Arup: Investing in employees for the long haul
When it comes to valuing employees, many firms offer flowery platitudes about attracting and retaining the best and brightest, but don't always back up those statements with benefits that achieve their aim. Arup's commitment to its employees actually does match its rhetoric.
Arup, with nearly 9,000 employees worldwide, has developed an impressive array of benefits at least in part to acquire staff that can successfully take on the most challenging, interesting projects it could find. Ove Arup, who was born of Danish parents in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and founded the firm in 1946, recognized early that attracting top talent for that mission would always be a struggle.
In a famous meeting on July 9, 1970, Arup delivered what has come to be known in Arup lore as “The Key Speech,” which today is required reading for all new employees. In it, he asked his top managers why “really good” employees who could get jobs anywhere or start their own firms would choose to stay with Arup. “If there is a convincing and positive answer to that,” said the firm's founder, who was knighted in 1971 and died in 1988, “then we are on the right way.”
The firm's answer today includes top-notch benefits and multiple training and education programs. These are among the reasons Arup, the firm that engineered the Sydney Opera House and Paris's Pompidou Center, which has 82 offices in 34 countries and expects billings of $1 billion in 2007, is among Building Design+Construction's 2007 “Best AEC Firms To Work For.”
In the Americas region, with 10 offices throughout North America, Arup's ranks have risen 46% over the past four years to its current 700-employee total. This rapid growth is a vindication of its human resource efforts during a period of fierce competition for talent. Considering this staffing environment, the firm's 12% turnover in the Americas last year is enviable. About 20% of employees worldwide have been with the firm for 15 or more years.
Throughout their tenure, Arup engineers can take advantage of multiple training programs. The firm budgets about 2.5% of annual total salary for training and education. Employees average 24-32 hours a year of training, with up to 40 hours of continuing education allocated per employee. In this arena, the firm's privately held ownership structure, with no public shareholders to satisfy, offers an advantage. “It allows us to make decisions for the long term, not for the quarter-end, and allows us to invest in people,” says Elizabeth Mitchell, senior regional human resources manager.
Every year, the firm assesses its training programs and adjusts them to meet emerging company needs. In 2005, for instance, the Americas region focused on bolstering project management skills; by the end of 2006, 120 employees had attended intensive PM training.
Bonuses for career development
To encourage employees to beef up their qualifications, the firm offers a $2,000 bonus for earning professional engineering licensure. In 2006, in an effort to increase the firm's green credentials, Arup offered a bonus over a three-month period for those obtaining LEED certification. About 50 took advantage of this program, and the firm now has 100 LEED Accredited Professionals on staff. The firm also offers up to $5,250 per year for university tuition reimbursement.
Arup's Design School is targeted toward staff members with a few years of experience. Four times a year, promising young engineers from a variety of disciplines and different regions of the globe attend two- to three-day sessions. The program consists of collaborative projects that test creativity as well as communication and project management skills.
“It was a lot of fun, and a very creative process,” says Grace Yamamoto, a structural engineer based in Seattle, who attended last November's Design School in the Bay Area. Five groups of six employees, most of whom had never met before, were charged with designing a modular home that could be used by those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The exercise not only brought together people with a variety of disciplines from different offices, it also highlighted diversity of backgrounds, personalities, and communication styles. “Some groups had very passionate arguments,” Yamamoto said.
Yamamoto says that Design School broadened her thinking about how teams collaborate. “I learned that everybody has something to offer, even if they don't talk a lot,” she says. The experience also allowed her to expand her internal network of contacts, which she believes will help her with future work. For instance, the Seattle office doesn't have an acoustician, but she could easily contact the one she met at Design School for help.
“The training is definitely amazing here,” Yamamoto says. Arup's extensive training opportunities made it easy for her to select the firm after she finished college. “I wanted to join a company that would understand that I didn't have experience, and would be willing to mentor me.”
Arup encourages employees to spend months or years at its offices throughout the world to work on specific projects—the firm may have 10,000 jobs in the works at any one time—or merely to broaden their horizons. It rewards mobility and fosters international transfer of skills. The firm provides assistance in handling immigration costs and paperwork for those who take on overseas assignments.
Brian Lake, a senior lighting consultant in San Francisco, relocated to London to gain a better perspective on Total Architecture. “The typical engineering approach is to spend ages in research trying to narrow the gap utilizing theoretical knowledge,” he says. “The Arup international assignment allowed me to quickly narrow the gap through first-hand design from a completely different perspective.”
Arup's compensation plan includes the unusual practice of paying engineers for overtime work—straight time, not time-and-half—after working 40 hours in a week. “We feel that it's important that people log overtime and receive compensation for their efforts close to when they make them,” Mitchell says.
