HR Insights with Amanda Moxham: Series Part 3 - Onboarding

Image created with Copilot. © 2025 Microsoft.

Greetings, visionary architects! 

Welcome to the third offering of our HR series to support you in building a strong cultural foundation within your organization. Last quarter’s newsletter focused on Recruitment and today’s insights will focus on what happens after you make a hiring decision and you’re preparing to bring your new hire onboard.    

Part 3: Reimagining Onboarding: The Disruption Architecture Firms Need  

Onboarding has often been reduced to a checklist: sign paperwork, meet the team, and learn the software. But in an industry as creative and impactful as architecture, this transactional approach is outdated. If we’re serious about fostering innovation, equity, and belonging, onboarding needs a bold transformation. Let’s disrupt the status quo and turn onboarding into an experience that integrates new hires into the firm’s mission, culture, and values from day one. 

Mind-blowing stats (with some links to great articles): 

• Retention Rates: Organizations with strong onboarding processes can increase employee retention by 82%. (SaaSWorthy) 

• Decision Timeframe: 70% of new hires decide whether a job is the right fit within the first month, with 29% making this decision within the first week. (BambooHR) 

• Onboarding Experience: Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job of onboarding new hires. (Forbes) 

• Structured Programs: New employees who underwent a structured onboarding program were 58% more likely to remain with the organization after three years. (Clickboarding) 

Effective onboarding boosts new hire retention which translates to less turnover, higher engagement, and a workforce that’s set up to thrive. The real cost of turnover is often overlooked. There are direct costs for recruitment that are easy to calculate, but there are also viscerally felt indirect costs that can damage team culture and morale. Lost productivity, knowledge and skills gaps, increased workload for existing employees, delays in project completion, client relationship maintenance, time spent interviewing and onboarding all cost the firm in more deeply felt ways.  

Let’s take a look at how to reimagine our onboarding by putting the new team member at the center. Ensure that their experience is holistic, thoughtful, and connects the new team member to the pulse of the firm in a way that creates long-lasting alignment. The key tenets are to craft a holistic orientation, invest in mentorship, and embrace continuous feedback.  

Holistic Orientation: The Foundation of Belonging 

Orientation shouldn’t feel like an afterthought; it should be the cornerstone of an employee’s journey. Architecture firms must go beyond logistics to craft an immersive experience: 

• Cultural Deep Dives: Dedicate time to exploring the firm’s history, ethos, values. Showcase real examples of how these values shape your work and workplace. When have they been tested? When have they been affirmed? 

• Interactive Sessions: Instead of one-way presentations, use workshops, collaborative exercises, and storytelling to make orientation engaging. 

• Connection Points: Introduce employees to internal committees or affinity groups during orientation to immediately establish a sense of belonging. Affinity groups are voluntary, employee-led teams within organizations that share a common interest, background, or goal. These groups can be based on factors like gender, ethnicity, or a shared interest, such as environmental sustainability or professional development. They serve as a platform for employees to network, learn, and support each other. 

Mentorship for All: Beyond Just Guidance 

Mentorship can’t be reserved for senior staff or an exclusive group of team members. It must be a universal offering. Establishing a strong internal mentor/mentee structure enables development opportunities for existing team members while also deepening relationships and connection points: 

• Pairing by Purpose: Match new hires with mentors who align with their career aspirations or lived experiences. Ensure mentors are provided with resources, training, and guidance on effective mentorship. 

• Two-Way Street: Encourage mentors to learn from mentees, fostering mutual growth and understanding. 

• Mentorship Across the Firm: Consider cross-departmental pairings to give new hires broader insights into the firm’s operations and culture. 

This approach ensures that mentorship becomes a cornerstone of professional development and inclusion, rather than a token gesture. 

Continuous Feedback: A Real-Time Improvement Loop 

Feedback isn’t just for annual reviews—it’s a powerful tool for growth and accountability: 

• Onboarding Audits: Conduct regular check-ins during the first 90 days to gather feedback on the onboarding process from the perspectives of the new hire, their manager, their mentor, and team members. 

• Real-Time Adjustments: Act swiftly on feedback to show new hires that their voices matter. 

• Feedback as Connection: Use these conversations to build trust and reinforce that feedback is a core component of the firm’s culture. 

In addition to what is shared above, some other forward-thinking practices that support equity include: 

• Start Onboarding Before Day One: 

• Once you have confirmed the start date for your new hire, consider what happens prior to their first day. Could they receive a welcome call from a leader, a handwritten note to let them know how excited you are for them to join the firm? Is there a gift package they could receive prior to or on day one including company-branded swag? 

