For Laura Kennington, building a top workplace begins with a strong foundation and that foundation starts with a clear vision.
Kennington, co-CEO and president of OTJ Architects, was recognized with a special leadership award as part of this year’s Top Workplaces Awards.
“It starts with just having a vision of what are we all working on together,” Kennington said. “Then I think just the entrepreneurial spirit throughout the firm, honestly. I think is a huge piece of that. As a 100% employee-owned firm, we’re all working toward that shared success.”
She said helping employees understand how their daily work contributes to the company’s long-term goals is key to keeping everyone aligned.
To reinforce that message, Kennington hosts an all-hands meeting every Monday.
“We speak to operations,” she said. “We highlight anniversaries and birthdays. We highlight shout-outs from clients in the past week.”
The weekly meetings help keep employees connected to the firm’s mission and to one another, even as the company has expanded across the country.
“We’re really focused on collaboration across the entire firm,” Kennington said. “Historically, we were just in D.C. when I first started with about 35 people, but now as we have offices throughout the country, and even team members in about 27 different states, collaborating across those studios is so important.”
Kennington said maintaining that collaboration requires bringing different perspectives into the decision-making process.
“We’ve got marketing representation,” she said. “We have our chief people officer, where she’s always making sure that we’ve got people at the forefront. We also have two team members that actually lead studios and are involved in day-to-day projects.”
That approach, she said, helps ensure leadership remains connected to employees’ experiences and challenges.
“We’re not just making decisions up from the top and not involved in the day-to-day,” Kennington said. “We try really hard that it’s open where anyone can reach us. Everyone in the firm can call my cellphone if they want to.”
Asked what advice she would offer other workplace leaders, Kennington’s answer was simple: listen.
“Listen to your teammates,” she said. “Bring a variety of people to the table when you’re making decisions. We’re set up where we have our leadership team, which is our executive team, and we have a variety of people on that, where it’s not just my co-CEO and I making decisions in a vacuum.”
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