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Fringe Benefits
Great design firms offer
their employees more than just a salary.
 Cynics
beware: It’s not just about the money.
Design firm leaders who
attract the best talent know it’s about what
comes after the paycheck.
“The firms that are
the most enlightened are taking the attitude that
employees are not commodity-based, that [their
staff] are providing an overall value to the firm,”
says Margo Jones, FIIDA, Professor of Interior
Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design,
where she coordinates the internship program for
the School of Building Arts. “So they strive
to create an atmosphere that recognizes that.”
Whether it’s a pool
table in the company break room, a great benefits
package or a formal mentoring program, some firms
understand the long-term benefits of dismissing
the 9-to-5, nose-to-the-grindstone mentality.
“It’s more than what you pay them,”
says Janet Pogue, Principal, Managing Director
of Gensler’s Denver office. “It’s
got to be something a little grander. There have
got to be other intrinsic things that make people
want to be there other than the money.”
A Cultural Affair
At the heart of a top-quality working experience
sits a corporate culture that employees strongly
buy into and strive to maintain. When employees
feel invested in the firm, they perform better.
Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates
(TVS) has taken this idea to the extreme. Since
1979, the Atlanta-based firm has been entirely
employee-owned. Originally established to drive
improvements in the company’s culture, operations
and financial performance, the stock ownership
plan “engenders a deep sense of ownership
and openness as it relates to the business decisions
of the company,” says Creel McCormack, Vice
President, Marketing and Communications. Last
year, TVS was named among the 10 most admired
design firms by Contract Magazine.
Taking that concept a step
further, reputable firms try to root their mission
in their physical foundations. St. Paul, Minn.-based
BWBR Architects’ open-door policy is represented
literally in its nearly door-free environment.
With few exceptions, the firm’s 110 employees
occupy an open floor plan that makes way for loads
of natural light and easy interaction. “That
creates an environment [in which] you’re
able to learn very quickly from each other,”
says Don Thomas, CID, Principal at BWBR, which
was named a great place to work in Minnesota by
the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.
“If the people around you are working hard,
you’re inspired to do likewise.”
Another simple yet distinctive
mark of a great design firm is how it conducts
its internal communication. Firms most commonly
named among the best employ open, honest and straightforward
techniques that don’t keep their employees
in the dark. In fact, many firm leaders say they
actually enhance company loyalty by promptly reporting
bad news to employees. Mancini Duffy, a New York
firm that suffered — physically, emotionally
and financially — after the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, has not tried to feign the truth. “It’s
been a struggle, but it has been constant communication
with the staff to let them know that they’re
financially secure,” says Dina Frank, IIDA,
AIA, President of both Mancini Duffy and the IIDA
New York Chapter. “Yesterday, for example,
we did an hour-long presentation to our entire
New York office and later repeated it in our D.C.
office, where we essentially outlined our business
plans to them for ’04, and we reminded them
of the missions and the goals and the values of
the firm. These are things that constantly need
to be communicated.”
Sharing the Wealth
Probably most valuable to employees is a firm’s
client base. While large firms such as Gensler
and St. Louis, Mo.-based Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum
Inc. (HOK) ably offer their employees a wide variety
of projects to build diverse portfolios, small
firms can offer similar experience with a bit
of ingenuity.
Taking the small-but-mighty
mentality to the table, Vocon Design, a 35-member
firm in Cleveland touts its ability to form strategic
partnerships with larger design firms that can
wield their resource muscle. Knowing Vocon can
tackle an array of projects no matter the size
or scale tends to appeal to designers who prefer
to work on a big project in a small firm. “We’re
giving them the ability to have those opportunities,”
says Principal Paul M. Voinovich. “They know
the projects we’re going to be getting in
the future are going to be exciting, and they
know they’re going to have a significant
role in the work.” Vocon has been named one
of the 99 best places to work in Northeast Ohio
for two out of the last three years.
Small to mid-size firms
also offer employees the satisfaction of knowing
they’ve contributed significantly. When St.
