Best Practices for Hiring and Retaining Talent in the Post-COVID World 

The COVID-19 pandemic has left its mark in many ways. For architecture and engineering (AE) firms, it has created a seismic shift in the way they do business. Industry observers, including the firms we work with, are pretty much unanimous in their opinion that the 40-hours-in-the-office work week is gone and will never return, at least not as a requirement for all employees all the time.  

There may be projects or phases of projects that require more in-office hours, but as soon as those requirements are met, employees will be allowed to go back to telecommuting. Firms that don’t allow that type of flexibility will struggle to recruit top talent, and this is in a period where finding good employees is already difficult, with baby boomers aging out of the labor pool in numbers that exceed those of people choosing architecture or engineering as a career.  

What we’re finding is that many firm owners have recognized this fact, but fewer have thought much about how this change will affect productivity, reporting relationships, and other aspects of day-to-day firm operations.  

Puzzling Productivity Numbers 

As the pandemic forced firms into remote working, many started noticing a strange statistic. While employees seemed to be logging a higher number of hours to projects, those hours weren’t resulting in the completion of a lot more work. While the reason for this isn’t clear yet, the numbers will surely have an effect on how individual performance is measured, how high and low performers are identified and rewarded or coached, and how, in general, talent is managed remotely.  

Unfortunately, A/E firm managers and principles, by and large, weren’t exactly excelling at the interpersonal, “soft skills” side of the business before the pandemic. Architects and engineers just aren’t wired that way. And now, when staying connected requires an even greater degree of intentionality, something’s got to change.  

Effective Hiring Is More Important Than Ever 

Making good hiring decisions has always been important for AE firms, like it is for any business. But in the post-COVID, dispersed workforce world, it’s absolutely vital. To be successful, firms will have to recruit self-motivated, self-disciplined employees exclusively.  

In truth, A/E firms have always had people who drove the firm’s success as well as others who produced good work but exerted only the amount of effort necessary to do so. And it worked out just fine.  

Today, however, that second group of team members has become a big liability. If they were doing “just enough” when they were in the office every day, odds are they aren’t meeting that already-low standard when working from home. And that lack of productivity—which can easily go unnoticed in a remote working model—can drive a project (and ultimately a firm) right off a cliff.  

From our perspective, the result will be a new professional standard for architects and engineers. People who aren’t internally motivated to do well either won’t be hired or won’t be retained for long.   

Firms will also need to use different metrics to ensure they're getting appropriate productivity from employees. For example, utilization rate (the number of hours booked to projects vs. to non-billable activities) may not be as helpful now, since, as we mentioned, firms are seeing an uptick in hours that isn’t reflected in throughput.  

Built into Factor AE is a figure called “percentage work complete” that’s independent from hours and budget. It will be a more useful figure. However, it’s one that is “measured” by a project manager (PM) checking with team members and asking about their progress—something that’s much easier when you’re working in the office and can just stop by someone’s desk to chat.  

Not only does remote working make assessing the percentage complete more challenging, the fact that people working from home often have unusual work schedules (like working after putting their kids to bed at night) complicates things even further. Nevertheless, PMs will have to find a way to get the updates they need to be confident employees are being productive.  

It seems that firms will have to find a compromise regarding flexibility. They will likely have to allow employees to work from home, but may need to request that they do their work during some agreed-upon set of hours so that communication between and among coworkers can take place with some degree of predictability.