00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to the crm archeology podcast episode None and we are talking with christopher dore and Kenneth Atchcheson about a recent paper. They presented a few months ago and you know about the crm industry in both the Uk and the United States 00:00.00 succinctbill Are. 00:16.55 archpodnet And as we closed out the last segment you guys were discussing again. The careers problem and the I guess I guess what was going through my head when you were talking about that is there doesn't seem to be a lot of benefit to a c or m career and and Ken you were talking about how. In the u k people seem to understand the the I guess business progression like you're not going to be a field tech your whole life. They understand that there is upward advancement. But that being said, there's still a limited number of companies and when you're working for somebody like mola I think you mentioned that has you know hundreds of field archeologists. 00:41.10 Kenneth Aitchison And. 00:54.32 archpodnet But they don't have hundreds of people at the top they have ah a very tight funnel that leads to the top you know with with very few people working just like any corporation or company would and I would imagine that in the u k with just you know, being a smaller landmass therefore smaller. You know. Ah, a lower number of jobs available to begin with across the whole industry that even when you're looking at that. It's like okay I'm sitting here with you know, 50 new people that started in the last one or 2 years how am I going to stand out and move up and is that even possible and I and I see that in the United States as well. Even though we have. You know, proportionally more potential careers in this industry available and new companies popping up all the time and companies expanding but like you guys mentioned by buying other companies and and and no shortage of jobs. But I'm just wondering how we ah. How we how we help people out telling him what's going on Chris or Ken go ahead either None 01:47.58 Kenneth Aitchison I did. 01:49.32 Christopher Dore Yeah I was good to but ah this Chris you know 1 thing that people should understand that that pertains to this is that the differences kind of between us s crm and UK commercial archeology and the the professional structure that underlies that which is in the US. 01:57.13 archpodnet Now. 02:05.63 archpodnet Brett. 02:09.46 Christopher Dore Largely due to the secretary of interiors professional qualification standards of which like the registers qualifications are based upon um, is that here in the states. We're very degree oriented and we're not experience oriented and in the U K It's just the opposite. 02:22.60 archpodnet Um. 02:26.23 Christopher Dore It's It's not that entrenched degree structure and you have to have that that credential to advance within the discipline. It's really based on your experience and your ability to to do the job and that's a big difference that makes the career path and career advancement I think easier for. You know people coming into the industry to see and understand and where here in the states that it's It's more difficult. 02:51.40 archpodnet Um, Kenneth. 02:53.64 Kenneth Aitchison Yes, I'd say the Uk archeology is different. Um, it's but proportionally much as the United States is faster geographically and has a bigger population. There are more archaeologists. Pair. Head of population in the Uk than there are in the United States archaeology is more intense here again. That's partly to do with the I would say to the nature of the archaeological record and the the way that archaeological work is generated by the spatial planning system every time there's. 03:13.54 archpodnet Um. 03:21.89 archpodnet Sure. 03:30.72 Kenneth Aitchison New houses being built or a new road being built there is going to be lots of archaeological work especially in the cities and there is yep. 03:35.30 Christopher Dore See I'll take issue with you here. Kenneth think we can have a little debate but I think also part of that issue with the per capita number of archeologists is who counts as an archeologists and I think right correct me if I'm wrong in the u k you are counting. Diggers as archaeologists. We're here in the States. We don't count our texts as archaeologists and so when the numbers come out and people do you know various folks including ourselves. Do these counts we're coming up with very different numbers because of who we include in that count and and who we don't. 04:08.75 Kenneth Aitchison Good good point if we use numbers popular numbers that run around my head are at the moment in the uk our best guess is six thousand three hundred archaeologists and number that keeps bouncing around for the United States is 10500 to None archaeologists but the United States is not only None times the size of the u k. 04:26.30 archpodnet Um. 04:27.38 Heather So i'm. So so Chris I'm I'm really curious about that statement. So how do we know that because um, you know we we have most you're gonna say diggers or technician archaeological technicians. Um I'm not sure we don't call them archaeologists in in the Us. Um. 04:32.18 archpodnet Right. 04:51.45 Heather And know there's an argument of you shouldn't call yourself an archeologist and do you have a graduate degree. Whatever um I don't necessarily agree with that. Um, do we is? are you saying? that's tied to rpa or are you saying that? um the census in general is saying that. I'm not sure I'm trying to figure out where you're getting that number from because I'm not sure if I agree with it. 05:10.82 Christopher Dore Um, yeah, so so it's it's um, there are a number of things that that lead to that and lead to that opinion one of which is when you talk to firm owners and ask them how many archeologists do you employ. 