This policy benefits management, says Sarah Rosen, human resources business partner. At many firms, she says, engineers don't bother recording their actual hours, knowing that they will not be compensated for overtime. By creating an incentive for employees to record their hours, managers can more readily allocate staff resources for ongoing and future projects.
The firm also pays semi-annual profit-sharing bonuses to each employee based on length of tenure and offers a generous 401(k) plan that matches employee contributions dollar for dollar up to 10% of their salary.
Until recently, the firm's medical plan in the U.S. provided 100% coverage with no co-pays or deductibles. With skyrocketing healthcare costs, however, Arup's plan now requires a $20 co-pay for doctor visits and some services. The plan is still generous, though, with employees paying just 5-10% of premiums.
Arup's commitment to maintaining highly competitive benefits does not go unnoticed. In a recent employee survey, 92% of respondents said the organization's benefits plan is average or above average. Nevertheless, Arup continues to examine its offerings and look for ways to improve them. “We're performance-driven,” Mitchell says. “We're never satisfied.”
While compensation and benefits are very attractive, the wide breadth of interesting projects may be the number one motivator for most Arup employees. Among the firm's notable projects in 2006 were the U.S. Air Force Memorial, a stadium built for the 2006 Asian Games, the 2,000-foot-high Guangzhou New TV Tower in China, the CCTV tower in Beijing, and one of the largest private developments ever undertaken—Korea's Songdo City.
With its cutting-edge portfolio, the firm is constantly in search of new talent, hiring 50 new graduates a year, no matter the economic climate. This strategy still reflects Ove Arup's staffing approach that he outlined 37 years ago. The firm seems to be doing all that it can today to live up to that philosophy.
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Anshen+Allen: Nurturing a passion for healthcare
The description “large niche firm” may seem like an oxymoron, but 360-employee architecture firm Anshen+Allen certainly qualifies as such. Ninety percent of its work is in healthcare, the rest in higher education, including research facilities.
Listed as 16th among architecture “Giants” by Building Design+Constructionin 2006 (with $37.7 million in revenues for 2005), A+A now reports $50 million in fees for its U.S. operations and $26 million from international work out of its London office. Among its recent big wins: a multinational competition for the $1.3 billion hospital at Mission Bay for the University of California, San Francisco.
The firm was founded in 1940 by Modernists Robert Anshen and Steve Allen primarily to do residential work, but over the years it transformed itself into a world-class healthcare and academic design practice. Former CEO Derek Parker, FAIA, co-founded the Center for Health Design, known for its Pebble Projects, which laid the groundwork for “evidence-based design”—using design to create measurable improvements in patient outcomes.
Anshen+Allen's stated mission is “to utilize our talent for the betterment of society—to contribute in positive and meaningful ways.” Its dedication to what it calls the “social impact” of its work in “healing, learning, and discovery” is a powerful magnet that draws socially aware professionals to the firm.
“Most people know about us when they come here,” says Roger Swanson, AIA, chairman and CEO. “Our experience says that, number one, they want to work on exciting problems. Our people are focused on raising the whole tide of healthcare design. It's important work that resonates with people.”
The firm cultivates creativity in many ways. The Patterson Travel Study Fellowship, given annually in memory of a late colleague, John M. Patterson, AIA, enables an employee to take two weeks' paid leave (and up to $3,150 in expenses) to travel and pursue self-directed professional study. Winners are selected on the basis of the importance of their subject to the design community, its potential lasting benefit to others, its relevance to the firm's needs, and—most importantly—the applicant's passion for and commitment to the project.
“[The award] gave me the opportunity to follow a passion for healing gardens and alternative methods of healing based in nature, gardens, and horticulture,” says Ian Lawlor, a 2004 recipient, who studied healing gardens throughout England. “This forced me to learn more, see more, and then bring it back to the office in order to present what I had experienced and influence others.” Lawlor says his experience encouraged him to push for a healing garden for Alzheimer's/dementia patients in one of his health center projects.
The 2005 winner, Karsten Bastien, traveled to Bolivia to work on several building projects with the people of a mountain village. He donated some of his expense money to purchase active solar panels for some families to have electricity in their homes.
The firm helps employees strike a healthy work/life balance. Officially, the firm has nine-hour workdays, with every other Friday off. A+A allows flexible work schedules, reduced hours, and telecommuting options so that working parents or other caregivers can attend to family matters.
This sensitivity to work/life balance can be traced in part to the large percentage of women in the firm, Swanson says. Anshen+Allen is 44% women-owned; its total workforce is 34% female, with 25% of upper management represented by women.
The practice's diversity extends as well to minorities, who comprise one-third of the workforce. As a recruitment tool, A+A hosts design lectures (given by its employees) at several historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs): Hampton, Howard, Morgan State, and Southern. For the last few years, 70% of its interns have been from minority groups.
