Curious what the staffing structure in everyone's studio is like, and your ideal structure should be.
By staffing structure, I mean the demographic pyramid of the firm - by experience level. A healthy firm, IMO, has a bulge in the middle and a base that is just as fat or a bit slimmer. The pyramid's top is relatively light. In terms of personnel experience, this would mean a firm that has a solid core of folks with 5 - 7 years experience who are able to guide new staffers (with the help of more experienced architects of course), and a group of senior PMs of around the same size.
An unhealthy composition (Again, IMO) is one with a small waist. That is, a lot of 5 - 7 year experienced folks have left the firm, leaving a gulf between untrained new staffers and overworked senior PMs who have no time (or incentive, given the history of folks leaving) to teach newcomers. The newcomers are left frustrated and leave soon after, perpetuating the vicious cycle - though the firm can still count on a steady supply of eager young grads and hungry international candidates.
We have five job role/compensation band tiers for a current staff of 18. This structural allows parallel career tracking and compensation adjustments for different specialty areas and is intended to scale up to a team of 50+ in the future:
Vice President / Managing Principal (Department Leader x 1)
Director / Principal (Team Leader x 3)
Senior Professional / Associate (Senior PMs, PAs, PDs, PEs)
Professional (PMs, PAs, PDs, PEs)
Support Staff (Admin, Interns, EITs)
Nov 25, 24 6:24 pm ·
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OddArchitect
If you're comfortable telling us, what is the breakdown of the remaining 15 team members at you firm gwharton?
Nov 25, 24 6:55 pm ·
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gwharton
Right now we don't have anybody at Tier 3, since that is reserved for internal promotions only (we do have people on track for this). Only two of three Tier 2 (Director) positions are currently filled, since the third studio work team does not yet fully exist (As VP, I am also wearing that hat until we hire somebody to do it, and the two members of that team report to me).
The remaining staff all fall into Tier 4 (11) and Tier 5 (4). We do try to hire one new graduate/early career professional every year, especially as Staff promote up to Professional.
We try to maintain a hard limit where nobody ever has more than six direct reports. Also, now that we are expanding into other geographic areas, this structure is going to expand with the overall business.
Nov 25, 24 7:16 pm ·
·
gwharton
Also, the Interior Design team has a similar but parallel structure to architecture and engineering, with a Director, two Seniors, a few Professionals, and a couple of Staff.
We don't have a particularly healthy breakdown but the bigger problem is only half of the ownership core knows it (despite my very obvious comments).
1x President and 3x VPs (owners' circle) - Equity shares
3x Seniors (where live) - Profit shares
2 to 5 intermediate professionals (number varies depending on who you ask)
5x junior to junior(ish) across arch, tech, int des
2 support.
18-20ish person office (arch and int des), medium size for my area. The real problem is too many in the intermediate arch position consider themselves senior even thought they are not. So we have the extra fat of a top-loaded pyramid without the experience benefit.
Nov 25, 24 7:39 pm ·
·
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Staffing Structure
Curious what the staffing structure in everyone's studio is like, and your ideal structure should be.
By staffing structure, I mean the demographic pyramid of the firm - by experience level. A healthy firm, IMO, has a bulge in the middle and a base that is just as fat or a bit slimmer. The pyramid's top is relatively light. In terms of personnel experience, this would mean a firm that has a solid core of folks with 5 - 7 years experience who are able to guide new staffers (with the help of more experienced architects of course), and a group of senior PMs of around the same size.
An unhealthy composition (Again, IMO) is one with a small waist. That is, a lot of 5 - 7 year experienced folks have left the firm, leaving a gulf between untrained new staffers and overworked senior PMs who have no time (or incentive, given the history of folks leaving) to teach newcomers. The newcomers are left frustrated and leave soon after, perpetuating the vicious cycle - though the firm can still count on a steady supply of eager young grads and hungry international candidates.
We have five job role/compensation band tiers for a current staff of 18. This structural allows parallel career tracking and compensation adjustments for different specialty areas and is intended to scale up to a team of 50+ in the future:
If you're comfortable telling us, what is the breakdown of the remaining 15 team members at you firm gwharton?
Right now we don't have anybody at Tier 3, since that is reserved for internal promotions only (we do have people on track for this). Only two of three Tier 2 (Director) positions are currently filled, since the third studio work team does not yet fully exist (As VP, I am also wearing that hat until we hire somebody to do it, and the two members of that team report to me).
The remaining staff all fall into Tier 4 (11) and Tier 5 (4). We do try to hire one new graduate/early career professional every year, especially as Staff promote up to Professional.
We try to maintain a hard limit where nobody ever has more than six direct reports. Also, now that we are expanding into other geographic areas, this structure is going to expand with the overall business.
Also, the Interior Design team has a similar but parallel structure to architecture and engineering, with a Director, two Seniors, a few Professionals, and a couple of Staff.
We don't have a particularly healthy breakdown but the bigger problem is only half of the ownership core knows it (despite my very obvious comments).
1x President and 3x VPs (owners' circle) - Equity shares
3x Seniors (where live) - Profit shares
2 to 5 intermediate professionals (number varies depending on who you ask)
5x junior to junior(ish) across arch, tech, int des
2 support.
18-20ish person office (arch and int des), medium size for my area. The real problem is too many in the intermediate arch position consider themselves senior even thought they are not. So we have the extra fat of a top-loaded pyramid without the experience benefit.
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