A brief discussion on the management model of American architectural firms?

1 China’s architectural design industry faces competition in the international market

The current world economy has entered a new economic era represented by the information revolution and market globalization. Competitors are coming from all over the world, and China The construction boom has attracted star architects and famous firms from around the world to carve up the architectural design market. Many well-known overseas firms have quickly established branches in China. Various types of joint ventures and wholly-owned private architectural firms have also sprung up. The fierce competition in the market has made Construction units have benefited greatly from this, but it has also made life for domestic design institutes increasingly difficult.

Most of my country's dominant large-scale engineering design institutes were born under the planned economy system and are affiliated with their respective industry authorities. Recently, some institutions are gradually transitioning to enterprises, facing strategic adjustments in ownership structure, enterprise type, business scope, project organization and management methods, and service awareness. There are successful experiences and failures in reform. Market competition, survival of the fittest.

This article attempts to summarize the operation methods and characteristics of American offices through the author's working experience in American offices, hoping to provide reference for the development of my country's architectural design enterprises under the new situation. .

2 Human Resource Management in American Architectural Firms

What is most important in the 21st century? Talent - A line from the film "A World Without Thieves".

As a special profession, architects’ work scope does not fall into single fields such as art, science, engineering, and sociology in the traditional sense. Therefore, in the Western education system, the education and training of architects is independent of the above-mentioned colleges. Architectural firms are also quite different from most corporate companies in organizing production, marketing and development. In addition to being good at business operations, successful offices also rely on design teams and famous architects with strong professional capabilities. Human resource management constitutes a very important part of the design office management system.

2.1 Talent Echelon

Sufficient and good human resources determine the company's productivity. American offices generally have human resources managers who, in addition to interviewing candidates, also regularly submit employee status reports to management, which is an important reference for management to decide on employee promotions and demotions and control operating costs. When it comes to utilizing existing resources, American firms attach great importance to maintaining a reasonable personnel echelon structure (Hierarchy). In short, a reasonable architect echelon structure should have at least three levels: high, medium and low.

The top management is mainly composed of the boss (usually an architect himself), the design director (Design Director), and senior architects/designers. They make decisions on the company’s macro development, customer market development, decision-making and project design. Orientation etc. Generally not involved in the specific technical design of the project.

Middle level: Mainly composed of project managers and architects with certain skills and experience, who can implement technical details under the conditions of determining the general direction.

Lower level: Mainly composed of draftsmen, assistant architects and intern students to complete specific drafting work.

From a management point of view, personnel at any level should be engaged in corresponding work. Any "leapfrog" behavior is a challenge to production relations and a waste of productivity. A friend once "downgraded" to apply for a lower position. He thought he was a sure shot, but was rejected because he was over-qualified. Americans believe that too much difference between qualifications and positions will bring instability to the company. Some well-known domestic design units place too much emphasis on high-educated candidates when recruiting, and only those with doctorate and master's degrees are recruited. Regardless of whether there is a direct relationship between high academic qualifications and high efficiency, it is a management misstep just from the perspective of the talent echelon itself. It not only increases the cost of the company, but also increases the cost of the company. It harms the overall efficiency of the production system.

In order to reduce the waste caused by "cross-level work", a reasonable human resources system structure should be maintained.

The specific ratio of staff at each level depends on the type of project (residential, medical, commercial, school, etc.) and the financial status of the company. The residential, commercial and campus project teams in American architect firms usually have a ratio of high, middle and low-level staffing of 1 :1:2, hospital-type projects reach 1:2:3 due to the complexity of their professional requirements. Senior personnel can usually be responsible for 3-8 medium-sized projects at the same time, thus rationally allocating human resources.

2.2 Employee Performance Appraisal and Salary System

In Europe, due to the interference of strong labor unions and strict laws, it is difficult and expensive for companies to fire employees, which has led to the emergence of An industrial situation that is conservative and stable but lacks competitive vitality. In comparison, the American personnel system favors capital owners, and there are few legal restrictions on managers firing employees. The pressure of losing their jobs motivates employees to work harder. On the other hand, "A good bird chooses a tree to roost in, and a good minister chooses the master to work in." On average, Americans change jobs every four to five years. Bosses' pressure to supervise employees' job-hopping not only reduces work efficiency, but also increases the possibility of employees changing jobs. How to ensure production efficiency and avoid brain drain. Different business philosophies produce different corporate cultures. Some companies monitor every employee in real time through the LAN. A computer and security camera double as supervisory staff. It cannot be denied that the above methods are effective in some industries, but they will reduce employees' loyalty to the company. Especially for fields such as architectural design that rely heavily on employees' creativity and skills, this distrust will affect the company's long-term interests.

