A Cause for Celebration
By Kyle Ahern
Once again, it is one of my favorite times of year. We are seeing some trends from the Best Firms To Work For Survey . This gives us a good pulse of how employees are feeling within the industry. We are getting to see some impressive growth from our Hot Firm Award Winners. The marketing campaigns that won our Marketing Excellence Awards were first class and continue to impress our panel of judges. Our Rising Stars in the AEC Industry continues to grow and it is getting more and more difficult to select from the outstanding nominations. All of our award winners deserve to be and will be celebrated. We are very excited to bring back the in-person Elevate AEC conference again this year where we will get to host the Awards Ceremony and Black Tie Gala that has become so iconic. Let’s take a quick look at some of what we will be celebrating this year. Numbers overall are up in 2021 when compared to 2020. Not only are they up across the board, but they are up significantly as well. 2021 saw the largest year-over-year increase in our data set dating back to 2018. This is a very good sign. Numbers in 2020 decreased across the board on average as you would expect to happen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did we see scores rebound from the 2020 dip, they are above where we saw them in 2019. This to me shows that firms are emerging from the strange days of working through the pandemic stronger and in a better position than they were before it started. By no
means do we want working through a pandemic to be the new normal, but hopefully firms have been able to carry some of the positive adjustments they had to make in 2020 to keep improving, and I believe this is evidence of firms doing just that. From the end of fiscal year 2017 to the end of FY 2020, the average Hot Firm grew by $29.7 million. They also grew by an average of 85 percent over that same time period. Both of these are incredible growth numbers especially given the challenges that 2020 produced. 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. Celebrating is something we all need to do especially after the difficulties of the last 20 months. We need to celebrate our people, our growth, creating great workplaces, outstanding marketing, and great leaders. I am excited and honored to get to be part of an in-person event that will do just that for an industry that deserves to be celebrated.
KYLE AHERN is the Awards Manager at Zweig Group. He can be reached at kahern@zweiggroup.com.
O U R S E R V I C E S - Analyze Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) Feasibility - Develop Transaction Blueprint - Identify and Negotiate Financing - Manage from Feasibility through Closing - Strategic Alternatives for Established ESOPs: From Growth by Acquisition to Sell-side Investment Banking - Deliver Comprehensive Legal Services - Provide FINRA-licensed Investment Banking Services
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