Practice Management Member Conversations

Our firm has been around for quite awhile and we have an internal office culture that has evolved along with the firm.  As a boomer, I can clearly see that the way we interact with each other has changed a lot, especially over the last few years with email, blogging, facebook, twitter, teleconferencing, live meeting, etc. Traditionally, we've always required that everyone be at the workplace with everyone else during normal working hours. We think there are a lot of benefits from working and learning together.

However, there are now more requests than ever for allowing flexible working hours, especially for allowing one to work from home. We think a lot of this trend can be explained by understanding generational differences in our staff. All firms want to attract and keep good staff. And one criteria that future staff take into account when choosing who they want to work for is the culture of the firm, as well as the physical working environment. We know that a satisfied staff is generally a loyal and productive staff, and this can be affected by more than just the satisfaction provided by money. (I've discounted for the economy and how those conditions can change someones needs and priorities.)

We have our policies, and like many policies, they tend to get out of date. We are currently exploring the well-being of our staff and exploring things we can do to generally make their lives a little easier. Currently, we require that all staff work from 8 to 5. It's been that way for decades. But our staff, especially our younger staff, has expressed a strong desire for more flexible working hours, including occasionally working from home. We know there is a lot of pressure on young families with both spouses working, trying to juggle their hours, meet obligations and yet keep their employers happy. But we also know that we have clients and contractual obligations that have to be met. And it's also hard to not imagine that utilization and efficiency aren't also affected, if not diminished. This can also be influenced by responsibilities on projects and within the firm. It is this balance that we are struggling with.

I'm sure many other firms are also facing issues like this and I'm just interested how others might be approaching it.

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Clarence Lind AIA
HDR Architecture, Inc.
Omaha NE
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Michael Clark AIA
Director Of Design
H&H Design-Build
New Albany IN
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Clarence:
I could probably write a whole paper on this as it has worked out very well for lots of reasons, but let's keep this short.

Our firm has been allowing flex time for the employees for about 3 years and it has worked out well.  We have some employees coming to work at 6:30 am and some leaving at 7:00 pm.

I think the reason it has worked so well for us have been consistency and communication.   We published everyone's schedule so we know when people will be in the office and we make sure everyone can be contacted by some means of communication; cell phone, email, texting, etc. 

As we upgrade our IT equipment, we are finding more employees requesting laptop computers rather than towers.   From out of the office, any employee can communicate with our servers just like they were here.
Although we allow employees to work from home on occation, everyone realizes that working in the office is more productive and no one has abused that option.

I have noticed that if employees are allowed to manage their personal time, it frees them up to manage their business time more effectively. 




Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-23-2011 11:55
From: Clarence Lind
Subject: Employee flex time practices

Our firm has been around for quite awhile and we have an internal office culture that has evolved along with the firm.  As a boomer, I can clearly see that the way we interact with each other has changed a lot, especially over the last few years with email, blogging, facebook, twitter, teleconferencing, live meeting, etc. Traditionally, we've always required that everyone be at the workplace with everyone else during normal working hours. We think there are a lot of benefits from working and learning together.

However, there are now more requests than ever for allowing flexible working hours, especially for allowing one to work from home. We think a lot of this trend can be explained by understanding generational differences in our staff. All firms want to attract and keep good staff. And one criteria that future staff take into account when choosing who they want to work for is the culture of the firm, as well as the physical working environment. We know that a satisfied staff is generally a loyal and productive staff, and this can be affected by more than just the satisfaction provided by money. (I've discounted for the economy and how those conditions can change someones needs and priorities.)

We have our policies, and like many policies, they tend to get out of date. We are currently exploring the well-being of our staff and exploring things we can do to generally make their lives a little easier. Currently, we require that all staff work from 8 to 5. It's been that way for decades. But our staff, especially our younger staff, has expressed a strong desire for more flexible working hours, including occasionally working from home. We know there is a lot of pressure on young families with both spouses working, trying to juggle their hours, meet obligations and yet keep their employers happy. But we also know that we have clients and contractual obligations that have to be met. And it's also hard to not imagine that utilization and efficiency aren't also affected, if not diminished. This can also be influenced by responsibilities on projects and within the firm. It is this balance that we are struggling with.