The firm actively supports the National Organization of Minority Architects. Last year, it sponsored NOMA's national conference, as well as a student competition for minority designers, in which Anshen+Allen volunteers made presentations and served on the judging panel.
“Being a minority myself, one of the reasons that I was attracted to the firm was that it seemed to have little or no barriers,” says George Powell, principal in charge of human resources and risk management. “It has also allowed me to be involved in diversity and inclusiveness in the practice and in the community.”
The firm offers strong support to community outreach and charitable programs. Employees can receive paid time off for civic activities. “Our office is located in one of the most troubled areas of San Francisco,” says Powell, referring to the Tenderloin neighborhood surrounding its 901 Market Street location, which is known for its history of drug use and prostitution. He says many employees volunteer with neighborhood organizations that assist the homeless, and some are involved with local youth organizations.
This year, some of the designers are participating in Pets Are Wonderful Support, a program that provides animal companions for AIDS patients and the elderly. PAWS raises money by auctioning off pet habitats designed by local architects. Young Anshen+Allen designers are participating this year, giving them the opportunity to design and lead their own projects while helping to raise money for the charity.
“People work for money, but it's not the main motivator,” Swanson says. “It's usually the fourth or fifth thing you see in surveys. But we want to make sure compensation is never an issue.” The firm studies industry surveys to stay current and adjusts its pay scales accordingly.
The firm has a generous bonus plan, with quarterly payouts. Nine percent of each project's profit is set aside for bonuses to those who worked on the project, based on the number of hours worked on the project. The firm also awards twice-yearly discretionary bonuses to employees for exceptional performance outside project work. More than half of Anshen+Allen's annual profits go to employees other than principals.
Powell also points to the many “boomerangs”—employees who return to the firm after stints elsewhere—as evidence of the firm's welcoming atmosphere. Firm CEO Swanson is himself a “triple boomerang.”
The Anshen+Allen formula is working. Over the past decade, the firm has doubled in size, from $25 million to $50 million domestically and $76 million globally. Employees seem to be attracted to this success and the firm's strategic vision.
“Trust, opportunity, and passion for creativity are what I see at Anshen+Allen, and that keeps me here,” says designer Andrew Fisher. “It is a rare talent to see the future and adapt without difficulty. The few people that I have known who possess this insight all are affiliated with Anshen+Allen in some way.”
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Bovis Lend Lease: Small firm feel, big firm benefits
At $3.4 billion in revenues last year, Bovis Lend Lease is one of the largest construction management firms and general contractors in the hemisphere, with 2,800 employees in 21 offices in North America and Latin America. Bovis ranks #1 among CMs on Building Design+Construction's 2006 “Giants” list and #2 among construction firms. In 1999, the company, then known as Bovis Group plc, was acquired by Australia's Lend Lease Corporation Ltd. and later merged with Lend Lease Projects to form Bovis Lend Lease.
Despite its size, Bovis Lend Lease exhibits many of the desirable traits of a much smaller company. In a recent employee survey, Bovis workers praised the company's sense of camaraderie, the ability to take time off when necessary, and the visibility and accessibility of CEO Peter A. Marchetto and his management team.
“People here like what they do, and they like the people they work with,” says Greg Myers, senior vice president of human resources. Bovis's robust investment in training, career development support, and health and safety also contributes to employee satisfaction and a relatively low (10%) turnover rate.
The company has several innovative programs to promote inter-office networking and team building. The Lend Lease Foundation, a trust fund established for the benefit of employees, provides $2 million annually for employee events and learning experiences.
Many of these activities bring together staff from different regions, departments, and job levels. One of these is Springboard, a four-day team-building and personal development program held six times a year in the U.S. and at various locations throughout the globe, including Australia, Scotland, Italy, and Thailand. The program uses the 1914-1916 Shackleton expedition to the Antarctic as a metaphor to encourage team building. Just as Shackleton's crew were pushed to the limit of endurance, Springboarders discover their limits and how to push past them to achieve their life goals.
Myers says his own recent Springboard experience in upstate New York was a great opportunity to get to know employees from around the world, and at all levels. “You could be sitting next to an administrative assistant from Australia or a director from the UK,” he says.
Another Lend Lease Foundation program, Developing U, provides training that employees can apply to both their personal and professional lives, such as presentation skills, negotiation skills, dealing with difficult people, Spanish language for the job site, and business writing. There's even a course on “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”
A rich career development program
In the area of professional development, the company offers a two-week executive training program that it developed with Columbia University. The program aims to bolster executives' skills in leadership, collaboration, strategy, and partnering. Participants develop ways to improve leadership and management within the company. Bovis's Safety Academy, a safety training program, originated from an idea developed by participants in this program.
Last year, Bovis extended its training program to mid-level managers in a course called Emerging Leaders. About 100 project engineers and project managers participate in the three-day program, which focuses on communications skills, employee discipline, effective performance appraisals, and coaching.
