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For the most part, structural engineering firm employees nationwide are fortunate to enjoy career satisfaction, exhibited by professional growth, fair compensation, and positive relationships among fellow employees and managers. Additionally, structural engineering firm employees reap the benefits of contributing not only to their individual and firm’s success, but also to their community by designing safe structures that meet citizen needs.

Since our professional pursuits constitute the majority of our daily lives, it is important for our health and well-being to make them as positive as possible. Choosing to work at a reputable firm that offers a great work environment is paramount. Therefore, Structural Engineer hosted the third annual Best Structural Engineering Firm To Work For Contest to honor those firms that offer great workplaces and to encourage continued excellence in providing high-quality work environments for structural engineers. The following article reports the results of the contest, indicating the top 15 firms—the shining stars—and firms that deserved honorable mention.

Who entered the contest?

Firms that entered the contest are as varied as the faces that staff them! The youngest firm in the competition,Wright Engineers, has been in business for only seven years, while the oldest firm, No. 1- ranked Walter P. Moore, was established 74 years ago. The firms that entered ranged dramatically in terms of size as well, employing from 10 to 460 employees and operating from zero to 13 branch offices. The median size, 42 employees with 1 branch office, shows that most of the structural engineering firms are small compared with others in the greater engineering consulting industry.

But just because they are small, doesn’t mean that they can’t offer to employees a wonderful work environment and promising careers. In fact, here are some statistics to show the caliber of the firms that competed: The average annual gross revenue growth rate during the past three fiscal years for the competing firms is 10 percent to 20 percent.Additionally, the majority of firms had a net pre-tax, pre-bonus profit/loss margin of 15 percent or more. Sixty-two percent of the firms won national awards between 2004 and 2005, and 82 percent won local or regional awards in the same time period. Firms rewarded staff well last year, with a median percentage increase in staff payroll of 6 percent.Additionally, the overall voluntary turnover rate for 2004 averaged only 8.3 percent.

How are the firms that entered most similar? Ninety-one percent of the firms that competed are privately owned. Most described themselves as being "clientfocused," as having a "team-oriented, collaborative environment," and a culture "focused on integrity." The firms reported an open-door policy to encourage employee feedback and provide training to all employees (as opposed to providing training just to some employees or professional staff ). The majority of firms (68 percent) offer a 401k or other retirement plan with an employer match; distribute bonuses to all staff, rather than just select staff (82 percent); and pay an average of 97 percent of employees’ medical insurance premiums.

Of course, when you look at the whole package, some firms stand out above the rest.Our 15 top-ranked firms receive the highest accolades, but of course, we would be remiss not to mention several other firms we have noted as honorable mentions. Read on to learn who topped the list and why!

The best of the best

The top three firms deserve special recognition for their excellent workplaces. These three firms, as described below, exemplify what it means to be a "best firm to work for."

First place: Walter P.Moore (WPM)

According to Jennifer Hu, an associate with ZweigWhite and one of the contest judges, "WPM clearly stood out as the number one firm in both the Corporate and Employee Satisfaction Surveys. Additionally, the company demonstrated a number of attributes that were outstanding in comparison to the other firms." Some of those attributes include above-average compensation and benefits plans, a significant number of firm-sponsored social events to promote camaraderie, and an excellent professional development program that includes a host of training opportunities and a mentoring program for new graduate engineers. Additionally, the firm has a distinctive history of philanthropy and community service.

One trait of a "best firm to work for" is continual improvement. According to the firm’s CEO and Chairman of the Board Raymond Messer, during the past year, the firm "increased its vacation benefit for mid-level employees, hired staff to better balance the workload, brought in financial benefit consultants to help staff plan for their financial future, and retained a benefits and compensation consultant to review our plan. As a result, we will be improving our short-term disability coverage beginning in 2006 and revisiting our salary structure at certain levels within the firm." Judging panel member John Geddie, a principal of Martin-Simonds Associates, summed up WPM’s outstanding practice when he said, "The firm balances financial performance with genuine commitments to its employees to become an employer of choice."

Second place: Steven Schaefer Associates, Inc. (SSA)

This privately-owned company has grown from a sole proprietorship to a 41- person firm with 15 owners since it was founded in 1976. Employee feedback indicated 100 percent satisfaction with the firm’s quality of work for clients, ethical business practices, opportunities for socializing and celebrating special events, physical work atmosphere, compensation for overtime or extraordinary effort, and balance between work and personal life.

Carol A. Metzner, a contest judge and the president of The Metzner Group, LLC, was impressed with the firm’s policy of sharing financial information with staff. "SSA practices an open-book management style, sharing financial performance with employees and educating them on the importance of financial goals. When monthly goals are met, the company springs for lunch and dessert," she said.

Judging panel member Greg Churchman, an interview and retention strategist with Churchman Consulting Solutions, Inc., noted several unique actions the firm takes to help create a great workplace, including performing 360-degree evaluations; spending a halfday together constructing a Habitat for Humanity home (the firm pays employees for the time and provides lunch); and honoring four employees annually, selected by co-workers, with a monetary recognition award.

Third place: ARW Engineers (ARW)

Hu recognized that "it was apparent that ARW is a firm that highly emphasizes the importance of family and providing a close-knit work environment." In fact, the firm’s core values statement includes the following: "ARW as a whole is greater than any one individual.Overall success of ARW determines how well we can provide for our families and ourselves. Employees who place their families as the highest priority will be successful at ARW.

