In the final part of a three-part series of articles on his presidential address, Maurice Buckley elaborates on why he believes engineers are a great fit for the highest management positions in an organisation. 

Part I can be viewed here, and click here for Part II.

I regard 'engineers in management' as a very important cross-cutting topic, in which I have a huge interest. Until COVID-19 made its presence felt in March 2020 I had planned to devote this presidential address to a discussion on the strengths of engineers in general management(1). 

'Top of the ladder'

I personally believe the engineering skillset and training is very well suited to modern day top management and that we have a responsibility in Engineers Ireland to nurture those strengths and encourage our members to be ambitious in their careers and seek to go to the very top of the ladder. 

We need to communicate through our school programme and through our ‘STEPS Engineers Week’, how an engineering degree can open up a wide range of careers – not just in the specific discipline but in the wider management area. Our CPD programmes must build on that for members developing a career in management.

Our professional body must reflect the diversity of engineering in every respect including female participation, global engineers, the high-tech disciplines, and engineers in general management.

Perhaps it is a little too early to properly analyse the impact of the current societal changes on management practice. I am convinced that the ever increasing pace of change, the ever greater focus on risk and risk management will mean the potential for engineers to succeed in senior management roles is greater than ever.

I have spoken a lot this evening about the Engineers Ireland sectors and our current review of their structure. That is because I truly believe this lies at the very core of our organisation and is essential to our continued success and future growth. 

Diversity

We have made great inroads in the area of diversity by setting up a diversity group in 2019 and there is currently ongoing work to establish a women in engineering group. I am delighted that a third(2) of this year’s council and executive board is female. 

The role of the diversity group has been expanded to include not only gender balance but also ethnic diversity within our membership and profession. In 2019, 38 % of our new members joining us were ‘global’ engineers who qualified outside of Ireland.

'I am delighted that a third(2) of this year’s council and executive board is female'

We are delighted that you have become part of our professional body. Thank you for the contribution you are making to our economy and to our society.

Our professional body must reflect the diversity of engineering in every respect including female participation, global engineers, the high-tech disciplines, and engineers in general management.

With 25,000 members we are at record levels but there are still large numbers of engineers in Ireland who are not involved with our institution and do not necessarily see us as their representative body. We must ensure that we fully reflect the diversity within the profession and offer individual value to all engineers. 

Influencing public policy

Now I wish to return to the challenge and opportunity of responding to COVID-19, Brexit, and climate change. In what areas can we make an impact and how do we go about developing and articulating our ideas?  How can we influence public policy?

Influencing infrastructural investment is the most obvious opportunity as that is one of the most challenging policy areas and the one where we are uniquely well positioned with our large civil and structural engineering membership.

However, the same applies in medical devices, electronics and digitalisation, advanced manufacturing, and in the new supply chains and logistics Irish companies will need to develop after Brexit.

To develop really good policy proposals that reflect the talent within this organisation we are all going to have to push ourselves beyond our comfort zone.

Working with many engineers over the years, I recognise many of us share the same traits. We are good at spatial analysis, logical thinking, attention to detail, and like to solve problems – preferably problems which have clear right and wrong solutions.

But public administration and policy making are not like that. There is no formula to tell you the answer. In fact, it is never fully clear if you have found the right answer or the best solution at all.  

Work closely with secretary generals

I am currently head of the OPW, which has a wide remit in both engineering and architecture as you might expect. What is interesting in the context of this talk is that it is also a civil service body, so I have the privilege of working closely with the secretary generals of our government departments and their senior policy makers.

I see first hand how skilled these civil servants are in tackling these intractable problems. They deal with a vast range of complex issues and produce advice for politicians that can have far-reaching implications. They do this under a lot of pressure and make tough judgment calls on a daily basis. 

Never has it been more important that we rally the engineering expertise throughout the country to come up with big ideas and impactful proposals to support an economic recovery.

It is striking how technical and complicated public administration has become in Ireland and in every modern society. Many problems require co-ordinated solutions across several areas and each action has consequences and triggers reactions that need to be considered, though they can be hard to predict at times.

It is extremely important to also have specialists like engineers involved in the decision making and access to high-quality technical advice from organisations like Engineers Ireland.  

