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Hot topics at the Hot Firm Conference Though a plethora of issues were broached at Zweig Group’s 2015 Hot Firm and A/E Industry Awards Conference, the main ones can be broken down to 4 categories. O P I N I O N
I attended my seventh consecutive Zweig Group Hot Firm and Industry Awards Conference this year at the beautiful Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. This event, previously held as separate conferences, recognizes the Hottest Firms, the Best Firms to Work For, and Marketing Excellence in the A/E industry. This is one of my must- attend events each year, and my main reason for attending – besides presenting to and networking with the most successful A/E firm leaders in the industry – is to gain valuable insight that I can repurpose for my clients.
June Jewell
top concern of A/E executives. With rising salaries come profit margins that are being squeezed tighter than ever. A/E clients were trained during the re- cession to increase competition and commoditize design services. The firms that have avoided this trap are the ones focused on differentiating strategies, thought leadership, and branding to attract better clients. Another approach to the problem of shrinking profit margins is improving business management and operations to increase efficiency and employee pro- ductivity. Many firms are looking at how they can improve individual employee performance, as well as transform their cultures to get employees focused on the company mission and goals. Performance management practices play a key part in the discus- sion around engaging employees in order to improve overall accountability. Employee development. High on the list of strate- gies for differentiation and improving competitive advantage is training employees in a number of criti- cal skill-sets. Many firms are employing creative new training methods such as online and in-house train- ing coupled with coaching and mentoring to change mindset and behavior. Subject matter for this train- ing includes business skills for project managers, sales training for seller-doers, and leadership train- ing for emerging leaders. Most firms indicated that they were increasing their budgets for training in “This is one of my must-attend events each year, and my main reason for attending – besides presenting to and networking with the most successful A/E firm leaders in the industry – is to gain valuable insight that I can repurpose for my clients.”
As usual, I met lots of great people – like Gary Dahms, CEO of T&M Associates in New Jersey; Ted Bumgardner, president of Xpera Group in Solana Beach, California; and Mike Fischer, senior vice president at LHB in Minneapolis. I always take lots of notes on the hottest topics at the conference and then do follow-up research, so that I can provide more solutions to the challenges faced by our clients. I have consolidated the myriad of topics discussed into four primary subjects at the front-and-center of the A/E industry, and on the minds of leaders as they grow in this rapidly recovering market. Here they are, with a brief synopsis of the main issues: Finding and retaining talent. The search for great talent is back, with many firms experiencing rapid growth. Many firms are finding they cannot staff as quickly as the work is coming in. This is the opposite problem of just five years ago, when most firms were hunkering down. Firms are finding creative ways to recruit and are leveraging professional recruit- ers with mixed results. I see more firms proactively turning to LinkedIn as a strategy, as well as hiring in-house recruiters, which seems to be having the best results. In addition to finding the talent, firms are also con- cerned about losing the talent they have, with preda- tory competitors trying to steal their best people. Good project managers and technical staff are at a premium these days, causing salaries and bonuses to rise substantially. This phenomenon is also causing more firms to consider creative compensation and incentive plans, as well as improving their brands and reputations as great places to work. The firms that are winning that race, such as Bowers + Kubota out of Hawaii and Maser Consulting out of New Jersey, are finding innovative ways to improve their culture – by focusing on diversity, providing exciting career paths, work-life balance, and more. Increasing Profitability. A quick poll of the confer- ence audience by Christy Zweig found that “profit- ability” runs a close second to “finding talent” as the
See JUNE JEWELL, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER SEPTEMBER 28, 2015, ISSUE 1121
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