The architect firm where the author works has never adopted a strict employee supervision mechanism. The working hours are flexible and the atmosphere is relaxed. Many senior employees and technical experts are happy to serve the company for a long time. Some even work for 20 years without changing jobs, which is rare in the United States. What's the trick? As one firm boss said, in the United States, it is paper control people. The weekly work report (Timesheet) of architect firms in all countries is probably the most impressive supervisory management tool for the author (see table 1) Managers do not need to monitor employees' disciplinary attendance. Instead, they can obtain the most accurate information on work progress and productivity by comparing the weekly work reports submitted by employees on the company's website with the project work reports of project managers. The weekly work report shows the corresponding days of the week horizontally and the project number vertically. Employees fill in the number of hours spent on a certain project every day, and verification of workload is completed with the signature of the project manager.

There are two types of architectural design fees in the United States: one is similar to that in my country, and is charged according to a certain proportion of the investment amount based on the complexity of the project, and the total amount is guaranteed; the other is based on the actual working hours of the personnel. The list will be settled to Party A on an hourly basis in stages. Different levels of personnel charge different fees. Labor costs in the United States are very high, and architectural design is not a high-profit industry. An important job of the project manager is to control costs. Careless management can lead to losses. Therefore, employee work reports are of great significance to the company. They are the basic statistical data for cost accounting of each project and quarterly and annual evaluation of employees. Each employee's workload and work efficiency are determined by data, and employee salary changes are directly linked to quarterly performance appraisals. This move helps to promote employee consciousness and create a good working atmosphere in the company.

Table 2 is the working time and bill report interface for a certain week. The salary system is directly related to the stability and work enthusiasm of the talent team. Some domestic design institutes have linked employees' income with output value responsibilities through the reform of the distribution system to encourage employees' enthusiasm. However, if there is a lack of scientific and systematic quantitative analysis and management, it will easily lead to conflicts and dissatisfaction. Currently, some senior positions in American architecture firms, such as senior management, project managers, key designers, etc., mostly have fixed annual salaries because the work is important and difficult to quantify. The salary is high but there is no overtime pay. For other jobs, positions that are easier to determine are mostly hourly paid. Such as draftsmen, system maintainers, accountants, etc. Reasonable distribution of the annual salary system and the ratio of the annual salary system can save the company's personnel expenses while ensuring the company's normal operation.

3 Project Management of American Architectural Firms

3.1 Document Management and Drawing Standards

The preliminary operation time of real estate projects in the United States is generally longer than that of similar projects in China. The design cycle of some large-scale projects will last 5-7 years, and personnel turnover in the United States is relatively frequent. In order to ensure the continuity of work, standardized document management systems and drawing standards are very important.

On the first day of work for a new employee, managers usually focus on introducing the company's file archiving system and system specifications. A manual is printed for employees to refer to at any time. The projects of American Architects Office have their own unified numbers, and different stages of the same project also have their corresponding stage sub-numbers. When the project reaches a certain stage, it will be assigned by

The company's full-time document management personnel are responsible for periodic archiving. These once tedious tasks are easily accomplished on today's office systems, and institutional norms are more systematic. There are strict regulations on everything from map size, order, format, to soil layer naming, line type selection, drawing scale, label text size, etc. After this standard is uniformly applied. The design drawings are like going on an assembly line. Cooperation between designers becomes coordinated and smooth. And no matter who takes over, they can quickly get into shape. Most domestic design institutes can ensure that finished product drawings comply with national drawing specifications. Drawing habits vary from person to person, making it difficult to take over. If we can learn from foreign experience, we can reduce our dependence on individual draftsmen and make the project team's manpower arrangements more flexible.

3.2 Project team staffing

Two common models in American architectural firms are:

1) Fixed project team staffing

It means that some personnel form a long-term working group with fixed cooperation. The advantage of this model is that the members of the group are relatively familiar with each other, have a clear division of labor, and are easy to cooperate. The disadvantage is that it is not conducive to training new people and the generation of new ideas and concepts. At the same time, it is not conducive to the overall allocation of human resources from the company as a whole. This organizational form often results in certain work groups being extremely busy while other work groups have nothing to do. Sometimes entire work groups quit. This form is usually used by large firms with many employees.

