Evolving Practice, Changing the Way We Work

While on the AIA National Board and through my work with Practice of Architecture, I had the opportunity to talk with many firm leaders about the decisions they have been making around the return to the office.?

The conversation always starts with the question:

“How many days a week are you requiring your teams to come into the office?”

Unfortunately, this is also where the conversation tends to end. If that’s the case for your firm, I would argue that you are missing out on 95% of the conversations you need to be having on how you’re going to change the way we work going forward.

What else should you be discussing?

• Firm Culture: Are the firm’s mission, vision, and values still relevant in a post-pandemic world? And does it need to be updated? (A lot has happened in the last two years, many made new or renewed commitments to address diversity, equity, and inclusion.)
• Team Management & Productivity: How does the firm work and collaborate on days where everyone is not in the office? Have you identified your digital HQ? How do we work asynchronously? Are there “working” hours outside of the office? What about Focus hours? Or Maker/Team Hours?
• People & Policies: Do you need to change your people systems to track performance and outcomes over tasks? What do your feedback loops look like? Do you need to rethink how you provide mentorship and professional development? Are you moving to a 360 annual review with additional check-ins throughout the year?
• Security & Support: Have you revisited how everyone is supported from a hardware and software perspective? Are you moving everyone to laptops and all documents to the cloud? Do you need to update policies and processes that ensure your files are secure and accessible whenever your employees are working?
• Tools: Do you need new tools to enable virtual collaboration? Asynchronous workflows? Presentation? Project management? Employee onboarding?
• Implementation: Has everyone in the firm committed to new strategies and a new way of working on the new tools? Are you sure the new policies created are treating everyone equally, including those who would like to work remotely more than others?

Now is the time to reinvent how we practice with one another and in turn how we work with our clients.?

Autodesk recently went through the exercise and asked me to partner with them on the launch of their new company mission of “empowering innovators to achieve the new possibilities.”

As a service industry, our people are core to the ability to produce work. So how do we make sure we give them all the support they need to succeed on our behalf?

Applying Creative Problem Solving to Practice

Architects are incredibly creative when it comes to our projects, often asking our clients to reconsider how they use their space by listening to their needs.?

Why then? Do we not apply that same process to our practices? What would the firm change if they actively listened to their employees and empowered them to create an environment where they could be more productive and thrive?

A recent survey of more than 10,000 knowledge workers worldwide by the Future Forum found a considerable disconnect between company leadership and their workforce.

For instance, among those currently working remotely, 44% of executives want to return to full-time office work, whereas only 17% of non-executives wish to return to full-time office work. Looking deeper into the findings, 75% of executives currently working entirely remotely say they want to work from the office 3+ days a week, versus only 34% of employees.

While work has come back and held steady, the great resignation shows no sign of slowing down. Now, more than ever is when we SHOULD be listening to our employees, being as empathetic to their needs as we are to our clients.?

Redesign New Systems, Operations, Policies, and Processes

Forward-thinking architecture firms adopt systems, operations, policies, and processes that were only previously seen in tech and other industries.

Rios in Los Angeles has many location-based positions as they look to expand their practice in specific geographies but have removed city designations from most of their open positions.?

At least half of west coasted-based Shepley Bullfinch ’s open positions are similarly location agnostic. They also have a new executive team that transitioned during the pandemic that is actively looking at how to support an increasingly distributed firm.

Saam Architects in Northborough, Massachusetts, were practicing hybrid ways of working before the pandemic and have always trusted their employees with unlimited PTO to take the time they need for health and wellness.

In addition to some of the practices above, Method Group in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has abandoned time tracking for what they are calling velocity planning.

These are just a few of the many firms that are setting up their practice to be more agile and adaptable going forward and, in doing so, will continue to attract and retain top talent wherever they can find it.

Sustainable Business Practices

In an industry as tenuous as ours, the ability to be agile will ultimately deliver a more sustainable practice model. However, the ability to truly be agile means a willingness to look at how we’ve always done things, question whether they were the best way to do things, and continuously look for ways to improve operational efficiencies.?

Rather than reminiscing about a world pre-pandemic. How would you approach a design problem that asks how can we work better going forward?

Welcome to the New Possible

Now is the time to turn problems into opportunities - not roadblocks, where solutions are driven by innovation that goes beyond what we did and look forward to what could be.

How are you going to build better tomorrow by improving your practice today?