The skills shortages of the past few years have forced businesses to adopt a range of strategies to keep their best and brightest, and attract new staff.
But the tight employment market is also having an impact on building design, according to participants in the WA Business News boardroom forum.
Cox Howlett & Bailey Woodland director Steve Woodland said architects were now responding to the way businesses prioritised their employees' needs when designing an office.
"One thing that has changed quite dramatically is the corporate view of the importance of their people, and as such the importance of the environment they're working in is quite critical," Mr Woodland said.
"That, in a way, is probably a commercially driven thing, because people are hard to get, good people are hard to keep, so you have to do all the right things."
He said it was a vastly different approach to the past.
"If you were doing an office building [previously], the only people that would make a decision...would be the executives. There would be very little discussion about what staff wanted - the reverse is now the case," Mr Woodland said.
One of the projects in Perth that has been influenced by this employee-oriented design trend is Brookfield Multiplex's City Square tower for BHP Billiton, according to HASSELL principal Chris Melsom.
"It applies current knowledge to workplace psychology and the lack of separation between subordinates and seniors in the workplace, [and] the needs of employees on a day-to-day basis," Mr Melsom said.
He said 140 William Street, which was a HASSELL project, was another example.
Similarly, Cameron Chisholm & Nicol (WA) director Greg Salter said Sydney's 30 The Bond office tower had been designed to help businesses treat staff as a community, rather than a workforce.
While staff attraction and retention initiatives have become a driving force in building design, the architecture profession itself is facing the same skills shortages that have affected other industries.
Those in the sector say the shortages range across all tiers of their businesses, with competition tight at an international level.
Daglish-based Oldfield Knott Architects Pty Ltd, which has a staff of 65, has advertised for eight employees in the past month.
Managing director Ian Oldfield said shortages were being felt at every level of the business - graduates, mid-level architects, draftsmen, senior architects and administration staff.
"What is happening in Perth is that everyone is chasing staff, which is pushing up salaries, especially with the end of financial year approaching," he said.
Hames Sharley executive chairman William Hames said Australian skills were also being exported, which compounded the problem.
"Interestingly, if you talk to a large number of architects, they are increasingly being sought overseas," Mr Hames told the WA Business News forum. "We've got positions we could fill in every office nationally at the moment."
For Cox Howlett & Bailey Woodland, tapping into its national and international network of offices has provided one solution to meeting its staffing needs.
The firm has outsourced work to drafting agents in Australia and overseas, as well as recruiting five workers on 457 visas.
However, director Greg Howlett said he believed demand was easing, with rising interest rates restricting developers' borrowing capacity and more product coming onto the market.
"Architects are the first in the building industry to see what's happening in the market, because we're at the start of the food chain, and I think we're starting to see a slowing down," Mr Howlett said.
Related Data & Insights
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Architects
Rank Company # 1st Hames Sharley 27 2nd Hassell 30 3rd TRCB NFP 4th MJA Studio 20 5th Silver Thomas Hanley 18 88 architects ranked by number of full-time registered architects in WA -
Interior Designers
Rank Company # 2nd IA Group 14 3rd Woods Bagot 12 4th Hassell 9 5th Hames Sharley 5 6th Renovation Capital 8 37 interior designers ranked by number of interior designers in WA -
Landscape Architects
Rank Company # 1st Emerge Associates 16 2nd Hassell 8 3rd ecoscape 8 4th AECOM Australia 8 5th Blackwell & Associates NFP 27 landscape architects ranked by number of registered landscape architects in WA
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