2) Flexible allocation

Generally, the preliminary work of a project is mainly undertaken by the project manager alone. As the work progresses, the company management staff coordinates and deploys design and drafting personnel of various types of work to participate. The advantage of this model is that it is easy to organize human resources reasonably, but managers need to understand and grasp the work progress of each person on each project in real time. Today's software resources make this job much easier. Judging from the current situation. This model is more suitable for small and medium-sized firms.

3.3 Quality Management

The American and international architect markets implement an architect responsibility system. The client can pursue the architect through the court for losses caused within the scope of its liability, so a complete quality control system must be established. At present, most domestic design units have incorporated into the ISO9001:2000 quality management system and are in line with international standards. If strictly implemented, the design quality should be guaranteed.

American firms have some experience in details that we can learn from. For example, when the drawing review architect discovers an error, he will mark it with a red highlighter pen on the drawing. Every time the person who corrects the drawing corrects an error, he will mark it with a yellow highlighter pen. The unclear parts will not be left intact until the changes are completed. Return the original drawings and new drawings to the architect for review. This simple method may seem simple, but if strictly implemented, it can reduce a lot of duplication of work by the map maker and reviewer and speed up the drawing process. At the same time, retaining the modified process diagram can provide original data for future review reviews.

4 Service Scope

Compared with traditional domestic architectural design units, many architect firms in the United States undertake a wider range of services, larger qualifications and more detailed division of labor. Cooperation. In addition to initial design, expanded construction drawings, and construction supervision, their service scope also includes: 1) early-stage construction plans; 2) pre-construction project cost evaluation and control; 3) application for all necessary construction permits in the region Certification; 4) Later evaluation after the project is completed.

4.1 Preliminary construction plan

It is completed jointly by the architect firm and the developer***.

U.S. developers must obtain local government and public approval for their development proposals. The first step is to make a master plan and submit it to the Building Bureau for approval. The competent functional departments include: municipal engineering, municipal planning, regulations, regional planning, environment, historical protection, etc. The procedure is as follows:

(1) Proposal pre-application meeting; (2) Formal proposal application; (3) Proposal review: (4) Public hearing; (5) Final decision

The competent functional departments of the local government handle matters strictly in accordance with the law, and the regulations and provisions are very There are few detailed human intervention factors. The purpose of government departments is to actively help developers understand policies and regulations to achieve development goals without compromising public health, safety and property. The developer's development plan mainly depends on the participation of the architect firm.

4.2 Controlling the project cost

American architect firms play an important role in controlling the project cost. The average net profit margin of the real estate industry in the United States is 5, so the project leader must have precise control over the cost. Legally, the error between settlement and budget cannot exceed 7. This requires architects to not only understand various building components and local To determine the price in the construction market, we need to work closely with valuation consultants, construction manufacturers and material suppliers at every stage of the project.

4.3 Help customers apply for building permits

The building codes followed by the design include federal, state, county and community. Design specifications. A building permit (Building Permit) must be applied for construction. Building permits in the United States are divided into counties and residential areas by grade, and must be applied for separately. And their terms sometimes conflict or overlap. Many buildings are also required to be located where they are located. Regional hearings will be conducted to discuss its feasibility. These require close cooperation between the architect firm, the client, and the government office.

4.4 Post-evaluation

The post-evaluation is mainly carried out by the client. The builder and the architect complete it together.

5 Market positioning, development and promotion

Many design firms in the United States have marketing departments or employ professional market development research. Personnel or consulting companies. Professional marketing personnel have a very systematic analysis and understanding of various media and customer groups, and have first-hand statistical data, which will provide useful information and suggestions for the company's market development. The developers are mainly responsible for the following tasks:

1) Bidding assistance: working with company management to formulate design letters of intent (Proposal), company introduction materials (Resume), bidding proposals, etc.

2) Corporate image promotion: corporate logo (Logo), website, brochures, souvenirs, etc.

3) Social activities: organize gift exchanges with clients during holidays, assist the company in participating in social activities, hold lectures, provide free training, contact the media, attend seminars, collect news events and information related to the firm's business, etc. .

The importance of social welfare activities lies in developing potential customers: some architects from my company volunteer to help students in several public middle schools in the city to carry out extracurricular interest activities, teaching them to become familiar with some drawing software and understand architecture. Overview of the work of the design firm. Later, it helped the company obtain many projects in these middle schools. The company also provides fixed internship places for the architecture departments of several universities in the city every year and has become one of the designated architectural design institutions of these universities. Shimai proves that social activities are one of the most effective means of expanding business.