Another program, Bovis Works, is available to all employees, but is geared primarily toward employees with two to five years' experience. Its purpose is to provide a knowledge base of the disciplines that support basic operations, such as technical services, insurance, contracts, information technology, financial reporting, project controls, and marketing and business development. Participants learn directly from Bovis's subject matter experts.
The newest career development program involves technical training and will launch this June. Recognizing that it can be difficult for employees to figure out what type of training will enable them to get that next promotion, this program will provide “Training Roadmaps” to help participants understand what they need to study and learn and what technical skills and training will help them take the next step up the career ladder.
Bovis's career development programs have proven impact. Of the 20 offices in the Americas, principals-in-charge at 15 of these have been promoted from within. CEO Marchetto himself started in the firm at an entry-level position.
The company's college recruiting strategy for most of its larger offices includes an ambitious two-day program in which candidates are divided into teams, assigned a project, and present the results. The real-world project tests candidates' knowledge, presentation skills, and ability to work in teams. The program also includes meetings with recently hired college graduates and Bovis managers in which candidates can learn what it's like to work for the company.
“Working incident and injury free is a choice and a basic human right” is Bovis's credo. The company's global awards program honors employees who display initiative and have a notable impact on safety. With the honor comes a weeklong stay in Sydney, Australia, the parent company's home town. Last year, 180 employees from around the world won.
Bovis spells out an impressive list of guarantees on safety policy to its employees:
“If you stop the job for a safety reason, we will back you up.”
“If you bring up a safety concern, we will address it promptly.”
“If there is an injury, we will conduct an incident investigation in such a way that the person is not blamed.”
“We will remove the barriers to your being successful in safety and support supervisors and crews in taking time to do it safely.”
These concepts are reinforced at annual workshops. Additional workshops are held regularly on project sites, with hourly and union laborers as well as subcontractors.
At Bovis's yearly health fairs, employees can get free tests for cholesterol levels, diabetes, bone density, prostate enzymes, blood pressure, body mass index, and heart health. Bovis also provides a generous health insurance benefit, with employees paying approximately 10-15% of total premium costs.
The Lend Lease Foundation subsidizes smoking cessation programs for employees, spouses, domestic partners, and dependent children, paying 80% of the costs up to $500 per person. The foundation also pays 50-80% of the cost of Weight Watchers, aerobics, Pilates, yoga, or league sports for groups of four or more employees participating together.
Pressing the big-firm advantage
Although many employees appreciate Bovis's small-firm traits, the company's size provides significant career benefits. “Given the fact that there is always a backlog of work, there are many opportunities fueled by different types of projects,” Myers says. Both newer and more experienced mid-level employees are not held back by a lack of challenging work on which to build their skills.
Bovis encourages employees to take advantage of career-building resources by paying for memberships in professional organizations, including the AIA, the ASCE, ASME, the Society for Human Resource Management, the Construction Management Association of America, and Professional Women in Construction.
The firm also fosters global information sharing to provide advice on project challenges when needed. A program called ikonnect has an employee dedicated to tracking down the best Bovis professional to provide answers to urgent questions. Sharing such resources worldwide is one of the advantages of a company of Bovis's scale.
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Cannon Design: Investing in professional education
Since its founding in 1945 by John D. and Will A. Cannon, Cannon Design (originally known as Cannon Corporation) has evolved into a leading architecture and engineering firm in the areas of healthcare (which accounts for nearly half its revenues), public buildings (such as the $95 million Lloyd D. George Federal Building and Courthouse in Las Vegas), higher education (notably Turkey’s Sabanci University), academic research facilities (such as Saint Louis University’s Edward A. Doisy Research Center), and sports complexes (including the $150 million City of Richmond Speed Skating Oval for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver).
Ranked #10 among architecture/engineering “Giants” by Building Design+Construction last year (with 2005 revenues of $102.4 million) and #6 among healthcare design firms, Cannon Design has gained a solid reputation for design excellence and project execution with the firm’s 150 or so active clients. Among many honors the firm has received is the Presidential Award for Design Excellence.
In recent years, the firm has grown both organically and through targeted mergers and acquisitions—in 2000, the Los Angeles firm of Dworsky Associates, and in 2002, Johnston Sport Architecture of Victoria, B.C. Two years ago, Moffat Kinoshita Architects of Toronto joined the Cannon Design team.
Today, in addition to the founding office in Grand Island (Buffalo), N.Y., Cannon Design has offices in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C., as well as in Canada (Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria) and China (Shanghai).
The key to Cannon Design’s success—and what separates it from many other A/E firms of equal or greater size—is the firm’s almost manic passion for professional education. Under CEO Gary R. Miller, Cannon Design has developed and executed an elaborate continuing education program, in the form of the Cannon Design Academy, which provides in-house and online training and education to the firm’s more than 700 employees.
