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BUSINESS NEWS JACOBS WINS CONTRACT WITH BIOGEN Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. announced it was awarded a contract to provide engineering, procurement, and construction management services for Biogen’s new manufacturing facil- ity in Luterbach, Switzerland. Under the terms of the agreement, Jacobs is providing EPCM services for Biogen’s fourth manufacturing plant. Biogen discovers, develops, and delivers worldwide innovative therapies for people living with serious neurological, autoimmune, and rare diseases. The company currently manufactures therapies in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; and Hillerød, Denmark. Plans for the new facility include state-of-the- art biotech manufacturing technology, which is expected to triple the company’s global capacity to produce large protein-based drugs known as biologics. In making the announcement, Jacobs Global Life Sciences Senior Vice President Robert Norfleet stated, “We are pleased Biogen chose to work with us to meet its demands for increased manufacturing capacity. As the largest professional services provider to the biopharmaceutical industry, we look forward to providing innovative solutions that can help strengthen its medication supply system around the globe.” Work on the facility started in late 2015. The

plant is expected to be in operation by 2019. BALFOUR BEATTY COMMUNITIES’ MILITARY HOUS- ING DIVISION EARNS 117 “A LIST” AWARDS FOR SUPERIOR CUSTOMER SERVICE As part of an annual customer satisfaction campaign, Bal- four Beatty Communities ’ military housing residents across the country completed cus- tomer satisfaction surveys, which garnered the company the prestigious 2015 Multifamily Real Estate Award for Customer Service Excellence at 117 Balfour Beatty Communities-managed neighborhoods. Also known as the CEL & As- sociates “A List” award, the survey acknowl- edges industry elite as it relates to customer service within multifamily property manage- ment. The survey gives residents the opportunity to grade the company’s service from marketing and leasing to unit and community appearance, friendliness of staff, responsiveness to maintenance requests, resident communications, community events, and other important service criteria. Balfour Beatty Communities earned 117 awards across 37 military installations – including 19 “Platinum A” awards for the highest level of resident satisfaction and 98 “A-List” awards across its 28-state portfolio. Some of the award-winning locations include: Altus, Oklahoma; Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Dyess, Texas; Fairchild, Washington; Fort Jackson, South Carolina;

Grand Forks, North Dakota; Charleston, South Carolina; Malmstrom, Montana; Lakehurst, New Jersey; Jacksonville, Florida; Fort Worth, Texas; Key West, Florida; Pensacola, Florida; Newport, Rhode Island; Panama City, Flordia; Saratoga Springs, New York; and New London, Connecticut. “Delivering exceptional customer service is at the heart of our core values,” said Anne-Marie Niklaus, senior vice president. “Providing housing that makes military members and their families feel at home and cared for is an honor and a goal shared by every member of our team. Our residents have a choice about where they live and we care deeply about their feedback, suggestions and the quality of their experience while living within a Balfour Beatty Communities-managed property. We are grateful to be recognized by our residents and look forward to continuing to provide quality housing and customer service experiences across our portfolio.” The National Multifamily Customer Service Award was created in 1997 by CEL & Associates, Inc. to recognize companies whose management performance and commitment to the highest level and quality of customer service are considered to be the best in the industry. CEL is the largest independent surveyor of customer opinions in the real estate industry and conducts more than 2.5 million customer surveys annually to establish service and performance benchmarks used

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and GlassDoor, then you don’t. Trust me, these platforms are more relevant now than ever before. A few ideas to help get you started would be to create videos on your service offerings as well as videos that show your company at play. If you offer a monotone, boring work envi- ronment candidates will figure it out in a nanosecond. 5)Discourage informational interviews. Last but not least, please don’t interview people for the sake of interviewing them or doing someone at the firm a favor. Besides the fact that your efforts are disingenuous you are wasting valuable time that could be focused on the next great candidate. It’s true what they say: “Time is money!” Make sure you are spending your time wisely. Your firm’s future depends on it. As always, if I can be of help in any way with regards to brainstorming a challenging recruiting issue, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I can be found on twitter @randywilburn and @ZGRecruiting. RANDY WILBURN is director of executive search at Zweig Group. Contact him at rwilburn@zweiggroup.com. “There are many mailroom-to-boardroom success stories in the design industry and you should look for every opportunity to make this happen for your people.”

RANDY WILBURN, from page 9

stories in the design industry, and you should look for every opportunity to make this happen for your people. If you are going outside the firm to hire the new talent you miss a great opportunity to create an internal success story. This not only helps embolden your current staff but it sets a great example for a job candidate that would like to work with you. You can give them a clear idea of what promotion and advancement look like in your company. “If you’re not properly selling your firm to potential candidates, you’re doing yourself a disservice.” 4)Make sure you have a group of materials available to market your firm. Nowadays you need to be marketing your firm a million different ways. You need to have a variety of materials available both to your internal staff as well as those that may want to join your firm. Emails and direct mail mar- keting will help you. But, nowadays your firm needs to have a voice on social media where you not only talk about your service offerings and the vertical markets you serve but also a platform to show why you have a great environment to work in. Now more than ever before people are heading to social media to find out about your company. You need to control the narrative. If you are not involved in YouTube, Twitter,

THE ZWEIG LETTER February 8, 2016, ISSUE 1138

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