Dr. Sam Zolfagharian, President, YegaTech

Today, the challenge for AEC firms is not just to keep pace with technology but to redefine what it means to attract and retain talent who can thrive in an AI-driven work environment. This isn't just about surviving the technological changes but creating workplaces prioritizing well-being, innovation, and a sense of purpose. As AI reshapes our lives and work, we have a unique opportunity to adapt and thrive together, embracing these changes while ensuring the human element remains at the heart of AEC project execution.

Join us to explore the transformative shift from traditional work models to a future where AI handles routine tasks, enabling AEC firms to unlock the full potential of their talent. This transition frees individuals to focus on creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking, skills that are uniquely human and invaluable in the workplace of tomorrow. The discussion will emphasize how nurturing these qualities can enhance talent retention, attract top talent, and maximize your employees' contributions.

By building workplaces where designers, architects, engineers, and project managers are valued for their unique contributions rather than just the hours they log, we can create a future that’s both technologically advanced and deeply fulfilling for everyone.

In her timely keynote, Dr. Sam Zolfagharian explores the future of work in AEC, offering practical insights and inspiration for how people and technology can work together to succeed in the era of AI. You learn how to:

• Navigate and alleviate your employees’ fear of being replaced by AI.
• Develop strategies to attract and retain your top talent in the era of AI.
• Move from traditional workflows to AI-augmented workflows that enhance productivity and creativity.
• Integrate AI tools in ways that keep teamwork, creativity, and the human element at the heart of your organization and projects.
• Create workplaces prioritizing employees' well-being, innovation, and purpose to foster engagement and resilience in the AI era.

Debra Reid, Operations Lead, FBM Architecture

How do your firm’s operations activities impact employee satisfaction and motivation? What does it take to reclaim culture in the face of hybrid work, growing pains, and major change? This insightful session explores these questions through the success story of FBM, a distinguished architectural, interior design, and planning studio. Over the past five years, FBM has earned numerous prestigious accolades, including recognition as one of Top 100 Employers and AWMAC Architectural Design Firm of the Year. In this session, FBM’s operations lead explains how a commitment to shaping and sustaining award-winning culture has translated into higher retention rates of top talent.

• How specific operational strategies drive employee morale and workplace satisfaction.
• Best practices you can apply to be a top employer
• The link between a supportive workplace culture and employee retention
• How to use psychological safety to enhance the employee experience

Jonathan Wilson, Senior Consultant, PSMJ
Details coming soon!

Jen Hubbard, Recruiter, Wallace Design Collective

Not happy with your firm’s win-rate when pursuing top talent? Wallace Design Collective has it wired, and in this session, top recruiter Jen Hubbard shows you how to spot and fix the common practices that put firms behind their competitors when it comes to reaching top performing candidates, starting with a shift away from decentralized recruiting. Her playbook leverages the power of employer branding, referrals, powerful metrics, recruiter training, and the sharing of candidates between business units to drive faster, easier, and more successful onboarding of the people your firm needs to thrive!

• Differentiating between tactical hires and strategic hires
• How to identify what an "A" player looks like on your teams
• Centralizing your recruiting efforts across business lines/groups
• How to improving internal movement

Jennifer King, Talent Management Business Partner, Kleinschmidt Associates

Compensation and benefits is probably your AEC firm’s largest business expense, so you need a communication and feedback process that boosts employee engagement and performance. Like some employees, your performance management program may not always operate at full potential, so get the slight tweaks that can increase your return on investment in talent. We’ll compare various models of performance programs, using examples from both Kleinschmidt and attendees, to help you choose the right one for your firm’s culture, structure, size and capabilities, identifying the purpose and foundations of your performance program. In addition, we’ll discuss ways to assess employees’ engagement with the performance program. And we’ll brainstorm the ideal future state of your organization’s performance program and the small steps you’ll take to get there.

• Identify the business case for your performance program, such as improving utilization metrics or increasing retention
• Build the cultural foundation of your performance program
• Compare your current program to other models to identify gaps in your performance model
• Identify modifications that enhance your performance program
• Develop a plan for assessing effectiveness and employee engagement in the performance program

Josh Miles, Founder, Bold Brand

Want to try the hottest new platform for reaching top AEC talent who may not be actively looking to change firms? Whether it’s a video podcast for growing your firm's visibility to prospective employees and clients, or an in-house audio podcast to develop your team, you're not too late! Josh Miles is a frequent podcast guest, and has been hosting his own shows for nearly a decade—Obsessed Show, PSM Show, The Josh and Torrey Show, the Bold Brand Podcast, and even interviewing Seth Godin! This session will tell you everything you need to know to get your show ready for an amazing journey—from strategy and planning, to gear and video options. Don't miss your chance to launch your very own podcast!