Coupled with the continuing education program is an intensive mentoring program, which includes a month-long program (in May) to call attention to the firm’s emphasis on this career development practice. The firm achieves 60% participation in its mentoring program.
Performance results for education, service, program, and licensure compliance include:
• More than 30 seminars and forums offered firm-wide, many of which are specifically targeted as tutorials for the Architecture Registration Examination.
• More than 6,000 AIA learning units were provided.
• Over 75% of AIA learning units offered qualified for health, safety, and welfare credit.
• 90% of employees participated in at least one Academy offering.
• The firm is also a Practicing Institute of Engineering (PIE) provider.
Among the courses offered are technical sessions on ADA requirements, building codes, telemetry in healthcare, seismic design for architects, fast tracking projects, and the basics of lighting design. Also available are professional and personal development courses, such as one on Myers-Briggs team building concepts.
Cannon Design has also been a leader in online education, offering many courses as webinars, so that employees can learn from them no matter what their location. A cost-benefit analysis showed that the firm could produce online training content for $20 per participant per program, a considerable savings compared to using outside sources.
Cannon Design’s devotion to continuing education and career development has not gone unnoticed by the AEC industry. Last year, the American Institute of Architects singled out the firm for two prestigious awards: the National AIA Internship Development Program Outstanding Firm Award and the AIA/CES Award for Excellence in continuing education (for large firms).
Even with these accolades, Cannon Design continues to innovate in providing learning opportunities for its employees. Two years ago, Michael Pukszta, AIA, and Elizabeth Rack, AIA, both principals in the St. Louis office, launched the Healthcare Planning Fellowship to put the careers of selected young healthcare architects on a fast track. The first two graduates of this program, Natalie R. Petzoldt, AIA, and Lori Epler, studied 2,000 pages of technical materials on healthcare design and had to complete a comprehensive set of training modules over an 18-month period. Each worked on projects in multiple offices as part of Cannon’s “Single Firm, Multi Office” (SFMO) concept.
Upon completion of the program, Petzoldt and Epler were presented Waterford Crystal Stars at a meeting of the firm’s board of directors. Petzoldt, an associate vice president and one of Cannon Design’s youngest officers, also was named to the inaugural class of BD+C’s “40 Under 40” rising stars of the AEC profession in 2006.
As successful as the Cannon Design Academy has been, the firm’s management continues to press for more ways to enhance its education programs. The firm’s 2006-2010 Business Plan sets out a whole new set of education needs to be addressed, notably:
• Overseeing international expansion with enhancements in language, culture, customs, currency, and codes.
• Developing programs to enhance skill sets for new technology models, managing change, and working in a more synergistic way.
• Working with a new organizational structure that focuses on new leadership, interpersonal communication, and teaming skills.
• As is usually the case at Cannon Design, implementing these action items surely will be a learning experience for everyone.
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Jones Lang LaSalle: where the emphasis is on quality
Jones Lang LaSalle was formed in 1999 by the merger of LaSalle Partners Inc. and Jones Lang Wootton. The company provides integrated real estate and investment management expertise on a local, regional, and global level to owner, tenant, and investor clients. JLL is a leading property and corporate facility management services firm, with a portfolio of more than 1.0 billion sf worldwide. In 2006, the firm completed capital markets sales and acquisitions, debt financings, and equity placements on assets and portfolios valued at $70.9 billion. It has 25,500 employees in 150 offices worldwide and operates in 450 cities in more than 50 countries.
Over the past three years, Jones Lang LaSalle has doubled its annual revenue, to $2.0 billion in 2006. Last year, it added 363 people (200 of them project managers) in the U.S., bringing its U.S. workforce to 4,100, including 900 PMs. Growth has come in part from five recent acquisitions, notably that of Spaulding & Slye, which strengthened JLL’s hand in the Boston and Washington, D.C., corporate and investor real estate markets. Just last month, the firm announced that it will acquire one of the leading independent property advisors in the Netherlands, Troostwijk Makelaars. All told, JLL now manages some $40.6 billion worth of property.
In the past year, the firm was named to Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” and Forbes’s “400 Best Big Companies” lists.
One reason for the firm’s success is its G5 program, which focuses on five strategies: strengthening local and regional operations, building a global corporate solutions service line, developing a global capital markets service line, maximizing the value of LaSalle Investment Management, and creating a world standard infrastructure.
But the company has also flourished thanks to the successful application of management methods not common to the real estate management industry. JLL has been using Six Sigma, the quality management system developed by Motorola, since 2003. This has allowed the firm to communicate better with its clients, many of whom have used Six Sigma for decades, while also helping the firm standardize its processes, save time and money, and make more fact-based decisions.
Since implementing Six Sigma, Jones Lang LaSalle has improved its project cycle times by 30%, boosted call center productivity by 40%, and enhanced management labor requirements by 25-30%.
