Engineering Influence from ACEC

Standard of Care can be a huge contractual issue for engineering firms because if they elevate their Standard of Care in a contract, they can open themselves up to significant uninsured liability.

Daniel Buelow, managing director of Willis A&E's Architects & Engineers Division, joined the program to talk about how firms can best manage Standard of Care in their contracts.

Here is the wording recommended by Willis to ensure an insurable Standard of Care:

“In providing services under this agreement, the consultant will endeavor to perform in a manner consistent with the degree of care and skill ordinarily exercised by members of the same profession currently practicing under similar circumstances.”

Buelow cautions, however, that there are many other instances in contracts where engineers can inadvertently elevate their Standard of Care.

Buelow was a co-presenter in an ACEC online class on Standard of Care in April. Click here for more information. 

On this episode of the Government Affairs Update, Steve Hall covers the current state of negotiations on infrastructure and we discuss how EEA can be an effective advocacy tool.

On today's Private Markets Update, Erin McLaughlin joins the program to discuss the state of the economy and outline emerging trends including the impressive growth in residential construction and the ongoing reduction in public spending in the AEC space.  

Subscribe to ACEC's Private Industry Briefs here: https://www.acec.org/publications/acec-private-industry-briefs/ 

Steve Hall and Matt Reiffer joined the podcast to discuss the week's happenings in Washington, including the T&I Committee's approval of the Invest in America Act and ACEC's new effort on the PPP FAR credits clause - www.acec.org/ppp 

Also coming up next week:

The ACEC Research Institute will hold its first-ever prize drawing to support its research mission at noon on June 15th.  Eight unique prizes are up for grabs from bottles of Pappy Van Winkle to golf and fishing excursions.  Don't miss your chance to support the Institute.  Raffle tickets are still available.  Learn more: https://www.acecresearchinstitute.org/get-involved/raffle-tickets/ 

ACEC will hold its annual Engineering Excellence Awards on June 17th as a virtual broadcast.  Space is still available to attend this signature celebration of engineering design: https://bit.ly/3y3F6Fp 

A frequent refrain across all businesses right now is that strategic planning is a challenge because of all the uncertainty in the market, and business owners are waiting until the economy normalizes before they start looking too deeply into the future.

Our guest on the podcast today says that is a strategic mistake.

John Geddie is president of Geddie & Associates, a management consulting and training firm serving clients nationwide with leadership development and project management training, strategic planning, succession planning, and market research services.

John recently presented an ACEC online class How Do You Create Strategies in a World Like This? Click here to download the On-Demand class.

Megan Miller, Product Marketing Director at Deltek, came on the program to discuss the 42nd Annual Deltek Clarity Architecture and Engineering Industry Study, which was just released last week.

It’s a voluminous report—107 pages long—delving into every aspect of how design firms got through the difficult past year and what they are looking forward to in the coming year. Deltek surveyed 480 firms of all sizes spread all across the country as well as a handful in Canada.

You will find a wealth of financial information and statistics in the study against which you can benchmark.

Click here to download the free study.

Richard Branch, chief economist for Dodge Data & Analytics, joins the program to share his updated economic forecast. We delve into the areas of his forecast of particular interest to engineering firms

Over the past two weeks, Branch and the Dodge team have presented their national forecast along with a regional forecast. Click on the links below to watch the complete presentations.

South: https://success.construction.com/SouthMYO

Midwest: https://success.construction.com/MidwestMYO

Northeast: https://success.construction.com/WestMYO

West: https://success.construction.com/NortheastMYO

Today we’re talking about incentive programs. They are a facet of the salary structure in almost every—or maybe even every—engineering firm, yet they are notoriously difficult to design and maintain. A survey by PSMJ found that 76 percent of employees at engineering firms said that their bonus program needed to be improved.

To get into this issue, we’re talking today with Ryan Jolley, who is an owner and Chief Strategy Officer of Jones & DeMille Engineering in Richfield, Utah. In 2017, he helped to develop a bonus program at the firm that led to a huge jump in profitability. Based on that success, the firm spun out the concept into a new software company, ourlinQ, of which Ryan serves as co-founder and CEO.

A couple of weeks ago, Ryan presented an ACEC online class, Everyone Hates Your Bonus Program – Here’s How to Fix It! and we’re going to delve into some of the issues that he raised.

Click here to download the On-Demand ACEC online class.

Click here to learn more about ourlinQ.

Matt Reiffer joins the podcast to discuss the unanimous approval of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act of 2021 by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works earlier in the week.

Welcome to the Weekly Digest, a round-up of what's happening this week at ACEC National.  This week, we cover:

• The Engineering Excellence Awards, taking place on June 17th.  Register here.