• How to create your firm's new talent-attracting podcast
• Risks and opportunities in AEC talent-attracting podcasts
• How AI can help in editing and producing your show
• Making the jump to video podcasting and how social media can help accelerate your reach

Susan Israel, Senior Consultant, PSMJ Resources

The newest cohort of AEC talent expects leaders at their firm to embody a commitment to Emotional Intelligence, and research from top business schools shows why a high EQ culture drives innovation, profitability, and retention. But what if EQ isn’t as big a part of your firm’s culture as it needs to be? How can you instigate a thinking shift to make it a core value? In this discussion, we will use case studies to show proven and tested ways to raise your firm's EQ using Psychological Safety, Radical Candor and other strategies. You will leave with concrete actions to attract, retain, and coach the skilled AEC professionals you need to provide the highest level of service and accountability to projects, clients, and each other. You learn:

• Why a low EQ culture can impedes a firm's success and how a high EQ can resolve simmering issues.
• How to coach your CEO to support a high EQ culture.
• How to hold difficult conversations that remove roadblocks and improve your firm's culture.
• 3 strategies to implement psychological safety.
• How to embrace the use of Radical Candor.

Brad McMorris, Manager, Talent Acquisition, Klohn Crippen Berger 

Ready to increase your firm’s army of recruiters, and start filling open positions faster and with better talent? Designers, engineers, and project managers can be wonderful ambassadors but only if you know how to guide them. Get proven tactics for spotting the most attractive internal candidates and arming them with the skills they need to sell your firm’s culture, strengths, and values. Brad has over 15 years of recruiting experience in the AEC space and shares his insights on the top characteristics of a great recruiter, what experience translates best, how to set your recruiter recruitment function up for success, key indicators you have a great recruiter on your team, recruiting nuances in project-based environments, and more!

• Top characteristics of a great recruiter.
• What experience translates best.
• Setting your recruitment team up for success.
• Key indicators you have a great recruiter on your hands.
• Recruiting nuances in project-based environments.

• Caitlin Austin, Learning & Development Manager, WSB
• Gaby Bartlov, Sr. HR Business Partner, WSB

Leadership training in the AEC industry can quickly become overwhelming for HR and L&D executives. engineering firm WSB made it less intimidating for both trainer and trainee by developing their Manager 101 Series, offering bite-sized, targeted sessions that meet leaders where they are. Using a pre-assessment, they tailor the content to deliver practical guidance on the art and science of hiring and onboarding. Hear how you can copy their success using the Manager 101 framework, including tools like the Manager Onboarding Dashboard for step-by-step visibility into hiring processes and the Manager Resource Hub, a comprehensive resource center for ongoing leadership support. You gain insights into building a manager training series that enhances hiring efficiency, boosts retention, strengthens team engagement, and empowers leaders to own their role in hiring and onboarding. Discover how this accessible approach to leadership development has improved outcomes at WSB and learn strategies you can implement to support effective, high-impact hiring and onboarding in your firm.

• How to implement bite-sized training sessions that make leadership development more accessible and impactful.
• How to use pre-assessment results to tailor training to the specific needs of leaders in various hiring roles.
• When to apply the Manager Onboarding Dashboard for increased transparency for each step in the hiring and onboarding process.
• How a centralized Manager Resource Hub provide on-demand access to leadership tools and resources.
• Ways to refresh your current leadership development strategies and meet your leaders where they are.

• Masai Lawson, Director of Talent, Gannett Fleming
• Caitlin Austin, Learning & Development Manager, WSB

Could L&D be the secret sauce your firm needs to build a robust mid-career cohort of leaders? Join industry leaders for a candid discussion on quantifying returns from learning and development programs. Masai Lawson (Director of Talent, Gannett Fleming) and Caitlin Austin (Chief Learning Officer, WSB) join two AEC firm operations executives to share metrics, case studies, and frameworks for measuring L&D's impact on retention, project delivery, and bottom-line growth. Learn proven strategies to build executive buy-in and implement sustainable talent development initiatives that drive both individual career advancement and firm-wide success.

Kamber Parker Bowden, Founder, The YoPro Know and AEC Culture Expert

Have your firm’s leaders mastered productivity, engagement, and collaboration across generations in the hybrid workplace? It’s a critical skill for retaining the talent you need to execute projects and delight clients. Kamber is a renowned expert on new communication approaches that build resilient, high-performing AEC teams. Applying data and her experience advising firms just like yours, she gives us a new way to manage remote productivity and align expectations. We also gain actionable tools to create the meaningful connections between team members that drive project performance improvements as she explains how to:

• Embrace Generational Strengths: Uncover the unique strengths each generation brings to your team and how to leverage them effectively.
• Break Down Communication Barriers: Learn proven strategies for overcoming generational communication challenges to build trust and collaboration.
• Set Expectations Across Generations: Discover techniques to set clear, generationally relevant expectations that enhance productivity and accountability.
• Lead Hybrid Teams with Confidence: Gain practical tools to manage remote and hybrid teams while addressing generational differences.
• Inspire Connection and Growth: Walk away with strategies to foster a culture of collaboration, engagement, and long-term performance.

