Meeting of the Roundtables | Thursday, May 27, 2021 | Meeting Notes
The next Meeting of the Roundtables gathering will occur on August 4, 2021 at the Art of Practice.
Large Firm Roundtable – 11 participants
Chair: Paul Battaglia, AIA
The following comments were shared from the roundtable participants:
Topic 1: Defining and Mentoring Leaders
- Emerging professionals within the firm were having difficulty being mentored by those that are not on their project team.
- Peer-to-peer mentoring is suffering because of remote working.
- A participant shared that their firm has a structured mentoring program that rewards participants.
- One firm provides formal education that includes speakers/consultants and rewards participation.
- The building of relationships is missing unplanned gatherings and exchanges during remote working. It used to be organic and now requires formal programming (ex: 6-month dating game structure)
- People who are looking for mentorship can find it.
- Mentorship is different from training. Mentorship is messy and creates future leaders. The question, “how do you teach people to run at problems?” was posed.
- There is a new focus on equity and diversity. One firm shared they are trying to reach out to institutions like Hampton University and Howard desiring to set up mentorships as students start their education. This is a much different approach to the traditional “wait until they graduate” model.
- One participant shared that they had a good mentorship experience through NOMA and was assigned a mentor who gave notes on their portfolio and helped keep them in the profession.
- Firms are shifting to the development of remote work policies.
- A discussion was held on how do firms identify and/or entice new leaders in their firms? There are employees with 15–20 years of experience who are not ready to move into leadership.
- A participant expressed that Zoom calls are for project discussions and business; not so much for mentoring conversations and cultivating those to become firm leaders.
- Rebuilding social capital is intensely needed. There is a need for getting back to gathering for informal/organic discussions.
- There is a need to disassociate age from career longevity. Firms must intentionally cultivate leadership as an important component of diversity.
- A firm leader shared that when they were intentional about reaching out and calling people one-on-one during remote work, the individuals were more vulnerable and shared struggles.
- It seems more younger leaders are stepping up to ownership and leadership roles.
- Current leaders are already choosing replacements for succession regardless of how many years they have left in the practice.
- An important distinction was made between ownership and leadership. Those terms should be divorced. Anyone can own part of the firm. Not all have leadership potential.
- A participant shared that the firm has been so busy that they struggle to spend time with their people.
Topic 2: Construction Costs
- There is a desire to have a presentation given by an economist such as Kermit Baker from AIA or Ken Sorenson from AGC to talk about volatile construction costs.
- The current issue seems to be deliverability.
- One participant noted that deliberate conversations with clients are needed regarding rising project costs so that it can be built into the project’s scope and fee.
Mid-Size Firm Roundtable – 9 participants
Chair: Andrew McKinley, AIA
The following comments were shared from the roundtable participants:
Topic 1: Getting Work Done
- Firms in the residential and multi-family markets are very busy.
- In general, employees are returning to the office. One firm leader shared that a little more than half of the staff is back in the office.
- One firm had a slower than anticipated start in the first quarter of the year, but projects are starting to pick up.
- Some firms noted that they were hiring.
- A firm shared that it attended a virtual career fair and noted that students want to access architects in-person.
- A participant shared that they are resuming the firm’s internship program which was suspended last year due to COVID-19.
Topic 2: Getting Back to Work
- One firm interviewed staff, developed cleaning strategies, and built group consensus before returning to the office.
- In general, firms are not mandating vaccinations for employees and following CDC + Virginia public health policies.
- A firm shared that employees have fully returned to work and may work remotely one day per week.
- A participant noted that it encourages daily check-ins if an employee is working across offices.
- Some firms are just starting conversations around coming back to the office.
- Generally, employees have had a desire for some in-person collaboration.
Topic 3: Navigating Code Enforcement
- One participant shared how they have been having increasingly more non-collaborative experiences with code officials.
- Another participant noted that they have been having great experiences with younger plan reviewers. The non-collaborative attitude has occurred more with code inspectors.
- The spirit of collaboration differs from locality to locality.
- A firm who does projects for the Commonwealth of Virginia shared challenges with the Division of Engineering and Buildings’ inspections being performed by video chat.
- A participant noted that local government project reviewers are changing between design submittals thus increasing required time investment.
Small Firm Roundtable – 6 participants
Chair: Tim Colley, AIA
The following comments were shared from the roundtable participants:
Topic 1: Getting Work Done
- Short-term and long-term impacts on elevated material costs:
- Some are trying to delay projects because due to volatile material costs.
- One participant noted that they stopped giving cost estimates because they are changing so fast.
- There was a concern about how long residential projects could be delayed with new building codes becoming effective on July 1.
- There is a belief that the profession should be prepared for inflation in the construction business for the foreseeable future.
- Participants noted that there is a shortage of sub-contractors.
- One participant shared that they are finding alternate specifications to replace materials they cannot access.
- A firm shared that working with smaller general contractors makes it difficult to handle increasing costs since their profit margins seem to differ from larger general contractors. When the cost per square foot increases, the scope of work changes (more work for the architect).
- Clients are now breaking projects into phases which creates more work for the architect, more permits, and the necessity to explain increased cost of phased construction.
- Hiring, recruiting, and retention in post-COVID:
- There is a concern about finding candidates with the increased competition with large firms who can offer larger salaries.
- Firm leaders shared that they may have to pay current staff more to keep current with market conditions.
- There will be a need to go back to the office when a small firm hires a new person just to orient/collaborate.
- PPP forgivable loans
- For some, the PPP program was a financial lifeline.
- One firm received a grant from the Alexandria Development Corp.
- One firm leader indicated that the PPP program was beneficial if one had a delay in the project pipeline, otherwise you were delaying the inevitable.
Topic 2: Redefining Firm Culture in the Age of Remote Working
- An issue discussed was generational gaps and the ability to feel comfortable in the digital realm.
- Small firms were using online collaborative software to meet with staff and clients.
- Firm leaders discussed how to bring in new employees/interns with no office space.
Topic 3: Returning to Work
- One firm got rid of office space eight months ago.
- One participant shared that it is most helpful to talk to employees and meet them where they are regarding vaccinations. An example was given regarding an employee who had not planned to get vaccinated until discussing it with their peers in the office.
- A firm is having conversations around eliminating 100% remote work. The conversation in some firms include allowing employees to work remotely 20%-40% of the time.
Emerging Professional’s Roundtable – 5 participants
Chair: Krystal Anderson, AIA
The following comments were shared from the roundtable participants:
Topic 1: Mentoring
- One firm mentors emerging professionals informally through events such as happy hours with senior leaders.
- In another firm, emerging professionals select an “advocate” within the company to perform their employee review as a chance to obtain a different perspective.
- One participant shared that annual reviews are performed by a project manager and one other individual. The mentor role can be fulfilled by anyone.
- A firm has “employee advocates” in the Human Resources department to coach emerging professionals in career advancement.
- The group discussed the question of “how do you pick a mentor?”
- Mentoring through COVID has been difficult due to the required intentionality.
- A participant noted that mentoring was needed most when onboarding at a new office.
Topic 2: Career Advancement
- In general, demystification of the path to career advancement is needed within firms. One firm was noted as doing this well.
- Emerging professionals desire to know what it means to be a shareholder in the firm and the associated responsibilities.
- It was noted that emerging professionals have left firms because of a lack of career mobility.
Topic 3: Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
- One firm has a committee of employees evaluating strategies for diversity.
- Book clubs and Slack channels are being used to engage in conversation on this topic.
The next Meeting of the Roundtables gathering will occur on August 4, 2021 at the Art of Practice.