn was particularly damaging to surveying because we didn’t necessarily lose licensed surveyors. Instead, we lost an
enormous chunk of the ecosystem that supports surveying: the technicians and all of the other bodies who help us do our work on a
daily basis.
Workforce development is the effort of engaging, supporting, and further educating existing employees. When most of today’s land
surveying firms are made up of less than five employees and another huge number have less than nine employees. The more that
employees feel supported in both the short term (such as current project demands) and the long term (such as opportunities for
advancement and growth), the more likely they will be to stay in your company and in the profession.
Undertaking workforce development can take many forms, and there are many tools already at our disposal. At the 2022 Western
Regional Survey Conference, multiple panels focused on brainstorming the best ways to train and support employees using workforce
development. Here are the major strategies that were discussed.
Types of Training

Perhaps the biggest undertaking of workforce development is training. The word
“development” implies learning new skills and improving the status quo.
Does your company currently offer training to develop employee knowledge? If you have to
think about it, you probably have to improve it.
The first step is simple but critical: schedule time for it.

It’s all too easy to acknowledge the importance of training in theory but refuse to make time
for it in practice as more time-sensitive daily demands arise.

One survey company mentioned that their administrator plans the entire year of training in advance. She sends out calendar invites for
all training sessions in January, so it’s set in stone and there is no room for surprise conflicts. In other words, the training comes first,
and everything else is scheduled around it, meaning it’s impossible to put off.

Training should also be diverse in nature, as not everyone learns in the same way. Taking tests is far from the only way to learn. Good
workforce development is more about investing time in learning, in all of its many diverse forms. Below are a number of training
opportunities to consider.
Onboarding training
Onboarding new employees is a prime time to train them in a wide variety of topics and procedures.
Every company is unique, so onboarding may be an ideal time to not just onboard them to how
your company works, but to introduce employees to skills valuable to your specific workplace.
For instance, a new field crew employee has probably never seen a legal description in their life,
but it could be a skill that your office finds meaningful to have as a survey technician.

When employees are equipped to succeed in your specific work environment, they’ll be
empowered to know they’re doing their job well. If you can provide training that lets new
employees succeed from the start, you’ll be getting off on the right foot.

24 The Nevada Traverse Vol.49, No.2, 2022