• Personalized Onboarding Questionnaire:  

• Go beyond the basics – include questions to understand a new hire’s work style, communication preferences, favorite restaurants, activities, and hobbies. 

• Cultural Storytelling Sessions: 

• Create opportunities for new and existing team members to share their cultural or personal stories during informal gatherings or through team-building exercises. 

• Get to know what cultural celebrations are meaningful. Are there holidays that are not currently represented in which this person can educate others and incorporate into the ways the organization celebrates? 

• Strengths and Values Assessments: 

• Use tools like Gallup StrengthsFinder, DISC, or MBTI (just to name a few) to learn what motivates and energizes your new hires. Supplement these assessments with coaching, mentorship, and team building activities to increase empathy and understanding throughout the firm. 

By disrupting traditional practices, architecture firms can position themselves as industry leaders not just in design but in culture and innovation. Let’s build workplaces where everyone—from interns to principals—feels empowered to contribute their best. Together, we can shape the future of architecture—one bold change at a time. 

UVA Magazine: Building Big Careers

Meet eight School of Architecture alumni whose groundbreaking work is changing the world — By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

Full article and imagery on the UVA Magazine here.

Renovation of 170-year-old Trinity Church Wall Street on Broadway - Jeffrey Murphy (Arch ‘82)

Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture - Zena Howard (Arch 88’)

Graduating from UVA’s School of Architecture can be intense. But for these eight architects—and countless others—all those hours in the studio paid off. Here are some of the UVA-trained architects who are making major waves in the design world.

Full article and imagery on the UVA Magazine here.

UVA Magazine: The visionaries behind Grounds

Over nearly two centuries, many notable architects have built on Thomas Jefferson’s groundbreaking concept for his University. — By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

Full article and imagery on the UVA Magazine here.

Any architectural history of UVA starts with Thomas Jefferson, of course. His concept for the Academical Village, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was crafted across decades, nurtured through his passion, his knowledge of architecture, his world travels and his ideas about education. 

Jefferson’s vision was revolutionary, says noted architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson, UVA professor emeritus. During that period, most universities were simply one large block of a building, Wilson said. 

But Jefferson believed that learning should extend beyond lecture halls, Wilson says. “His idea was that education wasn’t just simply the professor blabbering away in a classroom, but is the environment that surrounds you, both going in the classroom and coming out.”

Today, the Academical Village remains central to UVA’s identity and mission. But since the Rotunda opened nearly 200 years ago, Grounds has hardly remained static, and its shape has sometimes responded to the trends of the day as leading architects brought their own mark to the campus. 

In the 1850s, for example, buildings and grounds director William A. Pratt began to veer from Jefferson’s neoclassical approach to more trendy styles, according to UVA’s Historic Preservation Framework Plan, a history of UVA’s post-Jefferson buildings and landscapes. That move away later resulted in an “Eclectic Period,” featuring  Brooks Hall with its mansard roof and animal carvings, and the University Chapel with its flying buttresses.  

The City Beautiful and associated University Beautiful movements, which hit their stride in the 1880s and 1890s, represented a shift back to the classical and early governmental architecture in the United States, Wilson says. On Grounds, it came in the form of McKim, Mead & White’s redesign of the Rotunda and the original South Lawn buildings. 

By the early 1900s, UVA was growing. Amid this need for expansion, President Edwin Alderman created an Architectural Commission in 1921, filling it with notable architects of the time, to bring some “harmony to the architecture,” Wilson said. Commission members jointly designed buildings such as Scott Stadium, Memorial Gymnasium, Thornton Hall, Clark Hall and Brown College.

By the middle of the 1900s, the Architectural Commission had disbanded, but more construction—along with a more modern take on architecture, in some cases—arrived.

At each of these points and across UVA’s history, notable architects left their marks at UVA. Here are some of the luminaries whose work graces Grounds, as well as where you will find their work out in the rest of the world. 

Full article and imagery on the UVA Magazine here.

HR Insights with Amanda Moxham: Series Part 2 - Inclusive Recruitment

Image created with Copilot in Microsoft Edge. © 2024 Microsoft.

Greetings, visionary architects!

Welcome to the second offering of our six-part HR series to support you in building a strong cultural foundation within your organization. Today, I am sharing some insights on disrupting the traditional recruitment process to move us toward more thoughtful, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) aligned strategies and tactics.

