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The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) announced the retirement of Partner Ellen van Loon from the firm after 26 years. The announcement says: “Ellen has indicated that she wishes to enter a new phase in her life in which she will have more time to herself. It goes without saying... View full entry
Jeffrey Beers International (JBI) has announced a new leadership team in the absence of its namesake founder, who passed away last month from cancer at the age of 67. The firm has appointed partners Michael Pandolfi, Nora Liu-Kanter, and Tim Rooney as new leaders of the 37-year-old New York-based... View full entry
Adjaye Associates has announced the promotions of three new CEOs in an organizational restructuring that will see founder David Adjaye step into a new role as the Executive Chair of the group and the firm's Principal. Pascale Sablan, Kofi Bio, and Lucy Tilley will now lead the New York, Accra, and... View full entry
MASS Design Group President and co-founder Michael Murphy has announced he will be stepping down from his post after 15 years to pursue new academic and professional initiatives in a move announced on Friday. The announcement stated that MASS will continue under the leadership of Senior Principals... View full entry
Maintaining a corporate surveillance program that operates only in the shadows might nab the occasional miscreant, but it does little to promote positive conduct or to deter inappropriate use of corporate assets when employees are working from home. A more balanced approach should include clear communications with employees explaining the reasons for, and existence of, corporate monitoring programs. — Harvard Business Review
In a recent Harvard Business Review essay, two experts outline the need for transparency in corporations that monitor employee behavior, writing: "Being transparent about how you’re monitoring employees should be consistent with a transparent culture and a relationship of... View full entry
The Guardian's Oliver Wainwright sheds light on the incredible exploitive workplace abuses happening in the UK in a recent piece titled Furlough fraud, snooping and firings: architects speak out over lockdown exploitation. From never-ending work days, to secret webcam recordings, and even bizarre... View full entry
The 2020 AJ100 survey found that post-occupancy evaluation is ‘always’ done by just 4 percent of AJ100 practices and ‘frequently’ done by 22 percent, while a quarter of firms never do so and around half (48 percent) only seek to evaluate the performance of their projects ‘occasionally’. — Architects' Journal
Philip Watson, director at HLM Architects, reflected on the survey, writing, "Too often it seems, architects want to design a building, take pictures prior to its occupation – without the messy inconvenience of having people and their clutter in them – and move on to the next... View full entry
A colleague and I were recently talking about something we've both experienced during a project's construction administration phase. The contractor sends an RFI, expressing the urgency of the request, advocating for a speedy response from the architect. As the architect, we investigate the RFI and... View full entry
President Donald Trump signed an emergency bill Wednesday to expand family and medical leave as well as guarantee paid sick leave for certain U.S. workers... The bill allows the Secretary of Labor to exempt employers with fewer than 50 employees from the emergency FMLA leave requirement, "when the imposition of such requirements would jeopardize the viability of the business as a going concern." — HR Dive
According to HR Dive, The U.S. Senate passed the bill, titled the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, by a 90-8 vote earlier in the day. It was first passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 14, and a revised version passed Tuesday. The bill will take effect... View full entry
In an effort to expand cultural competency, Murphy Burnham & Buttrick (MBB) Architects has instituted its own private travel grant. Established in 2016, the Harold Buttrick Travel Grant offers one employee five days of paid leave and paid travel-related expenses to "[broaden] his or her... View full entry
Architecture is a highly collaborative practice that calls us to work with many different kinds of people. Sometimes this brings challenges. With firms seeking to build diverse teams, a diversity of personalities and work styles can be forgotten. Particularly for leaders, it can be bewildering to... View full entry
Employee retention is a big issue in today's job market and many firms have had to deal with the undesirable reality of losing valued team members. While the reasons someone might leave a job are wide and complex, there are some factors that leaders can address themselves to counteract employee... View full entry
As a firm leader begins to plan the next season of life away from their business, succession becomes a natural point of focus. "Current principals and owners should look ahead, recruiting employees who have the potential to take the firm into the next generation and providing them with... View full entry
"Academic studies show that promotions are still largely a reward for past performance, and that organizations continue to assume the attributes that have made someone successful so far will continue to make them successful in the future (even if their responsibilities change)," reads a recent... View full entry
Architecture's collaborative nature means that leaders, more than ever, need to understand how to guide their teams. We've all had that supervisor or project manager who asks us to do something, only to leave us feeling confused and unsure of what needs to be accomplished. When we finish the task... View full entry
