TZL 1300

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RADICAL BENEFITS, from page 7

the reduction in income. It occurred to me that going to a 36-hour week would give people an additional 52 days off. When I did some calculations, I found that those four hours that I would be giving up could be offset somewhat by tweaking a few things financially (for example an uptick in rates and a down-tick in “holidays”) and pro- vide far more days off at a fairly small sacrifice in overall revenue. My sense was that the increase in morale/productivity during those 36 hours would probably get us back to even. I’d like to implement the 36-hour week; I haven’t done it yet, but am still contemplating. It’s not something you can step back from once implemented. We also offer perks such as paid gym memberships, tuition re- imbursement, a transit program, snack bar, monthly events, and more. Annually, we request feedback from our staff about ideas for future events and give everyone an opportunity to contribute ideas to the program. TZL: What scares you about the geopolitical environment today?

GM: Isolationism scares me. The desire to halt immigration scares me – civil engineering thrives on population growth, just ask an Italian civil engineer how much work there is in Italy, where population growth has been stagnant for 50 years. We need more immigrants, not fewer. The construction industry has been impeded greatly by political crackdowns and, as a re- sult, has inflated construction costs. The myth that things need to go back to “when they were great” is ridiculous. I’m 60 years old and everything is better today than it was in the 1960s. Any effort to resist change scares me. WRITE FOR THE ZWEIG LETTER Have some advice for your peers in the AEC industry? Contact Sara Parkman at sparkman@zweiggroup.com for the chance to be featured in The Zweig Letter .

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THE ZWEIG LETTER June 10, 2019, ISSUE 1300

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