05:27.80 archpodnet Moving. 05:28.30 Christopher Dore They really consider what the the number they give you back. Are there like full time employees which generally don't include the project hires which are the technicians So our under. So. 05:31.94 archpodnet Right. 05:38.34 Heather That's based on yeah that but but that's based on structure of a company not based on in my opinion not based on what you technically call an archeologists I mean they're clearly archeologists letter technicians. 05:41.30 Christopher Dore Right. 05:48.30 Christopher Dore Right? right? No doubt and it's how we divide them up right? So the best numbers that we currently have kind of based upon the you know the analysis of this paper done for this paper is that you know, kind of quote unquote professional. Archeologists in the us the the kind of the full-time career track people. The let me phrase out a better way to phrase that is the non-project hire archeologists. We think that there are like None working for commercial firms and aquira reports 42% of based on their surveys. 06:15.36 Heather Have you compare it. 06:24.33 Christopher Dore Um, of the labor in commercial archeology in crm um, is is done by project hires and so you've got enough numbers now to use that 42% to divide out and figure out. Well how many texts then does that leave us with. 06:30.30 Heather Um, um. 06:30.53 archpodnet Um. 06:39.94 Christopher Dore Who are kind of actively working. We know that people it's you know it's very fluid people come in people go out but there's kind of if you forget about it if you don't look at individuals and you just kind of look at well how many technicians how many project hire people are in that pool of available. You know hires for projects at any None point in time. It looks like you know error comes out to about None and we think right that they last for about 3 to None ars sorry go ahead. 07:00.90 Heather Are are you are you? Yeah are you looking at have you compared this data to Census Data. Um I'd be curious I Know that's kind of a little bit behind but it might be helpful because I don't I just. I Don't know I mean if somebody were to contact me I wouldn't kind of I wouldn't Um, when you say we have I guess it depends on how you ask the question but I would count all our technicians as needed and otherwise that just happens to be a difference in how we pay them or a difference In. They're standing in the company but that doesn't mean that they are an archaeologist or not an archaeologist is that maybe something. 07:42.53 Christopher Dore I I agree I agree with you. You know though, no that they're I mean this is part of the issue right? No the of course they're archeologists and they've you know they've basically financially built the you know this billion dollar industry because they're doing disproportional amount of. Billable labor and they don't have the overhead on them in terms of all these employment benefits so they are the most profitable people in the company where senior staff are are oftentimes you lose money. So the the financial structure of Crm companies as such that you have to have. 08:12.23 Heather Hey. 08:17.72 Christopher Dore A very broad pyramid of of employees and most of your profits are actually coming from your temporary project hires and not your more senior permanent staff partially of what Kenneth had said earlier is that the the marketplace won't won't tolerate billable. Or but won't tolerate prices for senior people right? that are that are high enough to actually make profit on those those senior people and yeah we have looked at the the government data the census data data etc and at none. It's really the bureau of labor statistics. You know I thought that their numbers were. 08:36.39 Heather True. 08:55.12 Christopher Dore Too low, but this new given what we just kind of know about the industry but as it turns out now I Actually think when you when you look at these 2 components kind of the permanent career track full-time employees versus the part-time temporary project Laborers. And you you tease out those components I actually think the government data now is pretty is much more accurate than I than I did a year ago. Um I think there's still some problems with it. But it's I think it's better than than I used to think and it matches kind of what we put out in this this paper fairly fairly. Well. 09:16.36 Heather Ah. 09:28.41 Heather And. 09:29.62 Kenneth Aitchison And I would can I just add to that. Okay, in the Uk we don't have good government census data. It's not granular enough to to be able to look at things like this like but the interesting thing about people being coming in on temporary project hire. 09:37.44 Heather A. 09:46.84 Kenneth Aitchison Over the last two years in Uk since Summer of 2020 that's kind of come to an end because people are being offered project from permanent jobs from the word go they're they're hired permanently. You're put on 1 project sure as soon as that project finishes you're on another one and the companies are so. 09:55.53 Heather Are. 09:56.14 archpodnet Um. 10:06.20 Kenneth Aitchison Desperate for people that they don't let them cycle out and this actually then has led to some of the problems that we were hearing about when we presented this at conference a couple of months ago when we heard from people in the room who were in that working situation people who were in kind of middle management supervisor. Project officer kind of positions who are just being so exhausted by the constant grind that it's that it's turned into and they can't relieve that by bringing in new people because there aren't any new people to come in. There is there right now u k there is no spare. 