Real Estate and Construction
Power to the people
How to create a more effective performance review process
By Matt McClellan
Smart Business Cleveland | July 2008
Page 1 of 2
Richard L. Bowen
President and owner, Richard L. Bowen + Associates Inc.
Richard L. Bowen knowsthe secret to keepingemployees at his firm —he treats them as equals.
The president and owner ofRichard L. Bowen + AssociatesInc. employs nearly 90 architects, engineers and construction specialists, but despite itsgrowing size, the firm maintainsa collegial atmosphere.
“We’re the size of firm where,if someone wants to talk to me,they just come up and say, ‘Iwant to talk to Richard,’ andjust come in,” he says. “It’s notlike we’ve got a thousand people and you can’t get to themanagement team.”
Smart Business spoke withBowen about how to craft employee reviews while keepingemployer and employee on anequal plane and how to integratenew employees into the fold.
Q. How do you integrate newemployees with seasoned pros?
The old professionals haveto bring along the new guysbecause when you graduatefrom college, you probablycome out with about 60 percent of what you really needto know. You’ve got the gapbetween them.
You don’t understand the professional business side of it;you only understand the ethereal practice you get at a college level.
How do we reconcile bringing in a student or a graduate?They would fall in under one ofour project management teams.Underneath that project manager is a series of differentqualified personnel by years ofexperience.
You move a young person inunder that system, and they would become part of thatteam. Once you get into a team,you generally stay with theteam; you don’t move aroundtoo much.
Q. How do you determineadvancement?
Unless you prove yourselfincapable, you have the opportunity to move up the ladder.
We look for the capability ofthe individual and how far hecan move and in what timeframe. Then, we review themevery year.
In the review, we askthe employee to do ananalysis of his last year’swork effort — his plusesand minuses. And two ofour people — whoeverhis superior is and oneother senior principal —do a review, too, and sitdown with him together,the three of them, andthey talk it through.
They come to an understanding of how far theindividual has advancedand where his growthareas are and where heneeds help. We try tokeep it at a very professional level of participation and the individual’sgrowth within the firm.