Louis-based Arcturis enlists a new client, everybody
knows. “For every new project, we ring this
bell, and everybody comes running,” says
President and CEO Patricia Whitaker, IIDA. “We
think it’s important to share that moment
when it happens. That’s one way of inspiring
loyalty. They know that they had a part in helping
us get what we got.”
Stay in School
A diversified client base offers an array of advantages,
especially to young staffers who don’t want
to get pigeonholed into one specific design genre.
While on-the-job training is an invaluable experience,
don’t confuse that experience with wisdom.
“It’s a fine line between how much information
you want to give them and how much you want them
to figure out on their own,” says Deb Trautman,
head of human resources at Arcturis, which has
been named for the past two years one of the best
places to work in St. Louis by the St. Louis
Business Journal.
Classroom learning is so
valuable that firms such as Gensler, HOK and Hammel
Green and Abrahamson Inc. (HGA) even operate their
own “universities.” Senior firm leaders
typically run courses, which cover a variety of
topics such as code compliance or risk management,
and staffers can attend around 40 hours of programming
per year. “It creates a wonderful dialogue,”
says Sandy Parsley, Human Resources Director of
Minneapolis-based HGA. Leadership seminars are
especially popular, as firm visionaries want to
ensure their legacy lives on in the future success
of the firm.
And as most designers will
tell you, they are not necessarily the slickest
deal-makers. Teaching the technical surely is
important, but encouraging designers — as
well as other employees — to spread their
wings into various parts of the business enhances
operational awareness. At TVS, for example, designers
rotate yearly on one of seven committees that
strategize how to improve the operation. The marketing
committee, for example, aims to raise awareness
of publicity initiatives and help improve communications.
Twenty employees across the various studios meet
monthly to strategize on different market segments.
Ask and Receive
With 1,600 employees in 25 cities, Gensler would
struggle to keep up with staff needs if not for
a system tracking course utilization to chart
companywide professional development. The system
works well to align the company’s strategic
aims with its individual employees’ needs
or professional aspirations.
However, no piece of software
can ascertain an individual’s desire with
accuracy. Firms that separate themselves from
the crowd are those that respond positively to
employees’ development requests. “Interiors
can be volatile from the standpoint of staffing
because most projects have quick starts and stops,”
Pogue says, adding that staffing at Gensler is
done on a monthly and weekly basis. “So we
step back every month, look at our strategic staffing
to assign core team members, aligning our staff’s
wishes and career goals with upcoming or pending
opportunities. Weekly staffing is agile and fluid,
balancing the workloads to make sure that changing
project scopes and deadlines are met. It’s
more rewarding because then people are staying
longer and they’re committed.”
Commitment also derives
from strong mentoring relationships, whether through
formal programming or via natural development,
to boost the firm’s retention rate and reputation.
Vocon Design, which recruits interns from nearby
Kent State University, sees great long-term value
in developing strong relationships with its young
apprentices. “Since 1987, a typical employee
started with us after college, and now they’re
in their late 20s or early 30s and have been with
us for eight to 10 years,” Voinovich says.
Some attentive firms are
creating flexible schedules for their loyal employees
who want to balance work and life. “It’s
definitely one of the issues that’s come
up over the past few years,” says Terry Anderson,
AIA, Principal at BWBR Architects. “We’re
into our second baby boom generation in the office.
There was a lot of concern how that would impact
careers and reducing schedules and trying to work
through all those issues in raising a young family.
We take it seriously, and we’ll do whatever
we can to support [our staff].”
In the end, employees and
employers alike attribute just one simple characteristic
to making a firm great: people. Beyond all the
benefits programs, the tuition reimbursement plans,
the weekly seminars, the lunches on the boss,
it comes down to loving what you do with whom
you do it. “You bloom doing what you want
to be doing,” Pogue says. “Art Gensler
has always said his success is that he surrounded
himself with great talent and people who he deemed
even better than himself. And that’s how
firms grow to be great. Provide the opportunities
and remove the obstacles. That’s how individuals
can really shine."
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