Trust, teamwork, and communication are fundamental to our success." The firm lives up to its values, in part, through its exceptional benefits and compensation package, which include 100-percent paid medical and dental insurance for staff and their families, an above-average employer match for its 401k plan, and a profit sharing contribution to the retirement plan. Additionally, the firm offers flexible schedules to all staff, hosts a family picnic and holiday party, encourages open communication among employees, and promotes teamwork.

Furthermore, as stated by President Brent L. White, "Working together as an entire firm and minimizing individual competition within our organization has always been a strength." He added, "All employees know that they are integral to firm success.We emphasize that there is not an ‘us versus them’ culture at ARW." These three firms exhibit a desire to be a great employer, have acted on that desire, and are succeeding.We congratulate them on their success and look forward to learning how they grow and improve in the future! Contest changes This contest has evolved greatly over the years since its inception. More than twice as many factors are used to compare firms today than when the program began. Additionally, employee feedback—a component added for the first time this year—accounts for 50 percent of a firm’s overall grade. In addition, the grading process and criteria has changed dramatically over time. We reward firms that meet or exceed the average benefit offerings, metrics, and employee feedback. This means that the stronger the pool of entrants, the tougher the competition. Additionally, we incorporated the results of industry data to give more weight to those aspects of the workplace that matter more to employees and less weight to those that matter less. (In the future, we don’t anticipate such drastic changes in our grading process.) What’s more, more firms competed than ever before. Remarkably, this year 50 percent of the competitors were new comers to the competition. Eight firms that competed in 2004 did not compete in 2005 -— citing reasons such as poor timing and workload for their lack of participation. At least two 2005 noncompetitors were in the top 15 last year, so you can’t assume that if a firm isn’t on the 2005 list that it dropped in ranking! Unlike college rankings, which rate the same schools year-after-year, this contest changes annually. Since our grading process rates firms against the pool of competitors, the quality of the applicants can affect the outcome dramatically.

The process

Structural Engineer announced the contest and posted the entry form (known as the Corporate Survey) online. Completing the first step to enter, contestants responded to the questions on the Corporate Survey and returned it by the deadline.Next, following the directions from our staff, the competing firms launched the required Employee Satisfaction Survey to their staff. Firms were encouraged to achieve a minimum 20-percent response rate to the anonymous survey.

Next our staff graded the Corporate and Employee Satisfaction Surveys—which make up the two, equallyweighted components of the grading process—for all firms, and determined a raw score for each component. (The method used to determine the raw scores is described below.) We used the standard deviation and mean to distribute the firms’ scores for each component, which gave more weight to firms that scored well outside of the average. We used the sum of the distributed scores for both components to rank the firms.

The top three firms made it to the final round, which means that our judging panel re-ranks these firms. In addition to using the information provided in Corporate and Employee Satisfaction Surveys, the judges learn more about the top finishers through personal interviews with the presidents and human resource directors at the firms.Then they use their best judgment given their expertise in recruiting, retention, and human resource issues to rank the firms in order.We tally the judges’ results to establish the final order of the top three winners.

Corporate Survey

Most questions on the Corporate Survey were graded using one of two main methods. The first type compared a firm’s response to the median response of the contestant pool. If a firm met or exceeded the median, then points were awarded. For example, the median voluntary turnover rate for all the firms that entered the contest was 9 percent. Therefore, if a firm had a 9 percent or lower turnover rate, it earned points; firms with a turnover rate higher than 9 percent did not earn any points. The second method simply awarded points if a benefit was offered or if the affirmative response to a question was given. For example, if a firm offers a flexible medical spending account to staff, it earned points; likewise, if a firm said it has a non-discriminatory culture regarding age, gender, race, and religion, it earned points. More important attributes were worth more points; for example, beating the average voluntary turnover rate was worth more points than hosting a company picnic.

Questions were arranged by categories, including culture, benefits, performance/recognition, compensation, professional development, recruiting/ retention, and general. The total points earned for each category were normalized and weighted. The weighting factors were based on data collected during the 2004 Employee Satisfaction Survey for the Best Civil Engineering Firm To Work For Contest. From this survey, we learned what attributes, benefits, and practices are important to engineering firm employees. Finally, the total from each category was combined to determine the total raw score for the Corporate Survey component.

Employee Satisfaction Survey—All of the Employee Satisfaction Survey questions were graded (other than demographic questions) using a method that compared, for each question, a firm’s average positive response to the average positive response of the contestant pool (referred to as the Benchmark). For example, employees were asked to respond on a scale of 1 to 6, where 1 is the most undesirable response and 6 is the most desirable response, how well their firm provided a team environment. If a firm met or exceeded the Benchmark, it earned a point for the question. Remarkably, feedback from 1,395 structural engineering firm employees was included in this process! The grading method for the Employee Satisfaction Survey was similar to that of the Corporate Survey from this point forward. The total points earned for each category were normalized and weighted with a factor determined from our research; then the total from each category was combined to determine the total raw score for the Employee Satisfaction Survey component of the overall score.

Final thoughts

We have executed this contest for the past three years and each year we learn more to improve the process.

This year’s changes to the contest and inclusion of the employee feedback, while significant (and we do not anticipate such dramatic changes each year), added much value and credibility to the contest. After all, who else is more qualified to determine the "best firm to work for" than the employees? We applaud all of the winners of this year’s contest for all of their successes in providing outstanding work environments for employees.We look forward to improvements—both yours and ours—in the future.