In the past month, Zweig Group has been preparing to announce all of our 2020Award Winners. This has been especially important for us this year as we honor the outstanding firms in this industry during a time like none other than we have seen. The “celebrate” tenet of our mission has taken on a whole new meaning given all of the challenges we are all facing right now. Even though celebrations of our accomplishments may look a bit different in 2020, celebrating those accomplishments in some way is more important now more than ever. Beyond the physical or virtual celebrations, I want to dive into a bit of the data to celebrate some great statistics to come out of this year’s Hot Firm and Best Firms To Work For data. Sharing revenue data firm-wide is a great tool to help create a positive and open culture at your firm. It helps keep all employees informed about the health and strength of the company. The percentage of firms that share revenue data at least annually rose quite dramatically in 2019. 88 percent of firms share their revenue data at least annually compared to 79 percent in 2018. The Best Firms To Work For don’t just offer a great work environment. They also compensate their employees and take care of them financially. 92 percent of permanent staff received a pay raise in 2019, and no firms administered pay cuts. Firms also paid out and average of over $8,500 in bonuses per employee last year. The average number of PTO days was just under a total of 20 days per year and the number of paid holidays was 9 per year. 2020 has presented a number of unique challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic. Firms have had to completely re-adjust how they conduct business and how to best take care of their employees. There is a silver lining given these challenges. 92 percent of employees
have been satisfied or very satisfied with their firm’s COVID-19 response. This shows that our industry has been about to adjust well the such a unique challenge. Another good sign is that employees ranked communication the lowest of challenges working remotely. Normally, communication is considered one of the weaknesses for firms in the AEC industry. Hopefully, we can at least keep up good communication once things get back to the new normal. We did see some very impressive growth from our Hot Firm winners this year. The average dollar revenue growth from the end of fiscal year 2016 to the end of fiscal year 2019 was $31.5 million which is $2.6 million higher than the average for 2019 Hot Firm winners. The average percentage growth rate held steady year over year at 81 percent. The average Gross Service Revenue per FTE is up slightly over 2019 at $204,500. This is great news. It shows that there is real growth going on in the industry, helping to create and retain good, high paying jobs. This is something we can all celebrate right now. Zweig Group’s Awards Program, Hot Firm, Best Firms To Work For, Marketing Excellence, Rising Stars, Top New Venture, and Jerry Allen Courage in Leadership , offer such a wide variety of ways for firms in the AEC industry to honor and celebrate their achievements. I wish I could go through all of the impressive data that we get through the awards, but I am glad I can celebrate some of the real highlights from the 2020 award winners. Things are certainly very tough right now, and we recognize and appreciate that. Don’t let that stop you from celebrating what makes your firm so great!
KYLE AHERN is the Awards Manager at Zweig Group. He can be reached at kahern@zweiggroup.com.
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august 2020
csengineermag.com
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