The business of business from the top is changing. The pace of that change for everyone who has directly suffered from the Great Recession is admittedly glacial, though some continue to argue that the Great Recession hasn’t done “too much” harm to the building and design industries.
They recount personal anecdotes about acquaintances and friends as “proof,” though critical thinkers know anecdotes prove nothing. What’s more, they never tell you that those people own their own businesses. They aren’t discussing the masses of unemployed people who worked for them. If you want to understand an issue and discuss it intelligently and meaningfully, you need to be specific about sectors, demographics, and statistics. Conflation denotes a slipshod carelessness, and if there is one thing that this economy has taught us, those qualities in both thought and action do not pay off.
And for those who are familiar with the multiple Occupy movements around the world, it’s clear that political discourses on economic and social issues have been fundamentally changed so that original Occupy issues such as corporate tax loopholes, greed, and more equitable taxation of the wealthy have been joined by such issues as immigration, access to education, and even debt relief to fundamentally shift politicians’ rhetoric, if not their mindsets.
It is fitting, then, that the job security of corporate bosses has been eroding, though slowly, over the past two years, two years again after the Great Recession began. Not only do they have less time to prove they can do their jobs before they are given the heave-ho, which means turnover is higher, but they are now more vulnerable to activist boards who do not hesitate to demand decisive action. Many large firms demand that their boards are populated by outsiders and are no longer chaired by the CEO. Proxy battles routinely make the finance pages of Google and Yahoo and they really do send the various indexes reeling.
Politicians have also taken note, for example when Congress passed a law—admittedly symbolic more than anything—that gives shareholders a non-binding vote on CEO pay. Britain is considering a similar law that is actually binding. What’s more satisfying is that this kind of accountability has actually improved corporate performance, according to academic studies.
Architecture firm leadership is not structured in quite the same way as these multinational corporations, it’s true. Those that are multi-office, if not multi-national, tend not to have boards, and they often aren’t traded on the market. And it’s true that poor leadership across most industries is often still rewarded.
But, things are changing, at least in some firms. For one, there is the realization that employees are people, not just “workers” or “laborers”—dehumanizing terms that make it easier to exploit people.
In real terms, some firms have begun honoring overtime for salaried people with comp time (if you don’t know what that is, it means that you actually take the equivalent amount of overtime you worked on another day). Yes, some firms are actually honoring that notion of compensatory time rather than just giving it lip service. Increasing vacation time, and separating it from sick time is another area that has witnessed some change. There was a time when it was normal to have employees collect these two personal time- off periods separately and simultaneously, but during the past decade or so, many firms have truncated both into a single, set amount of time off. Of course, you see the problem, right? The total amount of time one earned was less than when sick and vacation time accumulation were separate. Many firms have gone back to this former model. And as is always clear, happy employees make better, more effective, employees.
Finally, and this is a big one, top leadership has, at least in some firms that have greatly suffered over the past few years, become more human itself. Perhaps the accountability part is a factor, perhaps not. But the firms that are rebuilding themselves from the ashes have taken note: top leadership needs to be accessible, not abusive, able to listen, not just bark orders, and finally, it needs to be flexible rather than rigid.
It’s true that this worldwide recession, whose effects are still being painfully experienced by many, many people, is not over. Why not? Over a decade of deregulation combined with rampant corporate greed cannot be solved overnight, no matter how much conservatives want to blame their current leaders. But hopefully, what we are seeing at the top of large corporations, and larger architectural firms, will be a trend that will continue and implement a widespread culture of corporate change.
Sherin Wing, Ph.D., is a social historian who writes on architecture, urbanism, racism, the economy, and epistemology (how we know what we know by researching and examining the agendas inherent in our sources of information) to name a few issues and topics. She is dedicated to exploring issues in ...
7 Comments
sherin,
how many firm owners do you actually, personally know? i'm being serious - you're concerned about how 'de-humanized' employees have been made, yet everything written above contains only pronouns. there's so much innuendo in that post, it's beyond frustrating. the term 'some|many firms' (pronouns all) was used more than 15 times before i gave up. why are there no interviews with even one person you can actually name? i can give names of a dozen in southern california if you need some help.
why this kind of article pisses me off is that the kind of descriptions you've so carelessly thrown around don't square with hardly any of the 100+ firm leaders i've gotten to know over the years. yes, bad seeds are in business. why the hell do we keep focusing on them? is it just because the innuendo laden drum of pessimism is so much easier to write about?
most of the people i know care deeply about the people they've had to lay off during the recession - you have no idea because, oh yeah, you haven't ever had to be the one making that kind of decision. i would implore you to interview someone who has.
I agree, the finger-pointing needs to be backed up with some verifiable stats and/or actual names, for this message to be taken seriously.
the other thing sherin - come on here and engage. i've noticed that, for most of your posts, there's a reluctance to actually respond to any of the discussion. it's not helping the reactions here (and i'm probably more on your 'side' than you realize, for example).
Yes, Gregory. You are absolutely correct. Would any of the 100+ firm leaders you've gotten to know be willing to share their verifiable recession statistics? How many employees they have had to let go? How many have they brought back? How many new hires? Number of actual contracted projects? How working conditions and salaries have gotten worse? Salary scale? Benefits offered? And how the recession has changed how they do business? How many visits to therapists because they have had such a painful time laying people off?
I'm serious. This would be a good story if anyone would go on record. I once tried to collect this information and it's very difficult. The AIA doesn't keep statistics like this. If they do, they don't share it. Plus, why would they? They are busy doing damage control while the profession tries to put its casualties in mass graves. You have to rely on the people you know and then you can't simply reveal the firm they are talking about, let alone reveal the source of the information.
