- I'm sure anybody who's been in this field
for any given length of time
has experienced burnout
because we are a project-based field.
You don't leave until it's done.
(dramatic music)
- Burnout; I think most people would probably say,
you're either gonna take care of yourself now
or you're gonna have to take care of yourself later.
I've been on a couple different sides of that.
- It has a ability to create this uneven life flow
where there's just gonna be times
that work is just work
and it's gonna be very time-intensive.
- We have to be humans first.
We have to be excellent in our work.
We need to do this really well,
but how do we organizationally prioritize
everyone's enjoyment of life?
(deep thunderous noises)
- At Ascent Architecture and Interiors,
we allow our staff
to have a pretty flexible work schedule,
both in terms of the number of hours
they work per week, but also just when they work
during the week.
We have what we call core hours,
basically between the hours of 10:00 and 3:00
that we ask everybody to be in the office.
But beyond that, people can come and go
earlier in the morning
or stay and leave late,
whatever works best for their schedule.
In addition, we have office hours
that are Monday through Thursday, 8:00 to 6:00,
and then Friday from 8:00 to noon.
That allows us to shut the office down early on Friday
and give people a little extended weekend.
- For me personally, I'm a mom,
so having that requirement for life balance
has become extremely important.
It's why I moved to this area
and it's why I chose this firm.
- The general flexibility in our schedule
has always been part of our company's core values.
We understand work is a part of people's life;
it's not the full, complete part of people's life.
So giving them a chance to really run an errand
when they need to or adapt a schedule
to take on a community involvement project
or something like that,
we feel that's a strong part
of who we are as a company.
- The ability to take an hour in the morning
to go and work out and know that you can
make it up at 6:00
and come in at 9:00 kind of a thing;
that is huge for a lot of people,
and it's huge for me.
- The flexibility is actually
a competitive advantage for us
because (mumbles) we're not gonna work you to death,
which is, in some ways,
maybe common in the architectural industry.
For me, having this ongoing relationship
with the staff that I work with,
that I'm tasking on a day-to-day basis,
we're able to say, or I'm able to say,
there's this really hard push for a couple days
and then let's get you out of here
to go up to the mountain and go ski.
Let's get you off for a hike in the summer.
Or our flexibility on nice days will ...
I'll actually tell everybody on my team,
hey, stand up, let's go for a 20-minute walk,
let's go for a 30-minute walk.
- Being a good project manager and employee
and peer requires you to have some stability
and some balance in your life,
so it really comes down to, then, time management
and management of energy and resources.
How do you get the same amount of work done
in four days?
It's possible as long as it's a known quantity
and you manage it.
- You can take care of yourself and do excellent work,
but it's about understanding
when you're gonna do which one.
It's not just this one and then just that one,
but how can you really make the two work together
at the same time, and how do you schedule yourself
and schedule your projects,
and how do you have this idea of time
as a shared resource within the team,
within just me as an individual?
How do we deal with time as a resource
that we take care of ourselves
as well as our work?
I wish I would've paid attention to that
a lot earlier in life.
But I think it's really important
and it's what I tell anybody.
(upbeat music)