Architecture industry needs to be structured
The Hindu : ng exponentially, construction and architectural firms are growing rapidly as well. Typically, a 50-member architectural firm of today would have had a strength of 12 to 15 a few years earlier. As firms scale up, problems in maintaining quality of output and standards are encountered.
At the entry level, architectural firms in India spend about Rs. 70,000-Rs. 90,000 per employee, and in some cases close to Rs. 1.5 lakh for seeing them grow. Currently this segment faces attrition levels exceeding 50 per cent. Attrition rates are at similar levels, even at middle and senior ranks, as architects who have experience and know-how are in great demand.
In order to understand the issues involved, Bangalore-based e2e Business Solutions conducted a survey for adapting the best practices in architectural firms, particularly from the U.S. The survey covered 10 leading architectural firms in the U.S.
Better structure
“In our preliminary survey we found the U.S. architectural firms have better corporatised structure leading to enhanced transparency and clear-cut career paths,” said Yeshasvini Ramaswamy, director, people practices, e2e Business Solutions. “American firms tend to be system oriented, which helps achieve higher output and quality. In addition, systems tend to capture metrics that one can work and build on,” the e2e survey seems to feel.
Some of the organisations surveyed include Gensler, a $ 536 million firm, with over 2,900 employees in 29 offices worldwide; and Callison, a 750-employee company with $ 129.5 million turnover.
“Implementing processes that are transparent with clearly demarcated accountability and sound people management practices helps mitigate problems in attrition and quality of work output” finds out Yeshasvini after the endeavour.
Findings of the e2e survey
* The office must become a resource centre for information,…More
