205 - TZL - David Shove-Brown

Randy Wilburn [17:20] You're absolutely right, and I think that a lot of firms are doing a good job of acclimating to the way things are today to these Gen Z and millennials in the way that they work because I think it is a lot different than what we've experienced in the past. So, tell me this, I would love to know, going into the pandemic, and like I said, we’re slowly coming out of it. We still have a little way to go, but people are getting excited. Mask ordinances are being removed, that even happened here in Fayetteville, Arkansas where I am. I don't know what it's been like in DC, for you guys during these last two years, what was the biggest aha moment for you going through this pandemic, as an organization as a design firm? David Shove-Brown [18:09] For me, it wasn't an earth-shattering realization, it was a reassurance that our team was the right team. I should have done a better job in the last two years of writing things down and thinking back to conversations that we had and things that we did. Those memories are starting to slowly trickle away and I wish that I had written down more, but for me, the compassion that our team had for one another and for us and for our clients, that to me was so reassuring, and to think that we had created a firm that really was what we wanted it to be. It wasn't a dictatorship. It wasn't two people sort of ruling the day. It was a whole bunch of people working together and supporting one another. When this is all said and done, that's the thing that I'm going to think back on. Randy Wilburn [19:17] I think adversity creates opportunity, and I think that's the case for anybody, right? If you get knocked down, you got to get back up and figure out a way not to get knocked down again and to keep moving forward. You guys instituted a couple of things that I think are really interesting. Actually, some things are totally the purview of tech companies and all of that, and I've heard a few companies in the Design Space Institute have unlimited PTO and hybrid work models. We've all been in a hybrid work model just because of the pandemic but you've been able to embrace some of those changes and have found a silver lining and all that has been really helpful for your growth as an organization. I'd love for you just to kind of talk about those specific two items, which are huge, right? And unlimited PTO like people, hear that and they say, oh, I can never do that because then nobody will ever come to work. And in actuality, the statistics show that in companies that offer unlimited PTO, people take fewer vacations than people….

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