I'm sure many other firms are also facing issues like this and I'm just interested how others might be approaching it.

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Clarence Lind AIA
HDR Architecture, Inc.
Omaha NE
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Hi Clarence,

I no longer work in architecture but do software development with Autodesk & the environment is very similar to architectural practice. We have a very flexible work environment here including relaxed dress code (anything that's not offensive), flexible hours and the ability to work from home. This helps make Autodesk a special place to work, attracts the best and brightest and I'm sure it helps morale.

I generally don't work from home more than several times a month as I highly value interaction with my co-workers. It's a beautiful thing here in New Hampshire to be able to work @ home during the winter snow days. It also means the office almost never closes :-)

If you allow your employees to work @ home you might want to consider security. We are able to work via a secure VPN network and have strong policies around VPN use and document/computer security.

I wouldn't be surprized to see us become a mostly virtual office in the future with the majority of work occuring from home & flexible space for times when we need to come together. I would miss the personal interaction however.

One thing's for sure - change never stops!

Take care,
Dennis

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Dennis McNeal AIA
Autodesk, Inc.
Manchester NH
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Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-23-2011 11:55
From: Clarence Lind
Subject: Employee flex time practices

Our firm has been around for quite awhile and we have an internal office culture that has evolved along with the firm.  As a boomer, I can clearly see that the way we interact with each other has changed a lot, especially over the last few years with email, blogging, facebook, twitter, teleconferencing, live meeting, etc. Traditionally, we've always required that everyone be at the workplace with everyone else during normal working hours. We think there are a lot of benefits from working and learning together.

However, there are now more requests than ever for allowing flexible working hours, especially for allowing one to work from home. We think a lot of this trend can be explained by understanding generational differences in our staff. All firms want to attract and keep good staff. And one criteria that future staff take into account when choosing who they want to work for is the culture of the firm, as well as the physical working environment. We know that a satisfied staff is generally a loyal and productive staff, and this can be affected by more than just the satisfaction provided by money. (I've discounted for the economy and how those conditions can change someones needs and priorities.)

We have our policies, and like many policies, they tend to get out of date. We are currently exploring the well-being of our staff and exploring things we can do to generally make their lives a little easier. Currently, we require that all staff work from 8 to 5. It's been that way for decades. But our staff, especially our younger staff, has expressed a strong desire for more flexible working hours, including occasionally working from home. We know there is a lot of pressure on young families with both spouses working, trying to juggle their hours, meet obligations and yet keep their employers happy. But we also know that we have clients and contractual obligations that have to be met. And it's also hard to not imagine that utilization and efficiency aren't also affected, if not diminished. This can also be influenced by responsibilities on projects and within the firm. It is this balance that we are struggling with.

I'm sure many other firms are also facing issues like this and I'm just interested how others might be approaching it.

-------------------------------------------
Clarence Lind AIA
HDR Architecture, Inc.
Omaha NE
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Hi Clarence,
Flex time decisions does cause a lot of angst for managers, but we have found that providing some basic flexibility goes a long way in employee satisfaction without hampering business goals. At TLC, employees can sign up for start times between 7:00AM and 9:00AM, on the half hour, to accomodate ease of commutes and child care drop-off/pick up. We had instituted summer flex schedules for several years that also let people do four 9 hour days and a 4 hour Friday. Our use of this in these trial periods did not seem to negatively impact the business, but managers did need to address it in scheduling etc. This was wildly popular and the most requested benefit in our employee survey. Recently we instituted that as a year round schedule option. Our operating groups have some flexability to shift which day or morning/afternoon block of hours an employee takes as the 4 hour day, which helps to even out attendence in the office. For senior staff, many sign up and don't use it much, but they have told me that just having that flexability increases their satisfaction. All staff know that if an important meeting or deadline comes up that requires their attendance, they need to attend. Work from home as a firmwide policy practice will become more feasible when we move our BIM servers to a private cloud. The connectivity for producton efforts is not optimal now with VPN and being dependent on the power of employee's home computers, so that is not something offered yet.

