Q&A with Bill Stingl on how COVID-19 is affecting business

Bill Stingl is a mechanical department leader at Clark Nexsen, a CFE Media content partner. He recently responded to a variety of questions about how business is being affected by COVID-19.

How has your staff/team adjusted to the new work-from-home environment? What tips or suggestions do you have to help other firms remain connected while working remotely?

Bill Stingl: We adapted very quickly as a firm to working remotely. Our information technology department worked to get everyone up and running and we were already using Microsoft Teams to communicate across offices so that wasn’t new. Terri Hall, our president, has been sending weekly or more frequent internal updates and messages.

The best tips I have for helping teams remain connected is that close communication is a must. We have a Monday morning office staff meeting that is now online and that helps us feel connected to things going on in our office and firmwide. I am in contact nearly every day with both project teams I am on and with the rest of the mechanical engineering department in my office.

We connected with each of our clients to get a feel for their preferred channels of communication moving forward or to offer resources that they might find helpful. Some of our clients had not had a lot of experience working remotely, and the spirit of making it work and in some cases trying new things, like Conceptboard (a visual collaboration workspace), together has been very positive.

We also have an intranet site called the Cube that is available on desktop and mobile for knowledge sharing, but also lighter things like sharing our home “office” set ups that run the gamut and include a lot of new four-legged co-workers.

The mechanical engineering department has instituted standing Teams meetings on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays where we discuss specific project requirements and related issues. We also discuss COVID-19 related policies and procedure modifications introduced by the government, as well as clients and contractors.

Is your firm conducting any travel to visit clients or projects? If so, what types of projects are you working on?

Bill Stingl: We are classified as an essential business on both the state and federal level and none of our office locations has officially closed to employees. If an individual feels comfortable coming into the office for a short time to, say print something out, or get something they need from the office, they can do that. As some prefer to continue working from the office, they are doing that while taking the necessary precautions to do so safely. Our leadership has consistently set clear but flexible guidelines to help and support individual situations while focusing on everyone staying healthy.

We have severely limited in person contact aside from field work and construction visits where personal protective equipment and social distancing are mandated. As a firm with a lot of different practices, we have transportation engineers and bridge inspection teams conducting some work on-site along with vertical projects in all stages of construction.

It is an unprecedented time where a lot of factors are coming into play, but we have been able to keep moving forward with projects in all phases — from predesign to on-site construction visits and punch lists.

Site inspections are continuing for our state projects. Proper COVID-19 protocols are strictly adhered to including limited personnel, mandatory high level of sanitation, and staggered visits across disciplines.

What engineering or technical aspects of the job are now being done remotely?

Bill Stingl: Some aspects of site visits are being done virtually, but not exclusively. Preliminary construction observations and some bridge inspections can effectively be done virtually, but not final sealed documents. To help minimize the number of staff attending on-site visits, we have staggered our visits. We are frequently having video conferences in the field via FaceTime to help expedite situation resolution. This allows the remote engineer a firsthand look at a specific condition/situation requiring resolution. The on-site engineer would take direction and video what was needed. The session can easily be recorded for future use.

What supply chain issues are you experiencing? Is your firm dealing with any challenges with materials or products from manufacturers or suppliers?

Bill Stingl: We are seeing spotty shortages, primarily related to manufacturing if a plant has been closed temporarily due to COVID-19. This has been mostly with furniture, fixtures and equipment. Contractors have been telling us there are some delays on equipment. In many cases, these delays are for special-order equipment/material and those items for which there is typically limited stock. This can vary with equipment from one manufacturer to another, dependent on where their factories are located.

What financial implications do you think this will have on the engineering industry as a whole?

Bill Stingl: The general numbers I am hearing are between a 10% to 20% drop in revenue in 2020 as a result of COVID-19. Unfortunately, firms that did not have the infrastructure in place to quickly shift to working remotely will suffer much greater losses.

Do you expect to see pent-up demand hit once shelter-in-place restrictions have been lifted? How do you think business will trend three to six months after?

Bill Stingl: I anticipate a gradual more than a sudden emergence out of where we are now in the next few months. We are in uncharted waters with a global pandemic occurring in our lifetimes, but certainly, as with the recession that began in 2008, some markets like commercial development will be impacted more quickly. Across the board, the consequences of COVID-19 will be felt more in the coming months as some projects finish but are not being replaced with as much new work. Being optimistic, perhaps some of the gap we are likely to see will be filled and increase revenues in 2021.

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