10:37.19 Heather A. 10:45.50 Kenneth Aitchison Labor pool and ah just as a brief aside because once upon a time there was until two years ago there was because the Uk was in the european union and so if the big companies wanted to recruit more staff for short-term projects. There would be people good competent people coming from. 10:51.87 archpodnet E. 11:03.41 Kenneth Aitchison Italy or from Spain or from Sweden or from Germany happily coming to the Uk for a short-term contract maybe stay longer and now Britain left the european union and that doesn't happen anymore. There isn't that pool just isn't there and so the problem has been. Simultaneously compounded for Uk archaeology by that political decision. 11:24.69 Heather So so the I just I wanted to maybe explore a little bit more with what chrisp was saying about um the concept that ah management within Crm firms or environmental firms are. That they lose profit and that thee archeological technicians are the ones that only ones that make the profit or are a predominant profit. Um, so I think I I think in order to solve the problem. We need to really look at the facts and I don't see if you look at any business model or most business models. Um, of course management is not going to bring in a lot of profit because um, well from that sense as far as the hours that they're expend because any kind of business. That's a billeable ah type business but they're the ones that are bringing in the money so they're the ones that are bringing in the work. So. When we look at um, sir m firms. The billing rates are higher for ah the management positions because there's a built in understanding that you are going to be ah, you're not going to be working on as much billable work as let's say a technician or an analyst is going to be making. 12:38.28 Kenneth Aitchison The. 12:44.17 Heather And so you have that those pay rates are a little higher which just kind of perpetuates the problem. However, you know you can look at that in in any business really? Ah, management is not the None they do bring in work. They bring in work by bringing in clients so without management bringing in clients. The technicians. The analysts don't have work to do therefore do not have a job so it's still I don't think it's as predatory as as we're making it out to be and I think that that just perpetuates this concept that you know the the management in crm companies are are. Are the ones that are making all the money and the technicians are the ones that are actually making all the profit I don't think that that's a fair statement I understand where it's coming from because I do think there are some abuses in our you know in our career but the um the one issue I think None problem. Is that you know when you're looking at technicians. There's a lot of people that we work with they they have decided that they want to go into archaeology and they love the field and they don't have a desire to go into the management. In fact, they don't like the business part part of the of the of the business and they. Would rather just be and what they perceive as be an archaeologist and I think one of the ways of solving this is to find a way to have um management or positions of a little bit higher stant or of. 14:18.30 Kenneth Aitchison Are. 14:20.24 Heather Higher standing with higher pay and our company has decided to have None different career paths. We have the management career path and we have a tech or a field for lack of a better term a field career path so we have None career paths that are just our ambition is to make them just as rewarding both. Ah, on a personal and career level and on a pay level and so I think that's one one way that we could improve the situation that we have in serum. Overall. 14:50.45 Christopher Dore I absolutely agree and but that requires a fundamental change in the in the business model where you know instead of requiring you know your your project hires to For example, you know be None billable right? which is really like 91 or something. But. Um, you know, have you know, ah could you could you reach your business goals as a company if you cut that in half and by cutting that in half that allows you to carry people as full-time employees. Even if there's not the project work to to be done. And you can use them for other non-billable things but that's not the way that our current business model and that's that's the investment part of this. Why aren't we as an industry investing in our technicians and getting them on a career path and that doesn't necessarily have to include management but getting them on a career path where they can make. 15:28.72 archpodnet Um. 15:46.53 Christopher Dore Good wage they can have benefits. They can have a life. They can have stability and they can advance and in what they do but that requires industry to actually make an investment in those people and when they make that investment all of a sudden companies aren't meeting their their profit goals and when all of a sudden There isn't a big companies have a huge base. 16:04.91 Heather Ah. 16:06.26 Christopher Dore And so the the fluctuations of project load you know companies like here's Heather aren't as aren't as great of a percentage but most companies most Crm companies are very very small companies and so when you lose a project a single project that means you have to lay off a lot of your staff and it has a much bigger. Percentage proportion of your your total business and so you can't carry those those people so you know the model is a little bit. The business model is a little bit different between you know your average Crm firm and the big crm firms of the multidisciplinary firms but we need we need to look at that model and allow companies to still make money. 