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Debra Lupton AIA
CEO
TLC Engineering for Architecture
Orlando FL
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Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-23-2011 11:55
From: Clarence Lind
Subject: Employee flex time practices

Our firm has been around for quite awhile and we have an internal office culture that has evolved along with the firm.  As a boomer, I can clearly see that the way we interact with each other has changed a lot, especially over the last few years with email, blogging, facebook, twitter, teleconferencing, live meeting, etc. Traditionally, we've always required that everyone be at the workplace with everyone else during normal working hours. We think there are a lot of benefits from working and learning together.

However, there are now more requests than ever for allowing flexible working hours, especially for allowing one to work from home. We think a lot of this trend can be explained by understanding generational differences in our staff. All firms want to attract and keep good staff. And one criteria that future staff take into account when choosing who they want to work for is the culture of the firm, as well as the physical working environment. We know that a satisfied staff is generally a loyal and productive staff, and this can be affected by more than just the satisfaction provided by money. (I've discounted for the economy and how those conditions can change someones needs and priorities.)

We have our policies, and like many policies, they tend to get out of date. We are currently exploring the well-being of our staff and exploring things we can do to generally make their lives a little easier. Currently, we require that all staff work from 8 to 5. It's been that way for decades. But our staff, especially our younger staff, has expressed a strong desire for more flexible working hours, including occasionally working from home. We know there is a lot of pressure on young families with both spouses working, trying to juggle their hours, meet obligations and yet keep their employers happy. But we also know that we have clients and contractual obligations that have to be met. And it's also hard to not imagine that utilization and efficiency aren't also affected, if not diminished. This can also be influenced by responsibilities on projects and within the firm. It is this balance that we are struggling with.

I'm sure many other firms are also facing issues like this and I'm just interested how others might be approaching it.

-------------------------------------------
Clarence Lind AIA
HDR Architecture, Inc.
Omaha NE
-------------------------------------------

We are a 24 person firm and have also tried to deal appropriately with employee flexibility versus the need for collaboration. Our standard workday is 8:30 to 5:30. We allow staff to arrive between 8 and 9 AM and leave between 5 and 6 Pm. This give some flexibility to schedule and lifestyle, while still making sure that teams are together for the majority of the day.

We deal with family responsibilities on an ad-hoc basis, allowing staff to work from home on an instance by instance basis. We also provide 3 Personal days off a year as an opption.

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Jerry Roller AIA
Firm Owner/Architect
JKR Partners
Philadelphia PA
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Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-23-2011 11:55
From: Clarence Lind
Subject: Employee flex time practices

Our firm has been around for quite awhile and we have an internal office culture that has evolved along with the firm.  As a boomer, I can clearly see that the way we interact with each other has changed a lot, especially over the last few years with email, blogging, facebook, twitter, teleconferencing, live meeting, etc. Traditionally, we've always required that everyone be at the workplace with everyone else during normal working hours. We think there are a lot of benefits from working and learning together.

However, there are now more requests than ever for allowing flexible working hours, especially for allowing one to work from home. We think a lot of this trend can be explained by understanding generational differences in our staff. All firms want to attract and keep good staff. And one criteria that future staff take into account when choosing who they want to work for is the culture of the firm, as well as the physical working environment. We know that a satisfied staff is generally a loyal and productive staff, and this can be affected by more than just the satisfaction provided by money. (I've discounted for the economy and how those conditions can change someones needs and priorities.)

We have our policies, and like many policies, they tend to get out of date. We are currently exploring the well-being of our staff and exploring things we can do to generally make their lives a little easier. Currently, we require that all staff work from 8 to 5. It's been that way for decades. But our staff, especially our younger staff, has expressed a strong desire for more flexible working hours, including occasionally working from home. We know there is a lot of pressure on young families with both spouses working, trying to juggle their hours, meet obligations and yet keep their employers happy. But we also know that we have clients and contractual obligations that have to be met. And it's also hard to not imagine that utilization and efficiency aren't also affected, if not diminished. This can also be influenced by responsibilities on projects and within the firm. It is this balance that we are struggling with.

I'm sure many other firms are also facing issues like this and I'm just interested how others might be approaching it.

-------------------------------------------
Clarence Lind AIA
HDR Architecture, Inc.
Omaha NE
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