Every individual engineer will, I am sure, gladly undertake to redouble their personal efforts in these tough times. When it comes to developing infrastructure, we will do an excellent job of getting on with it and delivering the best possible results within the given constraints of planning rules, environmental regulations, procurement, and contracts.

That is what engineers have always been good at and it is an admirable trait. That must be supported and sustained.  

'I encourage all our members, but especially those in their 20s and 30s to consider this and look for ways to influence policy. Engineers Ireland and its sectors offers you a vehicle through which you can do that'

However, while it is ‘a bad carpenter who blames his tools’, every good carpenter will be constantly updating and upgrading his or her toolkit. We have got to push ourselves to engage more on the wider issues affecting our work.

We have all the expertise we need, but we are out of our comfort zone and not as proactive or assertive as we should be. I am in a place where I can now make an input and I really wish I had done so earlier in my career as a young engineer.

I encourage all our members, but especially those in their 20s and 30s to consider this and look for ways to influence policy. Engineers Ireland and its sectors offers you a vehicle through which you can do that.

At any time, we have the opportunity and, I would say, a responsibility to make a decisive input. This is no ordinary time as the country comes to terms with the pandemic and prepares for Brexit.

Never has it been more important that we rally the engineering expertise throughout the country to come up with big ideas and impactful proposals to support an economic recovery.  

So how do we mobilise our expertise and formulate some far-reaching proposals? The solution has to be to have strong technical sectors operating and active in the relevant areas and who can contribute strong and timely proposals.  

National recovery

After the AGM, I asked our sector chairs to work together to come up with some proposals in terms of an overall Engineers Ireland plan to support the national recovery. The sectors have been working on our COVID-19 and Brexit response since July and there are some very good proposals emerging.

In terms of policy, we have made a very significant step forward in recent years with the development of the State of Ireland report, which we now produce each year. This is a great vehicle to raise the profile of the engineering profession.

The report is now produced by our policy officer working with a group of experts, led by one of the Engineers Ireland officers. The group is a mix of internal experts closely linked to our divisions and advisers from other fields such as economics.  

State of Ireland report 2020: ‘Engineering a green and digital recovery’

This year, we are dedicating the report to this same topic of our response to Covid, Brexit, and climate change under the title ‘Engineering a green and digital recovery’. 

The sectors will have fed in to the State of Ireland document (published in October and closely timed with the national conference). Equally, the knowledge and information gathered through the external experts will be made available to the sectors to strengthen their proposals.

We will feed all of this into the Project Ireland 2040 review and other government initiatives related to economic recovery over the course of the year. I am very confident that the combined output from these steps will be a very strong contribution to the national debate. 

Conclusion

The world is changing because of Covid and we have a unique opportunity to help shape it in a sustainable manner if we can devise and implement the technical solutions required. I hope you agree with me that this is a time when engineers and the institution are called into action and we must respond as fully and as meaningfully as we possibly can.

When I was younger, I thought I knew a lot of the answers. Now, my goal is to pose the right questions and try to recognise the right answers coming from others. I hope I have stimulated your imagination and your thinking this evening. Most of all, I hope to have encouraged you and motivated you to become more involved with this great organisation of which you are a member.  

Before I finish, I would like to thank my wife, Mary, for her kindness and for putting up with me, my daughter, Barbara, who helped to pull all this together tonight and my other three children too for their support. The team in Clyde Road were hugely supportive as were my fellow officers, colleagues at work in the OPW, and the NSAI. I thank them all.

Thank you, in the audience, for your patience and kind attention. It has been my honour to address you this evening and I look forward to representing you as president of Engineers Ireland for the coming year.

Part I can be viewed here, and click here for Part II.

Author: Maurice Buckley, Engineers Ireland president 2020-21, is an electrical engineering graduate from UCD and is the executive chairman of the OPW, where he is leading large-scale investment programmes to improve Ireland’s flood defences and public buildings, both modern and heritage. A Chartered Engineer, he has worked for the Boston Consulting Group in Munich, held senior management roles in industry, and is a former chief executive of the National Standards Authority of Ireland, where he was responsible for the country’s standardisation, certification and metrology activities.

References

1.) Several presidential addresses have covered this topic including Brian Kearney, head of the PM Group, in 2002 and Jack Golden, director of HR at CRH, in 2008.

2.) The 2020/21 Council is 31 male and 15 female. The 2020/21 Exec Board is 14 male and seven female.