Evelyn Lee. Image courtesy of Evelyn Lee. © Carl Bower

In our ongoing investigation of remote work, WFH, and alternative business models during this pandemic, we’ve focused heavily on techniques, approaches, and strategies firm leaders can employ with their staff. We’ve heard from professionals first-hand, learning from their personal experiences during this shift. These personal revelations have helped us connect as a community, seeing the challenge we’re all facing as a whole. But, this challenging season also presents us many opportunities. How can we move from merely trying to survive during this period to proactively positioning ourselves to be even stronger when it subsides?

In this piece we connected with Evelyn Lee, an architect, design strategist, and Senior Experience Designer at Slack. She is also the 2020-2021 Treasurer of the American Institute of Architects and the founder of Practice of Architecture, an organization devoted to recreating the way architects practice. We discuss the importance of focusing on business continuity during this pandemic, what firms can consider after this crisis has passed, and how we can collectively tackle the challenges ahead.

You work for Slack, a platform many are now using while working remotely. How do you feel your experience as an architect and your role at Slack have helped you think about this current work-from-home phenomenon?

I think the ironic thing about Slack and our workplace, is that we have a really strong office culture even though our product is an enabler of remote work. So while, from a pragmatic standpoint, it may have been easier for us as a company to be one of the first movers when it came to going to remote at a global scale, we’ve been managing through our own challenges relative to being a remote workforce. 

A large part of that adjustment, especially with school closures and those who are caregivers, has been figuring out how to do work in a flexible environment where typical office hours do not work for everyone. 

Outside of working extra-long hours to manage the multiple new hats I’m wearing as a nanny, teacher, house manager, family chef, etc. I’m not sure how architecture has really prepared me for this work-from-home phenomena, other than the fact that over the years I have always had a really great workspace to work out of. 

From a strategic standpoint, (perhaps this is the architect in me) -  I’m already thinking about what the new business as usual looks like when this is all resolved, both at Slack when it comes to the employee experience, and within the architecture profession. It’s impossible for everything to go back the way it was, but how do we take the lessons we are learning, and make the new norm better than it was before? 

There are ways for us to run projects on asynchronous schedules, we just have to get comfortable working that way.

I hope this move will help make architecture firms more agile, which is really what Slack, as a tool, is built to do. I also am hopeful that some of the extra empathy that I’ve seen people share for others regarding flexible schedules remain. There are ways for us to run projects on asynchronous schedules, we just have to get comfortable working that way. I’ve found in my own career that having amazing managers that allow for flexibility, has given me the ability to continue to be productive, learn, and grow as a professional, but as with anything, those needs have changed over time especially with motherhood. Firms need to adapt to a more flexible work schedule for their employees in order to truly support their individual growth and development as well as the success of the firm in the long run.

How has it been for you balancing life, family and work with all of the recent developments lately? Any pointers for other professionals juggling multiple responsibilities?

Not going to lie, it’s been a struggle and it really hasn’t gotten any easier as we get further into this. I think the biggest recommendation I can make here is to make sure you take the time you need personally to work out whatever you need to work through during this unusual period.

I realize that it’s not going to be easy for everyone to do that. I’m fortunate enough to be in a workplace where the CEO, other executives, my manager, and even those on my team keep reminding me to take care of myself. That I have a job, and we are all supporting each other through this. Last week, the payroll cuts, furloughs, and layoffs have seemingly started in earnest so I can’t imagine what those firm leaders and individuals are going through.

I hope firms take this time as an acute reminder of how lean they tend to run, look for ways to diversify outside of construction, and really come out of this changed, but for the better

The second best piece of advice I can give, at least for parents, is that the kids will be OK, they are adaptable, and all you can do is your best - even if your best during this time is the minimum. They are going to be alright.

Third, I hope firms take this time as an acute reminder of how lean they tend to run, look for ways to diversify outside of construction, and really come out of this changed, but for the better. Create innovative services, undertake a huge digital transformation, and build a culture that’s agile enough to take whatever the world throws at you (or at the very minimum gives you 3-6 months of runway for the next thing we do not see coming).

When you last spoke to Archinect, we dove into some of your thoughts about architectural practice and the need for traditional models of practice to evolve. For example, the reliance on the construction industry was a point of contention. What are your thoughts on how practice models might adapt during this novel time?