16:33.13 Heather Sure. 16:44.11 Christopher Dore And still you know, return value to their shareholders but but we also need to invest in you know a career track for Junior people who are coming into this field who largely enter as part time project staff with no benefits. Well. 17:00.79 Heather So. 17:03.10 Christopher Dore How do we get them into full time positions where we can mentor them. We can invest in their training we can invest in their advancement and keep them as full time benefited employees. 17:06.39 Heather Um, how how do we? How do we cut billability by 50% and still make a profit. How do you do that. 17:21.70 Christopher Dore Ah, that's yeah. 17:23.53 Heather Profit the profit margin for environmental firms and for cm firms is roughly between between 10 and 12% that's a profit margin. So how do we cut technicians billability to 50% and still make a profit. 17:32.94 archpodnet Yeah, so. 17:37.27 Christopher Dore Well, there's a problem right there because a 10 or 12% profit margin isn't high enough to be true returning value to shareholders and most of the big companies have a a much higher margin than that. But your average Crm firm. That's right about where they are but unfortunately and now so ah, especially with inflation where it is. 17:48.74 Heather A. 17:57.24 Christopher Dore That's not enough profit to return value and that's the that's something we've never understood well in crm is the difference between those 2 right? And ah well it depends. 18:06.50 Heather That's the environmental standard though. That's the environmental firm standard is between yeah and tell it is. It's between 10 and 15% yeah 18:14.58 Christopher Dore It depends on. Yeah yeah, it depends on which data sources you use um to to to look at that. Um, the may be the standard but that's not necessarily. You know that's why share prices of some of the public environmental companies. Don't go anywhere right because they're not adding value to them and they're not returning value to their their investors. So There's that problem to start with the profit margins aren't even high enough where they are now to grow the value of companies. But you're right, You know So How do we? How do we do that And how do we change this business model and there you know there are very easy clear answers which is just you get a? ah. You know some financial statements in front of you and you Jigger the numbers until they they work out that way So on that side. It's not.. It's not a problem at all. But ah, how do you compete with other firms in a marketplace if you do that That is a big problem and challenging. 19:03.63 Heather Um. 19:06.93 Christopher Dore Problem and you know I think there are answers and solutions to it and I think I mean I was on a call with acrafirms not too long ago when they were talking about labor a few weeks ago and and some firms are doing some really innovative and cool things now starting to address this. This issue and they're things I wouldn't have necessarily thought about so solutions are coming and they're coming grassroots up but you know then there are many ways I think of addressing that problem but the the problem's got to be got to be addressed. Everybody has to win right? companies have to make more money return more value to their shareholders. While simultaneously simultaneously investing in their career paths of junior employees. Um, and you know I would add to this whole mess right? We see a huge demand right now due to the you know the infrastructure investment and jobs act and the great outdoors act and we anticipate we forecast about None new jobs over the next five years and crm alone 5000 new positions which is about you know, a none of the current whole labor force and everybody's you know, excited about that prospect. But you have to remember that in 5 years that's going to go away and all of a sudden you know? So what's going to happen then you know what the answer is. All these people the now the industry is saying oh we've got tons of jobs come on on come on on you know we need you in crm and increasing you know, maybe adding benefits certainly increasing wages um to get those people in those people are all just going to be let go in 5 years when those you know 5000 jobs now now are gone because that's the. Ah, business model. That's that's required right. 20:39.53 archpodnet Okay, let's take a quick break because the business model the apn depends on it. It's not super great. It's not very profitable but we're going to do it anyway, let's let's get Ken has got his hands up and I know Heather's got more to say we're going to continue this in segment 3 for a wrap up on this topic. 20:54.10 Andrew Kinkella Happened. 20:56.70 archpodnet And then if I can get the host to do it. We might do a bonus segment for our members. So another part of our business model where we wrap up this topic back in a minute.