Jenifer Navard, Chief Financial Officer, Eskew Dumez Ripple

Great design and technical staff, the lifeblood of your firm, are the hottest thing in recruiting right now, and that means yours are probably getting approached by other headhunters on a daily basis. Problem is, you can't throw money at all of them to keep the wolves at bay, so you need a formal, logical, and defensible professional staff pay structure supported by sound financial underpinnings. In this action-oriented session, AEC firm CFO Jenifer Navard uses hard 2025 salary data and real-world examples to explain:

• Why position descriptions are a terrible way to set salaries right now -- and what works better.
• 4 critical factors that must guide every salary offer for design and technical professionals, and the high costs of ignoring them.
• How the latest survey data on chargeability, billing rates and direct labor multiplier can help you determine the financial impact of salary increases.
• How to establish an equitable market-based salary structure for key contributors and potential new hires.
• The right way to look at gender pay equity in staff discussions.

Shaun Leeper, Partner, AECIQ

Talent acquisition is the new business development. Finding the work isn’t the hard part these days, it’s finding the quality talent to hire that is the challenge. Sound familiar? Join us as we take a deep dive into “how to find, engage and nurture talent”. Having worked with 700+ AEC firms across North America, we will share some best practices and approaches, along with eye-opening statistics and realities, to help you unlock the keys to success.

• Strategies and tactics to gain talent pool visibility and effectively nuture relationships within your talent pools.
• The tools companies are using to retain their top talent.
• One assumable, yet underemphasized tactic, to achieve success in the form of hiring passive candidates in today's competitive market.
• What KPI's should you be paying most attention to when it comes to your Talent Acquisition strategy?

Rebecca Davis, People Operations Manager, Becht Engineering

For small to medium-sized engineering consulting firms operating with lean HR teams and a hybrid or fully remote workforce, optimizing recruitment, onboarding, and talent development is not just a goal—it’s a necessity. Gain actionable strategies to streamline these critical processes, enabling your firm to attract and retain top talent while overcoming the unique challenges of a distributed workforce. Drawing from Becht’s experience, you learn how to enhance the candidate experience through strategic hiring workflows, robust employer branding, and data-driven decision-making. Discover how to shorten hiring timelines and align talent acquisition with organizational goals by leveraging innovative tools and technologies. The onboarding segment addresses the complexities of welcoming new employees remotely, emphasizing methods to foster early engagement, build cultural alignment, and create a sense of belonging in a virtual environment. You get the tools you need to structure remote onboarding plans that ensure new hires feel supported and ready to contribute from day one plus leadership and consulting development programs as key to sustaining employee growth and engagement. Learn how embedding training into your talent strategy can create a future-ready workforce while addressing the challenges of remote leadership development. Tailored to the realities of hybrid and fully remote, resource-constrained HR teams, this session equips you with practical solutions to optimize the talent lifecycle and thrive in a distributed setting. Whether your firm is 50 or 500 strong, discover how to drive results in the new era of work!

• Learn how to streamline recruitment processes to attract top talent efficiently while maintaining a positive candidate experience.
• Explore the general applications of AI and technology to enhance decision-making and improve efficiency in HR processes.
• Discover best practices for onboarding new employees, fostering engagement, and ensuring readiness to contribute from day one.
• Understand the importance of leadership and consulting development programs in nurturing talent, driving employee engagement, and building a sustainable foundation for organizational growth.
• Gain actionable insights tailored to the unique challenges faced by small to medium-sized firms with limited HR resources.

Jonathan Wilson, Senior Consultant, PSMJ Resources
For years, studies have shown that money is not the sole motivator for high performance talent. Our team members want recognition, opportunity, and a sense that they are doing work that really matters. But, still, we find ourselves pushing out raises and other perks hoping that the reward will keep top performers loyal to the firm…and we get frustrated that everyone just seems to want more money even though they may actually want something else entirely. Stop right there!
 
AEC leadership coach and best-selling author of You’re Doing it Wrong: 27 Leadership Mistakes That Drive Away Top Talent, PSMJ Senior Consultant Jonathan Wilson has seen it all and he’s bringing his latest insight to you in his always humorous, engaging, fast-paced style. He will share:

• PSMJ’s latest data on employee engagement and why it should be a call-to-action for every AEC firm leader
• What recognition really means and how to get it right…every time
• The painful lessons AEC firms MUST learn from other industries that are getting it right and stealing our talent
• How to turn the dreaded raise requests into the best coaching opportunities
• And much more!