What makes Jones Lang LaSalle even more unusual is that the firm holds itself to a performance-based reward system. JLL teams work with their clients to develop Critical Performance Indicators (such as asset reliability, corporate risk management, and community relations management) and Key Performance Indicators (e.g., customer satisfaction, optimizing the workplace, best-in-class operational quality). JLL is compensated for its services in part on how well its teams meet these goals.
One year after winning the assignment to manage Procter & Gamble’s worldwide office and research facilities, for example, JLL achieved 78% of its KPIs and 100% of its CPIs. Spending on real estate operations came in $1 million under budget, and JLL’s sourcing relationships resulted in $800,000 in savings for P&G—a portion of which was returned to JLL as part of its contract with P&G.
Throughout its recent growth period, JLL has been diligent in meeting the needs of its people. The firm recognizes that employees should set improvement goals for themselves, but that the company has an obligation to help employees meet those goals by providing training and benefits.
A key aspect of the firm’s culture is the Individual Performance Management Plan, which carries the philosophy inherent in JLL’s performance-based contract system over to the individual employee. The IPMP program combines individual, employee-designed performance metrics with a system that ties the completion of these goals to the employee’s yearly bonus rate. Bonuses can range from 5-20%, depending on performance.
To empower employees to meet their professional goals, JLL offers more than 100 education and training options. Professional staff members average about 35 hours a year in supplemental training, while engineering and operations staff log up to 80 hours each per year. This time is spent in an employee-directed program that combines training manuals, self-study, and lunchtime webcast training sessions. The topics for these webcasts usually come from employee suggestions.
Employees’ voices are also heard through the firm’s use of 360-degree reviews, in which managers undergo a yearly performance review that includes confidential feedback from their direct reports. This is done through a survey conducted by an outside third-party firm, which collects and collates information provided anonymously by the manager’s subordinates. This process ensures that a manager’s skill sets and possible problem areas that might be missed or overlooked in a review by a superior may still be identified.
The firm also makes extensive use of surveys and focus groups. More importantly, management actually implements many of the ideas it picks up from these sessions. For example, the results of a 2006 survey prompted the firm to switch healthcare providers. Another survey convinced managers in the Chicago office to renew the lease on its current location in the Aon Building—near ample public transportation, with a view of Lake Michigan—rather than moving to a building in the West Loop.
Employee input also led to a major redesign of the Chicago workspace. Six-foot-high cubicle walls were lowered so that employees could interact more easily with each other. More to the point, private offices were moved to the inner core, so that more employees could have access to natural light and views of the outdoors.
Finally, JLL is dedicated to making sure that its employees receive ample recognition for their contributions to the firm. The company offers several in-house honors, including the Jones Lang LaSalle Club and the Da Vinci Award, that honor employee creativity and commitment. Any staff member can nominate another for a Very Impressive Performance award, which acknowledges individual exemplary work performance or contribution to the company’s spirit and culture. More than 500 VIP awards are given every year, with each recipient earning a gift card.
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Perkins+Will: the greening of an architecture firm
It's been more than 70 years since Larry Perkins and Philip Will founded Perkins & Will in Chicago. The ampersand in the logo has been replaced by a plus sign, but the Perkins+Will of today remains dedicated to the founders' early concern for sustainability, energy efficiency, and community involvement.
Today's Perkins+Will employs more LEED Accredited Professionals than any other design firm in North America—753, or more than 60% of its total workforce of some 1,200 employees. Since last July, the firm, ranked #3 among architecture “Giants” by Building Design+Construction (2005 revenues: $110 million), has seen a 66% increase in the number of LEED APs on staff.
Perkins+Will's interest in the environment extends to its own operations. The firm's Green Operations Plan for its offices—16 in the U.S., two in Canada, and one in Shanghai—encompasses transportation, water use, energy, consumables, indoor air quality, and renovation/construction.
One of the more tangible results of Green Ops is the company's public transportation incentive package. Employees can obtain a $50 monthly stipend to put toward bus, train, or other public transit. In the Atlanta and Minneapolis offices, so many employees take advantage of this opportunity (as many as 50% in both cities) that the firm was honored for its role in providing some of the best public transportation options in town. In addition, P+W encourages employees to consider foot-powered commutes by offering on-site bicycle storage and, in new offices, shower facilities that make cycling to work a more practical option.
Through its Green Ops Plan, the firm has been able to make good on its commitment to preserving natural resources. In Atlanta, recycling saved 200,000 gallons of water in 2006 compared to 2005. The Chicago office is using 100% post-consumer recycled paper, which keeps 12,000 pounds of waste out of landfills and saves 200 trees a year. The firm at large purchases 100% green power from wind-generated sources. Indoor air quality in the Washington, D.C., office is being improved via a centralized green space filled with toxin-removing plants.
