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O P I N I O N
Chad Clinehens, President & CEO of Zweig Group, speaks at last year’s conference.
Data collected from Best Firms To Work For and Hot Firms continues to provide valuable insight into the AEC industry. 2019 Best Firms and Hot Firms
Z weig Group’s 2019 award recipients have been announced and winners are celebrating all over the country. While Zweig Group loves promoting the industry as a whole, especially our award winners, there is another important factor that comes out of our awards program: The data we collect provides insight into the industry from top to bottom. Our Best Firms To Work For and Hot Firm awards provide well over 2 million data points on the industry. Yes, you read that right: 2 million!
Kyle Ahern
Best Firms To Work For continues to be our largest source of data and is growing every year: ❚ ❚ Seventy-nine percent of Best Firms To Work For responded that they share revenue data at least an- nually. We think this is a very important tool to keep employees informed and to create a positive, open culture at your firm. ❚ ❚ AEC firms continue to perform well and paid out more than $281 million in bonuses alone in 2018. That’s a 25 percent increase over 2017. Employee satisfaction with overall compensation increased in 2018, though the amount and frequency of raises continued to be rated among the lowest categories in the entire survey. ❚ ❚ Beyond compensation, Best Firms To Work For are having to come up with other ways to distinguish themselves in this very competitive labor market.
Half of firms indicated that medical insurance pre- miums paid by employees would not increase from 2018 to 2019. Firms are now offering about 22 days of PTO in addition to an average of nine paid holi- days per year. Eighty-three percent have a parental leave policy. ❚ ❚ Best Firms To Work For are responding to the big- gest wants/concerns of employees: Training and learning opportunities. Every firm offers some type of training opportunity, either in-house or some kind of outside training. About a third of firms have their own “university” training program. Training and continuing education is a great way to invest in your employees and shows that you care about their career development.
See KYLE AHERN, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER August 26, 2019, ISSUE 1310
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