Part 2: Disrupting Traditional Hiring: Inclusive Recruitment

Shifting an organization’s culture does not happen overnight. Culture work happens in everything we do (and don’t do) in the eyes of our colleagues, internal/external partners, and clients. Recruitment is one of the most exciting actions an organization can take to impact the culture. Today, we’ll explore how to integrate DEIA practices into your recruitment efforts.

Mind-blowing stats:

·        Companies with inclusive language in job postings see a 30% increase in applications from diverse candidates. (Reducing Gender Bias in Job Descriptions, Textio, 2018).

·        Companies with diverse interview panels are 70% more likely to capture new markets.
(Why Diversity Matters, McKinsey & Company, 2015).

When a team member puts in their notice, we often move into hyperdrive. We pull up the last job description we used, we post it online quickly, and we cross our fingers hoping we get some great talent interested in the role. But what if we took a pause? What if we took the time to move beyond this traditional approach? Let’s dive into how to craft job descriptions that appeal to a wider range of candidates and how to conduct interviews that are both inclusive and effective.

Redefining Job Descriptions

Starting with job descriptions, let’s consider how we can be intentional about inclusion and accessibility. Here are three ways you can revolutionize your approach:

• Inclusive Language: Eliminate gendered language and replace it with gender-neutral terms. For example, instead of "he/she," use "they" or "the successful candidate."

• DEIA Commitment: Make your commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility explicit within the job description. Beyond being an equal employment opportunity employer, include your firm’s core values or DEIA statement.

• Attributes and Skills-Focus: Focus on the skills and experiences that matter most. By emphasizing capabilities, you’ll attract a broader range of candidates with unique and diverse backgrounds. Pull together a small group of team members who would be working with the person in this role and ask them: What are the “must have” skills and attributes? What are the “nice to have” elements?

Transforming Interviews: Focus on the Candidate Experience

While the applications are rolling in, you’ll want to design your interview format. Remember, the process of inviting candidates to interview is the candidate’s first real encounter with your organization. Be mindful that you want every aspect of the candidates’ experience to be one in which they feel welcomed and valued and not just another meeting on your calendar. Ensure the following are prioritized:

• Structured and Fair: Implement a structured interview process with a consistent set of questions for all candidates aligned to the job description and the mission, vision, and values of the firm. This helps minimize unconscious bias and ensures everyone is evaluated on a level playing field.

• Diverse Panels: Assemble a diverse interview panel incorporating colleagues from a wide array of backgrounds and roles. Different perspectives lead to a more holistic evaluation and demonstrate your firm’s commitment to DEIA. Facilitate a kick-off meeting including all interview team members to align on the needs of the role.

• Behavioral Insights: Focus on behavioral questions that reveal how candidates have navigated various situations in the past. This approach provides deeper insights into their problem-solving abilities and teamwork skills in diverse environments. Asking hypothetical questions often reveals how well a candidate thinks on their feet but does not tend to provide an accurate assessment of how the candidate will perform in a non-theoretical situation.

In addition to what is shared above, some other forward-thinking practices that support equity include:

·        Providing a stipend to candidates who you invite for interviews. Consider the time and logistics it requires for a candidate to re-arrange their schedules, travel to your site, and potentially miss work at their current job. If you do decide to offer a stipend, include that information in your job posting as a tangible way to cause candidates to take notice of how you care about them.

·        Use Generative AI to check your biases. AI is a fantastic resource if you use the right prompts! ALWAYS review the content, edit, and refine as needed to put the human touch back into the process. Here’s an example of a structured, equity-minded prompt:

a)      Role: Act as an equity-minded interviewer of an architecture firm.

b)      Request: Create a list of 20 behavior-based interview questions based on the attached job description (upload job description).

c)      Goals: To enhance the culture and goals of our firm, specifically in areas of xyz (upload company mission, vision, values, goals, or other relevant information).

d)      Context: The questions should cover prior work experience, communication skills, collaboration, and other attributes that are critical to the success of this role (be specific if you have key attributes that you don’t want to miss).

e)      Instructions: Please ensure the questions are structured to minimize bias and offer a depth and breadth of questions so that we can get to know the candidate well.

Recruitment is a critical piece to cultivating your firm’s culture. By challenging traditional methods and embracing new practices, you’ll not only attract top talent, but also create a firm where everyone can thrive.

HR Insights with Amanda Moxham: Series Intro + Part 1, Psychological Safety

Editorial by Amanda Moxham, Chief HR Officer @ UVA Alumni Association

Image created with Copilot in Microsoft Edge. © 2024 Microsoft.

Greetings, visionary architects! 