The touchstone for the Green Ops Plan is the Seattle office, which earned the first LEED-CI Platinum rating for commercial interiors in Washington state. The office uses half the energy of a typical space, saves 40% on water usage, and recycled 98% of its construction waste.
The firm has been experiencing a period of significant growth, thanks largely to several major acquisitions. In 2002, it acquired the award-winning Chicago firm Eva Maddox Branded Environments, headed by Eva Maddox, FIIDA, Associate AIA, LEED AP. In 2004, it brought Vancouver's Busby & Associates into the fold—an addition that added even more experience in sustainable design and planning with the addition of Canadian green building pioneer Peter Busby, C.M., AIA, FRAIC, LEED AP. More recent acquisitions include Ai, MBT, Fuller & Associates, and CNI Design.
“Our progress this year is particularly remarkable because our success is not about just a few of us, one market sector, or one office,” says president and CEO Phil Harrison, AIA, LEED AP, who works out of the Atlanta office. “Our success and growth, more than ever before, is about all of us across the firm.”
Over the past five years, acquisitions have helped expand staff by 37%. Fifteen percent of new hires also come from a heavily promoted employee referral program.
Perkins+Will uses an innovative process by which potential employees are identified from their publishing histories. The HR team keeps regular tabs on professional journals, publications, periodicals, and white papers to find top candidates who are active in their professional fields. The firm maintains relationships with former employees and even with those who have turned down job offers, thus keeping the Perkins+Will name in the mind of future hires or rehires.
Once new hires are inside the door, the firm works hard to help them stay at the top of their game. The Associates Program identifies individuals with a passion for design, innovative consideration for the needs of clients, a strong concern with environmental stewardship, and skill at working collaboratively, moving them into positions of leadership. The Perkins+Will Learning and Development initiative provides a continuing education program based on an analysis of the specific needs of employees. Topics range from in-depth tutorials on software tools, to the firm's history, to sustainable design.
Mentoring is also a major part of the Perkins+Will workplace. Mentorships are crafted on a case-by-case basis and may include peers or even clients in addition to senior staff. This program involves shadowing, on-the-job training, and participation in firmwide task forces. In recent years, the mentoring program helped prepare successors for three major management positions, including Harrison's succession to president and CEO from his predecessor, Henry A. Mann, AIA.
The Chicago office offers another form of mentoring through the Champion Program, which pairs each new employee with a champion from the firm's Associates Program. Ideally, the champion should come from a discipline other than the new hire's, so as to encourage cross-disciplinary dialogue and learning. Champions meet with their assigned charges throughout the year and into the annual review process.
Finally, Perkins+Will's concern for its people's well-being doesn't end as employees age. The firm has no mandatory retirement policy. Instead, employees are empowered to sculpt their later years with the firm as they see fit. Many transition into temporary or part-time roles, enabling them to use their expertise to mentor younger staff and, in many cases, even train their own replacements. This benefit keeps Perkins+Will functioning at a high level of quality and service, even as the generations change.
Last June, Perkins+Will recognized the contributions of staff with a supplemental paycheck, handing out approximately $2.7 million companywide. The supplemental payout was a well-received thank you for the hard work Perkins+Will employees had put in during the previous year, one of the firm's most successful.
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SmithGroup: a proud history and a vibrant future
SmithGroup has a rightful claim to the title of the country's oldest architecture/engineering firm. Sheldon Smith founded the firm in Ohio in 1853 and moved to the emerging town of Detroit, Mich., in 1855. Upon his death in 1868, he was followed by his son and grandson. The firm was incorporated in 1903 as Field, Hinchman & Smith and renamed Smith, Hinchman & Grylls in 1907. In 2000, it became SmithGroup.
While justifiably proud of its history, today's SmithGroup has its sights set clearly on the future. The 800-plus-employee firm was ranked seventh in 2006 among A/E firms nationally by Building Design+Construction, with 2005 revenues of $119.9 million. In recent years, SmithGroup has ramped up its sustainable design credentials, snatching green guru Russell Perry, AIA, from William McDonough & Partners, in 2005, to lead its sustainability effort.
With a staff that is inspired by the ability of design to make a difference in some of the most pressing issues facing society, SmithGroup nurtures a vibrant workplace where architects and engineers seek to expand the boundaries of the profession.
The firm concentrates its work in four major areas it calls “national practices”: healthcare, learning (higher education), science & technology, and workplace. It further structures itself into 30 or so design studios. At each of the firm's 10 locations—Ann Arbor and Detroit, Mich.; Chicago; Los Angeles; Madison, Wis.; Minneapolis; Phoenix; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; San Francisco; and Washington, D.C.—one of the design studios makes a presentation on a current project. This multidisciplinary critique provides those who are not working on the project the opportunity to offer input and learn from their colleagues—benefits that are good for morale. “We appreciate competing values,” says Carl Roehling, FAIA, SmithGroup president and CEO since 2002. “We synthesize different points of view into something better.”