Maybe we could collaborate and put something together.
Sometimes the "data" just isn't there. But there is still a point to be made about broader conditions. Part of what Sherin is discussing has to do with how architecture has institutionalized styles of business that have lagged behind how other sectors (e.g. high tech, research, web, entertainment, even non-profits) do business and support talent.
Is the recession bringing more business strategies into the profession? She cites a few examples. The main point is that the recession is forcing change and that this may be a humanizing influence. Leadership and employees have all been through a lot.
The owners are forced to make difficult decisions. But employees are always more vulnerable and they are the ones who do not usually have a voice. Owners are vulnerable, too, of course, but they (should I provide names?) generally fare better in a recession because they have to lay off many other people before they finally get down to themselves standing in an empty office, or having to miss some payment. They have more power, more resources, more of a cushion. Frank Gehry's office can lay off hundreds over the course of the recession, but he is still doing fine, He and more senior people have an escape valve and can support themselves while going after work in China. Eric Owen Moss can lay people off and he can feel that pain, but he can also recover from that pain relatively quickly and see it as a new opportunity to move forward. Moreover, when he hires new people, he can bring them in with less security than he could once offer. He says all this in a Salon article I was also part of.
So everyone can feel pain and everyone needs to heal. How can the industry start to heal without creating another population of victims?
I saw an interesting comment. I think it was on the Salon site. Someone said close down half of the architecture schools, reduce the population of architecture graduates to the point where demand drives salaries up and up. But the whole industry has to be uplifted.
hi guy - lot's to cover in your reply - thanks for making it.
i can't speak for other people, but yeah, i think quite a few would be happy to talk provided they're walking into an open minded and even handed discussion and not being ambushed in some way. for myself, i'm happy to share what we've been though (i've already done it once or twice in the forums).
what could also be done easily is to set up a basic survey that could cover your questions and allow people who would want to go on record indicate that and you'd have some follow up opportunities that way. i don't know if the aia would endorse such a survey, but it seems like i've taken something similar over the past 3 years (and, to be fair, they had some huge internal issues and transitions themselves which hasn't helped their ability to get out in front of these issues).
if i read the rest of your comments correctly, what you're really isolating is the fact that the 'typical (and mythical) employee' in a firm has far less power and ability to control their own destiny that the companies themselves. yes, frank and eric (and i for that matter) will have more options. to me, the real questions are: why aren't more people interested in starting their own companies (to take that control) and (if you look at my blog lately) why aren't we doing more to get young graduates to a place where they have that option (and i actually agree with your last comment - except i'd restrict entry to IDP itself. the schools would sort themselves out).
otherwise, why is this a surprise? those firms have also taken far bigger risks to get to that place. and the article is looking at some of the most 'successful' firms around - take little ol' me as head of a 7 person firm: the line of credit we established and had to use to keep paying employee salaries when it went to hell in 2008? my house was backing up that line. if we defaulted, the bank had my personal agreement - no walking away from that easily. our rent agreement (as it is with a ton of small companies) is backed by me personally, as well as the meager assets of our firm. one of our small business clients had to declare not only corporate but personal bankruptcy to get out from their rent agreement. i've never missed payroll for our employees (but have not taken payment for myself more times than my wife would like). maybe frank did something similar. maybe not. it doesn't make either of us better than the other - it does say we have a stewardship to the best interests of the company that exceeds any single person. because, if the firm dies trying to keep everyone employed...what good comes of that? making those kinds of decisions aren't easy. and for a large firm like your ex-employer (i did read the salon article btw), there are a whole level of obligations i don't know, understand or care about. but i can understand that if the projects die and income stops coming in, people are going to be laid off. and, yes that includes younger staff but i've been shocked (at least locally) by how many 50ish staff have been laid off. so, i think you're wrong assuming that all firm owners are simply floating above the fray. i may be wrong in assuming most firm owners care about their staff.
what we do agree on is that this recession is going to force changes to our business models. and importing them from the tech world may or may not be the best. architect magazine had a few interesting stories on this count this month. but the best companies - especially service firms - have always understood that human capital is their greatest asset and will do what they can to nurture and develop it. those that don't can succeed against our collective wishes. i'm just tired of talking about them and look forward to featuring firms doing it better.
guy - two concrete leads (thinking about while waiting for the tylenol to kick in):
the AIA Los Angeles president this year is Stuart McGruder. He's a one man shop and one of the nicest people I know. the AIA Atlanta president is John Bencich, who runs a firm here that's around 6-7 people.
both are younger professionals (late 30's, early 40's) but more importantly, they run 2 of the larger chapters in the country. i'm pretty sure, if you come up with a survey that hits the points you've outlined, they could work with you to get it distributed to their respective members. especially if you'll share the results. collectively, those two represent about 3500 members and several hundred firms. even with a 20% participation rate, it's something to start with. i can make sure that the survey goes to the principals group in atlanta.
agreed--i've found your posts to be incredibly frustrating, ms. wing...full of gross generalizations, gossipy allusions and a tendency to inch up to a provocative topic and drop hints without ever citing facts or committing to a real position.
i guess that's a strategy to get people riled up, but it's hardly substantive.
who are these firm owners? who are these employees? how can we ever know whether you're making it all up?
there are reasons why i appreciate archinect, but like most blogs and showcases for online content, there are also reasons why it makes me miss the good old days of professional editing.
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