Architecture plays a critical role in contributing to a more just and inclusive society. By prioritizing inclusive design, equitable access, and community engagement, architects create progressive spaces that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). So, how are we taking these same principles and applying them to our most crucial resource – our people? 

The architecture industry is evolving, and so should our approach to all things in the Human Resources (HR) realm. Over the past 20+ years, the HR profession has progressed from a transactional administrative function to a strategic business partner. A few areas of HR expertise include organizational culture, talent acquisition, talent development, organizational design, team effectiveness, performance management, succession planning, and much more.  

Today, we will begin a six-part HR series to support you in building that strong foundation within your organization. I will offer both strategic and tactical guidance to support you on your journey of disrupting the status quo to develop thoughtful human-centered strategies to drive your firm to new heights. 

Part 1: Building Resilient Teams: The Role of Psychological Safety in Architectural Firms 

Imagine a workplace where every idea is heard, mistakes are seen as learning opportunities, and every team member feels safe to take risks. This is the essence of psychological safety, and it’s a game-changer for organizational culture. As many firms are focused on DEIA, the Inclusion aspect is a distinct outcome of establishing and sustaining psychological safety. Today, we’ll explore why it’s critical for innovation and resilience, and how to foster it within your firm. 

Mind-blowing stats: 

• Teams with high psychological safety are 12 times more likely to be innovative. 

(The Role of Psychological Safety in Radical and Incremental Innovation, Academy of Management Journal, 2019). 

• Companies with high empathy levels perform 20% better than their peers.  

(The Empathy Business: The Empathy Effect, Harvard Business Review, 2016). 

• Teams that prioritize psychological safety see a 27% increase in employee retention.  

(Building a Psychologically Safe Workplace, Gallup, 2018). 

Psychological safety is about creating an environment where people feel comfortable being themselves without fear of negative consequences. Encouraging open dialogue and embracing mistakes as learning opportunities leads to team members being more likely to share ideas, concerns, and feedback. These elements lead to trust-building, better decision-making, innovation, experimentation, and continuous improvement.   

Promoting Psychological Safety 

Fostering psychological safety requires intentional, sustained effort. Here’s how to promote it in your firm: 

• Lead by Example: Whether you are in a formal leadership role or not, you play a key role in setting the tone for psychological safety. By being open, approachable, and supportive, you encourage others to do the same. 

• Encourage Vulnerability: Create an environment where vulnerability is seen as a strength. Encourage team members to share their uncertainties and ask for help. 

• Emphasize Empathy: Foster a culture of empathy where team members actively listen and support each other. This builds trust and strengthens team cohesion. 

To make psychological safety a core part of your culture, integrate it into your daily practices. Consider how you start team meetings, internal project kick-offs, and how you facilitate retroactive assessments of projects mid-stream or at the conclusion. Here are three favorites of mine: 

• The Personal Histories Exercise from Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, team members share their answers to a short list of questions. This exercise provides context on people’s lives and an opportunity to understand people outside of your day-to-day work. Typically, organic conversations grow out of this low-stakes activity. Some question examples include: 

1. Where did you grow up? 

1. What was your first job? Worst job? 

1. How many siblings do you have? 

1. What do you do in your free time? 
    

• The 4Ls Exercise used at Atlassian, is a different format of a review or “retro” when a project or work cycle finishes to reflect on how it went. With this format, team members highlight what they loved, loathed, learned, and longed for. And it’s not just about the work itself. Encourage your team to think about people, processes, office space/environment, technology usage, team behaviors, and other aspects of the project. 
   

• Personal Soundtrack Exercise is a fun way to get to know your fellow team members in a different way—through music. Music has a powerful way of transporting us to another time, place, or feeling. Working in pairs, each person “interviews” their partner to learn about 3 impactful songs in that person’s life. It could be a song from their childhood, their first concert, a cringe-worthy song that they just can’t help but love. The opportunities are endless! After the interviews are over, the team reunites to give everyone the opportunity to process what they learned, what surprised them, or any other realizations. The last step is to create a team playlist integrating everyone’s songs into Spotify or Apple Music. These playlists become the soundtrack for the team and never fail to bring a little joy! 

By cultivating a culture of psychological safety, you’ll build resilient, innovative, and engaged teams that are prepared to tackle any challenge. Stay tuned for more insights and strategies in our upcoming newsletters. Let’s create a workplace where everyone feels safe to share, innovate, and grow together! 

Design Technology Insight with Bethany Pritchard: Takeaways from AIA'24

Editorial by Bethany Pritchard, Design Technology Director @ VMDO Architects

Bethany Pritchard presents Small Firm Tech Strategies at TAP Forum during AIA24.