Under Roehling, who is based in Detroit, and the firm's chair and design director, David R.H. King, FAIA, LEED AP, who works out of the Washington office, SmithGroup has shown a willingness to give the unconventional a try. By scheduling its standard workday at eight and a half hours, employees can earn the opportunity to take 15 Fridays a year off. According to a companywide survey, the work schedule policy ranks as one of the firm's top benefits among employees.
Roehling maintains that productivity has not suffered under the new schedule, and the numbers bear him out: 37 weeks at 42.5 hours per week plus 15 weeks at 34 hours comes to 2082.5 hours a year—two and a half hours more than if employees worked a conventional 40-hour week. If a client needs attention, then employees are expected to work all or part of what would have been an off-Friday, says Roehling.
Making sustainability a priority
SmithGroup is credited with designing the first LEED Platinum building, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Philip Merrill Environmental Center in Annapolis, Md., and recently earned Platinum for the Science & Technology Facility at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo. Currently, the firm has 60 projects that have either achieved LEED certification, are registered with the USGBC, or were designed using LEED as a guide. SmithGroup is starting to evaluate its green projects on a post-occupancy basis in order to assess the effectiveness of various designs and materials in achieving sustainability goals.
Last year was a watershed, as the firm made an organization-wide commitment to boost its green credentials. In 2006, under Perry's tutelage, the number of LEED Accredited Professionals at SmithGroup jumped 179%, from 87 to 243, meaning that more than 30% of the firm's 800 employees now have that designation.
In order to make that dramatic leap, dozens of employees made a personal commitment to study for the LEED accreditation exam. Coordinators in each business unit spearheaded the ongoing green education effort. This group takes part in monthly videoconferences to coordinate activities. The firm created an Intranet site, “The GreenHouse,” with a searchable database for research, project information, articles, product literature, events, a discussion board, and related information on sustainable design.
Roehling sees the green movement gaining momentum among the firm's clients every year. “It's becoming a mainstream value system,” he says. Recalling the OPEC oil embargo and ensuing energy crisis of the 1970s, he notes that many of today's corporate leaders are the same people who took up the energy conservation mantra back then, “but they're now in a position to put those ideas into practice.” Boosting the firm's sustainability credentials not only makes good business sense, he says, but also helps employees further their careers.
Developing the next generation
SmithGroup's successful internship program is a strong recruiting resource. Each office employs between two and 32 interns each year. Nearly half of all interns eventually join the firm. Interns get exposure to the full gamut of project tasks, including the ability to contribute their own designs.
In 2004, the Detroit and Chicago offices introduced a lunchtime learning program that puts interns together with some of the firm's top managers and studio leaders to hear firsthand about executives' specific roles, how they got started in the industry, and what they feel are the keys to success.
“I had complete submersion and exposure to the various components that make a team, and ultimately the project, a success,” says Lisa Pallo, a former intern who became a full-time employee in Washington. “The generous mentoring and promotion of such a positive team dynamic is the reason I decided to work at SmithGroup full time.”
The firm is open to creative incentives for recruiting. For instance, an employee referral program offered a trip to Paris, France, rather than the usual cash bonus (which usually starts at $1,000 and can go higher).
SmithGroup has a strong commitment to charitable work. Three years ago, every office was encouraged to adopt a nonprofit organization. “We want every office to be involved in their community,” Roehling says. “You can give money, but the gift of time is even more valuable.”
For example, the Phoenix office helped raise over $90,000 last year for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Employees in the San Francisco office have been regular participants in the annual Sand Castle Competition for LEAP, a nonprofit organization that integrates art into Bay Area schools.
For the past six years, SmithGroup's Washington office has participated in the national CANstruction program, an annual event in which design firms compete to build the most creative structure entirely from cans of food, cardboard, tape, rubber bands, and wire. All the food and proceeds from a raffle are donated to the Capital Area Food Bank.
The Detroit staff has adopted Children's Center, an organization that provides medical and counseling services to at-risk children and their parents. SmithGroup employees helped the organization develop a long-term vision and provided master planning services for the center's proposed expansion. “This was a perfect opportunity for the firm to offer help doing what it does best,” says Roehling. “Our challenge was to show how architecture can help with the mission of educating children.”
Many of the office employees in Detroit also give up their lunchtimes on Mondays to volunteer at the city's St. Aloysius Outreach Center, which serves the homeless, the working poor, and the elderly poor. The volunteers make sandwiches, stock shelves, sort clothes, work in the pantry, and prepare hygiene kits.
With a tradition that goes back more than 150 years, SmithGroup still has its eye on the future.
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