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FROM THE FOUNDER
AEC firms thrive when marketing, HR, finance, and IT stop acting as support functions and start driving strategic growth. Redefining the mission of “support” staff
W hen I was the head of marketing and human resources management for two different design firms earlier in my career, I never cared for what we did being considered “support” functions. That implied second class citizen status as far as I was concerned. Not to say I didn’t recognize the importance of the design and technical functions of our firm, and the fact that THAT is what our businesses did and got paid for.
Mark Zweig
That said, just because we are in the business of engineering, architecture, landscape architecture, planning, environmental consulting, and land surveying, it does NOT have to mean that marketing, finance, human resources, and IT are LESS important, or have less potential to significantly impact the success of the firm. For that to be true, however, it can’t be “business as usual” for these functions in terms of how they are typically managed. They each require a redefinition of their mission and new expectations from management IF their roles are to be elevated to a higher than “support staff” function. For example, I have often been critical of how human resources functions in the typical AEC firm. While HR managers and staff have potential to be game-
changers for the firms they work for, they are far too often relegated to a role of paper-pushing and telling management what they cannot do for liability reasons. One reason why this is the case is the people who head up those areas went into that field in the first place because “they like people.” That is not what is going to propel the firm forward with a strategic advantage. I would rather have someone in that role who “likes BUSINESS ,” and sees their role as building the best, highest-performing team (the firm’s employees) they can get at the lowest possible price. That MISSION for HR is what is going to make you money. And that is going to take aggressive recruiting
See MARK ZWEIG, page 6
THE ZWEIG LETTER DECEMBER 1, 2025, ISSUE 1611
ELEVATE THE INDUSTRY®
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