Benefits To demonstrate financial dedication to staff, firms are coming up with novel twists to pay and benefits. Some degree of health insurance subsidy and 401K contributions are now commonplace. Employee stock options and profit-sharing are gaining popularity because a sense of ownership motivates employees to work harder toward profitability. Fully funded health insurance has a higher value, as do options for dental, vision, and life insurance. Roy, having observed much staff discontent with rigid benefit offerings, advises his clients to exercise more flexibility. Employees with working spouses may not need health insurance, for instance. Entry-level staff may have no

As long as the U.S. construction boom remains strong, there will be stiff competition among architecture firms for talented, experienced employees. Pay and bonuses are rising to attract architects away from rival firms. And yet many firms are neglecting a gold mine of talent—right in their own backyards. By developing and promoting their existing staff, and by nurturing a culture that encourages staff loyalty, firms can better manage growth at less expense than by seeking outside talent. Indeed, firms may discover that strengthening firm culture brings additional benefits. Photo © Geoff Brightling/Getty Images Unless your firm offers opportunities for advancement,

To stay current with industry practices, the American Institute of Architects updates its standard contracts every 10 years. In the recent publication round, 40 of more than 100 legal documents have been revised, some of them substantially. Many of the most important changes appear in document “A201 General Conditions of the Contract for Construction.” The most significant concern arbitration, according to Suzanne Harness, AIA, the AIA’s managing director and counsel for contract documents. Arbitration as a means of settling disputes was mandatory, but in 1997, nonbinding mediation was added as a precedent to arbitration. But in the revised A201, parties

Cautions during transitions The owners of CRS Sirrine were not the only ones to recognize culture clashes as serious dangers for merged firms. Both Gido and Cramer consider this issue as important as negotiating financial terms. Selling a firm is not like selling real estate because a firm is largely an intangible collection of talent and good will. Staff who feel disrespected, or who don’t respect the work of the parent company, can walk out and devalue the sale. According to Gido, the hardest, riskiest part of a merger is not the hammering out of terms but the integration of

In the summer of 2007, two large American architecture firms made news when they announced they were being sold to larger European firms. The 1,000-person RTKL was acquired by 11,500-person Dutch environmental and infrastructure engineering giant Arcadis. And, 350-person Hillier by 750-person Scottish architecture firm RMJM. Why are these firms selling? And why now? Do these moves represent a trend, and if so, what is its significance for the rest of the U.S. architecture profession? Illustration: ' Corbis RTKL and Hillier ranked eighth and 25th, respectively, in the 2006 Top 150 Architecture Firms [record, June 2007, page 71] list, compiled