AIA '24 from a Design Technologist's Perspective

AIA '24 National Conference in Washington D.C. was filled with opportunities to learn about technology-focused topics. As Director of Design Technology at VMDO Architects, I made sure to optimize my schedule at AIA '24 to attend as many technology-focused sessions as possible. I'm also passionate about knowledge sharing and building a firm culture that not only provides learning opportunities but also encourages open collaboration and the sharing of knowledge with others. Therefore, I attended sessions on firm culture and knowledge sharing as well.

Highlights from the Conference:

TAP Symposium

By far, the TAP Symposium with Dr. Mehdi Nourbakhsh and Phil Bernstein, FAIA was the highlight of the conference. Both speakers were engaging and inspiring, providing valuable strategies for implementing AI into our workflows.

By now you've probably heard the phrase I've heard several times now: "AI will not replace you, but someone who knows how to use AI will". Another message I came away from AIA '24 with is that those of us who can figure out innovative ways to use AI will set us apart from the rest. We are moving into a new era. Looking at the past, our profession has experienced the Analog Era (Pen & Paper) & the Data Modeling Era (CAD). We're currently in the Information Modeling Era (BIM). What's next is the Knowledge Modeling Era (AI-assisted Design). As we move into this new era, new jobs that don't exist now will emerge. So how do we prepare ourselves and our industry for this future we speak of? We can start by identifying repetitive tasks or inefficient workflows that could be improved with AI. We can also look at our firm culture and make sure our people are supported and ready. As with all technology, successful adoption and implementation of AI will require equal parts, technology, people and process. To me, this directly relates to firm culture, and ties in nicely with another session I attended 'Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast'. That session was all about change management and strategies for developing a firm culture of openness to change (which in my mind means learning and growth), enhanced by collaboration and open knowledge sharing. A firm with this type of culture will not only ensure successful adoption of new technologies, but it will also attract new talent.

It's always nice to balance out the enthusiasm with a bit of realism. There were several conversations about areas of AI where we should use caution and be deliberate about how, where, when, and why we choose to use AI. It's tempting to jump on the AI bandwagon influenced by the AI hype, but instead we should focus on its practical applications rather than just using technology for technology's sake. With over 1,100 new AI products on the market for AEC, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. According to the Gartner Hype Cycle, which is a method of evaluating new technology, AI is currently at the 'Peak of Inflated Expectations'. The next phase is the 'Trough of Disillusionment', so you can imagine we've got a bumpy road ahead until we finally get to 'Plateau of Productivity', but AI will eventually get there!

TAP Forum

Joel Martineau of dRofus, and 2023 Chair of the National TAP Knowledge Community, led a panel discussion followed by quick presentations by local TAP components. I presented a short segment focusing on tips for planning successful TAP Community events and small firm technology strategies. It was great to connect with other TAP Knowledge Community enthusiasts!

EXPO

The EXPO was an impressive showcase of the latest tools and technologies in the industry, providing hands-on experiences and networking opportunities with leading tech innovators. I wish I had had more time to stop at more booths, but I was able to see Autodesk (of course), Trimble/SketchUp, Chaos/Enscape, Allegion (Overtur Revit Add-in), Snaptrude, Conspectus, and many others. The highlight for me: Snaptrude - this is an emerging company we should all be keeping an eye on!

Takeaways from other Sessions

Several other sessions lead by architects further explored AI's role in our industry, reinforcing the idea that AI will not replace us but will serve as a valuable tool to enhance our efficiency and the quality of our work. I gained a better understanding of how to use AI, what it is good at and what it's limitations are. Since attending AIA '24 my mindset about AI has shifted. One speaker suggested to think of AI as a coworker or an assistant – a collaboration that allows you to achieve more. Several sessions gave examples of ways to use AI, and examples of successful prompts along with the back and forth conversation with AI to refine the results. Now that I've started to view AI as an assistant to help me with part of a task, but not expect it to do the entire task for me, I have had more success. Also, understanding that AI's strength is language, which includes math and programming, I have tried to use it more for those types of tasks. In fact, I used AI to help me write this article... Can you tell?

One of the many things I love about VMDO Architects is that we have built a firm culture that supports continual learning and growth, similar to the type of firm culture I described earlier in this article. There is no doubt in my mind that we will come up with innovative ways we can use AI to enhance our work. In fact, we are hiring right now, so if you are passionate about education (designing buildings for academic environments and being immersed in a firm culture that supports lifelong learning), you should apply!