The biggest issue that I see is the fact that most clients are going to the cheaper as opposed to possibly the better. In my former company, cream of the crop was always hired (as still holds true today), but it is hard to compete with "mom and pop" firms that take the same amount (or even more) time to perform the same at a rate of half of what a national firm could do it for. Most clients (municipalities) are trying to save a buck or two and go with a less qualified, or maybe just cheaper firm because of the bottom line.
It is almost impossible for me to compete when I have to charge $200 an hour to do the same work as someone who has no overhead and charges only $100 per hour.
Is this fair? Is this what is best for society on the whole? The world may never know, but have you ever negotiated an attorney's rate?
$200 an hour is excessive IMHO. But it depends on what exactly you are doing. If you are doing general consulting work that lots of other companies are capable of doing, but you charge 2x as much maybe your company is the one with the problem not these "Mom and Pop" places.
If they take longer to do a job but charge less maybe to be competative your company needs to do the same thing.
Come on Kephart....get outta here with $200/hr being excessive. In the grand scheme of things for the value Engineers bring (let alone a PE), $200/hr is cheap...
And when you look at the sliding scale rates for attorneys and the like, $200/hr is their entry level.
It's a tough problem to deal with since Engineers have pegged their rates awhile ago....how do you raise them across the board in a unified matter? And then how do you do it without it raising red flags of collusion?
Time to step up and have some pride in the profession. The root of the problem is that owners of Engineering companies have lost touch of what it is to be an Engineer, either because of ignorance or in some cases, they aren't an Engineer (e.g. General Electric or some major organization).
As much as we may be annoyed at lawyers and doctors, you have to hand it to them in that these are complete non issues to them. They run their professions properly, and we can learn from them.
These are deep rooted issues where my father & I have a lot of experience dealing with, and while the path to higher ground is feasible, execution will be challenging.
The biggest issue REALLY is the lay public's complete IGNORANCE of what it is we do. Engineering for the most part is an anonymous profession....most people don't know that Engineers design everything: a car from GM comes from the Engineers at GM, not "GM".....an ipod comes from the engineers at apple, not apple.
Further compounding the issue is that many other professions have 1 to 1 dealings with the lay public: You need your taxes done, you call an accountant. You don't feel good, you call a doctor. You need to sue someone, you call a lawyer. You need work done around the house, you call your electrician/plumber/etc. When was the last time John Doe called up an Engineer for anything? lol.
Before we can get into the whole supply/demand thing (which is BS to begin with), there are bigger issues we need to deal with.