6 New Technologies and New Concepts

Domestic architect offices have long abandoned their drawing boards and replaced them with computers and large printers. However, many architects' concept of "high technology" is only based on AutoGAD computer drawing, and they have little exposure to office automation, computer-aided manufacturing, etc.

The revolution brought by new technology to architectural offices is not only in the field of drawing, but also in office automation, project management, engineering budgeting and other aspects. It helps us reduce our reliance on personal experience and helps us deal with heavy forms. and documentation improve accuracy and productivity.

Currently, project managers at American architects offices mainly rely on Microsoft office series, Project series, Adobe image processing series and other software to effectively organize resources and track tasks to ensure that the project meets the schedule and budget.

Other offices have begun to use 3D printers to expand designers' imagination. Domestic architects are generally too lazy to make rough prototypes and submit proposals. The introduction of new technology and equipment can help improve the quality of design.

Leaving aside the many new concepts purely commercially hyped by developers, Green Building is a new concept that has really gradually affected the development of our future building models in recent years, and thus gave birth to LEED ( Leadership in Energy & Environment Design) The literal translation of LEED in English is: Leadership in Energy and Environment Design.

Different from many previous studies, LEED has clear organizational charter, specifications, and a complete set of rating systems. It can score buildings based on their layout, materials, construction methods, etc. Measures that help save energy and protect the environment will receive higher scores. In order for the building to meet certain LEED standards, certified engineering and technical personnel must be used to guide the completion of the design. The LEED Association provides technical personnel of various types of work. qualification certification and training. Architectural firms have organized personnel to participate in order to keep up with the changes of the times in the competition in the next 10 years. For architects, the LEED certificate has become another important professional certificate in addition to the architect certificate. Although it has not yet been enforced by law, this scoring system is gradually being accepted and applied by knowledgeable people in American society and government. For example, some counties and cities have stipulated that all government-funded projects, such as Libraries, hospitals, schools, government agencies, etc. must meet the corresponding LEED standards (i.e. points), and at the same time, corresponding subsidies and financial support will be given to buildings that meet the standards.

Many domestic studies and articles on green buildings also include green building standards based on the American LEED standards. However, it is necessary to effectively increase the promotion and implementation from the perspective of the government, so as to encourage the real estate industry to cooperate with The design community breaks away from the hype of commercial concepts and pragmatically invests human, financial and technological capital. At the same time, the government should introduce relevant preferential incentive policies to guide my country's construction industry in the direction of positive and sustainable development.

7 Several Suggestions

At present, many large design institutes in China have Facing the juncture of decoupling and enterprise reform, the author believes that domestic architectural design enterprises can take this opportunity to complete resource reorganization. The purpose of resource reorganization is to achieve the most reasonable allocation of social resources. First, analyze the shortcomings (resource disadvantages) of the current resource allocation system and then through Concentrate resources to generate resource advantages (scale effect, strong alliance) and finally transform resource advantages into competitive advantages (obtain benefits). It should be pointed out that from the perspective of the business characteristics of architectural firms, resource advantages do not necessarily require scale advantages to form competitive advantages. Foster + Partners, which ranks third in the world in terms of annual turnover, has a higher turnover than the top two firms. There is almost no difference, but the number of employees is only 1/4 to 1/5 of the top two. The architecture firm’s workforce strives for excellence rather than excess.

While reorganizing resources, design institutions should not pay too much attention to immediate interests, but should seize all available opportunities to participate in major domestic and foreign projects, and increase their exposure to international market real estate development institutions (investment banks, district and urban developers). Organizations, real estate companies, multinational engineering contracting companies, etc.), understand the operating model and the development process of large-scale international projects, learn the strengths of overseas counterparts, maximize the market share and viability of enterprises, and lay a solid foundation for joining competition and long-term development.

Historical commentaries say that the difference between Liu Bang and Han Xin is that "Han Xin is good at using troops and Pei Gong is good at commanding generals." The ability to lead people is the most important ability of a manager. Many management systems in China still follow the experience of "technical excellence leads to management". Management is mostly selected from technical backbones. The disadvantage of this is that it is easy to overemphasize technical capabilities and ignore management and control capabilities. The internal affairs manager of the author's company is not an architect, but was originally a senior manager of a hospital.

In the architectural office, he is in charge of human resources, allocates the work of all personnel, and conducts comprehensive evaluations of employees' performance: the big boss only talks about projects outside, and she takes care of everything in the office. His rigorous and scientific management methods and excellent interpersonal coordination skills make the entire firm have a relaxed atmosphere and efficient work. It has been growing steadily and rapidly in recent years. Therefore, excellent management talents are crucial for architectural design offices.

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