Just a thought... We're all just one big, happy family!

James Cryer takes a different angle on our dearly beloved industry, as he compares it to another well-known entity, the building industry. Stop thinking 'ink on paper' and start seeing 'big, happy family'! School-leavers face career choices and now's the time to be selling the benefits that printing offers over some other industries.

This week has posed more than the normal challenges to get to work. The last few days have seen Chatswood the scene of a building-industry picket with big, burly blokes pacing up and down the footpath waving placards and blocking peoples’ progress. This is democracy in action as the CFMEU asserts its members’ right to protest.

The cause of all this excitement was the collapse of a large building company owing $30 million and leaving staff and creditors hanging in the breeze. Hundreds of bread-winners and their families are now without an income, with little likelihood of recovery and limited employment prospects. And no it wasn’t called Geon Constructions.

It made me think how different industries are structured. For whatever reason, about thirty years ago, the building industry re-constituted itself into a two-tiered arrangement with a handful of gigantic companies at the top, which economists call high concentration, and a veritable ant-colony of workers, all slaving away at the bottom. The only problem was, they weren’t employees, but self-employed sub-contractors, most of whom skate along without much financial cushioning in case of disaster.

This arrangement may be great for the good times but offers no comfort during the more perilous times we’re now in.

Fast forward to the printing industry. I know we’re all quick to grumble and complain - our bosses are too kind, the staff work too hard, paper prices going up, digital printing is ruining the industry…all the normal stuff. But hang on! Apart from a few recent exceptions we’re a pretty robust industry. We don’t need government hand-outs. As one door (commercial offset) narrows slightly, others (in packaging and signage) open even more widely.

But more important than all of that: we’re really a collection of small families, heavily disguised as companies.

In the building industry you've got a few behemoth companies at the top, nothing in the middle and a flotilla of subbies floating round with no sense of belonging or affiliation at the bottom. A recipe for disaster. The printing industry, however, is composed of myriad family-sized enterprises, typically between 15 and 50. That's small enough that everyone can get to know each other and feel part of a team, and yet large enough to provide some stability when buffeted by the headwinds of economic change or uncertainty.

It’s something we take for granted, in our relatively cohesive industry. We even have industry associations that encourage interaction, cameraderie and ideas exchange. We even hold a national event to celebrate our achievements (yes, I may have been occasionally critical), but the building industry has nothing like that. The building industry is virtually devoid of that kind of social glue which binds our industry together.

I suspect there’s an optimal size for a printing company and it may be around 60-ish. This is based on the famous Dunbar number, based on the optimal size of Neanderthal tribes, not that we could be compared with them! Any less and its resources may be stretched during difficult times, any more and it becomes unwieldy and dysfunctional. Why? Because we are social creatures at heart and crave personal interaction, and a need to belong to something. Ancient tribes knew this but sadly, private-equity and its experts seemed strangely ignorant of these principles.

And so, to those who are parents of teenage kids facing one of those greatest of all dilemmas: “What will I do when I grow up?”  - fear not! Stop telling them “we put ink on paper” and start telling them we’re one of the few remaining industries where you’ll be joining a family where in most cases the boss is supportive, and may even know your name! You’ll be working within a tight-knit team which won’t be disbanded after the building is completed!. And you’ll have the opportunity to play an active part in the various industry organisations and associations which can enhance your career pathways and provide opportunities for networking.

Yes, things can always be improved, but hopefully we’re starting to get the message that looking after our employees is, in many ways, more important than looking after our customers. And the first step to attracting school-leavers is to send the message that they’ll be joining a family! Not many industries can say that.

Just a thought …