Unfortunately, this is a really good example of too little too late, but a really good opportunity to learn for the next time around and adjust processes and operations to be more successful when things pick back up. Prior to the virus, whenever I talked to firm principals, they were sprinting just to support the work they had in the pipeline. Little thought was given to business transformation or new practice models. It’s important for us to dedicate time to both consistently in order to continue to remain relevant.

Right now, we are at the start of it, and it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Most of the firm owners that I have talked to are just trying to guess how much runway they have as construction sites get closed, projects are canceled, and developers/investors are pulling back without a sign of future commitments.

There’s an excellent opportunity to reassess the variety of skills that your current employees have, talk with clients about how they are handling the current situation and see if there’s anything you can do to support.

There’s an excellent opportunity to reassess the variety of skills that your current employees have, talk with clients about how they are handling the current situation and see if there’s anything you can do to support. Have an innovation sprint to identify new areas for growth, for example.

What implications might this have on firms when this pandemic is reconciled?

I am hoping that more firms come out more agile from a workflow process standpoint, and, to whatever extent, retain their ability for employees to work remote and flexible schedules. I also would like to see the empathy people have for one another right now continue, especially for those who also have the role of caregiver looking after their aging parents or children.

I am hopeful that firms take time to be introspective and innovative about how their brand and culture are communicated and shared through the web, on social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook, and on various social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

I am super optimistic that they take enough time to look at how they need to evolve their practices to continue to bring in revenue at a time like this, or other times when the construction industry slows.

Your organization, Practice of Architecture has developed a comprehensive google doc, gathering resources from professionals across the industry on best practices on business continuity. Could you tell me a bit about how that got started and what your goals are for it?

I am incredibly grateful to be at Slack right now, I’ve never felt more supported, but on the flip side I am incredibly worried about how the architecture profession is going to weather this. All of the resources that I saw organizations and people putting out there were relative to how firms have survived the recession or even recent natural disasters. 

In truth, disaster planning is a subset of business continuity.

Most of the conversations seemed to be centered around disaster planning and I couldn’t find a narrative that was really focused on business continuity. In truth, disaster planning is a subset of business continuity. Business continuity is the difference between surviving an event like COVID-19 versus shutting down because of it. I couldn’t find a resource that was talking about how we continue to do business at a time like this. So I reached out to some friends and we started to pull together resources. Now we spend whatever time we have left over at the end of the day to update it.

Remote work is such a big topic right now. With your expertise in design strategy and business, do you think there are other, perhaps more subtle, business factors that architects should consider right now?

There is definitely a big focus in the shift to remote work, but it’s not enough to deploy the tools. You need to know how to use them, develop new formal and informal policies to make sure that everyone is using them properly in the way the firm would like them to be used, and ensure all your decisions build a new office culture rather than break it.

I was in a forum where an emerging professional joked that the one question they are going to ask in all their future interviews is how the firm weathered this pandemic, what they learned from it, and how it changed the way they do things.

...how you continue to run your firm, respond to the needs of your employees and clients, and...adapt your service offerings will affect how quickly you come back from this.

Independent of how tough the last few weeks have been, how you continue to run your firm, respond to the needs of your employees and clients, and build upon (not pause) your pipeline and adapt your service offerings will affect how quickly you come back from this. 

Could you tell me about your focus on business continuity? What does that mean and why is it important for business leaders in architecture to be thinking about it?

Inevitably, this is what I have always been worried about with regards to the profession. The last article mentioned how I open a lot of my talks by saying we are three recessions away from becoming extinct as a profession. This is truly an unusual time and there are a lot of industries under strain right now, but I think how we as architects reposition our value proposition and expand the areas where we can serve our clients will put us in a much better position going forward. We have never been an agile profession, but it’s never too late to start building some of that in. 

Any encouraging words for the architecture community?

I’ve never seen the architecture community come together globally in the way it has recently. We are sharing open source ideas to produce equipment for those battling the front lines. I’ve seen more of my peers on video conferences and interacted with them in more meaningful ways than I would have attending a conference in person. It’s not clear how we will emerge from this, but I believe we will be a stronger community because of it.