Scan through pretty much any article that offers advice for retaining talent, and it will include a fairly standard checklist of “musts.” Providing fair pay, decent and affordable health insurance, a reasonable allotment of vacation time, and some hope of career advancement within the organization constitutes a bare minimum. Take a step up from that “simply keeping body and soul together” level, and concerns regarding personal satisfaction and quality of life come to the fore: the need for a modicum of autonomy and creative freedom, for example, and a hunger for recognition and respect.
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In recent years, perks such as paid parental leave have also appeared as desirable items on the employee-retention menu, not to mention a heightened awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion as strategic business opportunities (above and beyond just making good moral sense). And 2020 brought remote work—long simmering on the back burner—into new prominence as pandemic lockdowns proved that distributed teams could function perfectly well for many enterprises that had never contemplated giving them a first thought.
Architecture and design firms are faced with a very different labor market in this summer of “The Great Resignation,” as it’s being called, a time of shifting norms and expectations. Even if your studio could never be mistaken for the cramped, stifling kitchen of a chain restaurant—an industry commonly invoked in resignation discussions—an increased pressure to assure the contentment of the hands you’ve worked so hard to hire is being felt everywhere. How, then, to protect your all-important trove of human capital?
For Atlanta designer Susan Ferrier, who heads an office of six people, the staff stability issue is especially acute. At a busy company as small as hers, “all the oars need to be in the water,” she says, which doesn’t allow much leeway for departures of key personnel or colleagues who aren’t fully invested in what they do. So while she certainly doesn’t denigrate nuts-and-bolts methods for keeping folks happy—having long embraced flexible hours, for instance, and encouraged liberal travel as a form of continuing education and professional development—she feels that the truly critical foundation for retaining talent, especially in a field like interior design, isn’t built solely with a handful of HR policies.
“To hold on to good talent, they have to like you. They have to believe in what you’re doing in your studio,” she says. All the incentives in the world won’t help if this fundamental linkage isn’t secure, she insists. Ferrier aims to give every one of her associates “a sense of place and ownership in the office. They’re not just working for me, they’re working for us and our clients. In our culture, there’s a focus on the bigger picture,” she says. “We want to do really great work, be nice to each other, and be socially responsible.”
Massachusetts architect Mark Hutker leads a considerably larger business (65 strong at the moment), which opens possibilities smaller operations can’t necessarily match when it comes to fostering employee fulfillment. For starters, the firm’s larger size has meant allowing employee roles to evolve significantly over time. “We have a career path that’s based on traditional values of architecture and the normal ways in which people would progress, but we’ve needed to make it much broader,” he says, citing a case in point: the company’s current head of human resources, who initially came on board with a graphics degree.
“Her path here has been very open, and we’ve let her pursue the things she’s become interested in and learned that she’s really good at.” (Hutker Architects footed the bill for her retraining.) “Hiring for aptitude and attitude is key,” Hutker concludes. “We try to put people in the position to be successful with their skill sets and their ambitions.”
There’s no substitute for basics like good pay and a carefully thought-out benefits package, of course, but eliciting true commitment takes more than just a benefits list. Psychological rewards can be just as important as practical ones for promoting worker happiness, and brushing up on your own leadership skills and helping your staff avoid burnout when schedules get crazy are a start. But engaging your hires with a feeling of shared mission, where they value their work and feel valued in return, will pay extended dividends—long and loyally.
