RMJM has crossed the line
The ripple of disapproval over the practice’s behaviour, along with that of Austin-Smith Lord and YRM, is something new
Once again the spotlight is on RMJM, and once again it’s for the architect’s failure to pay staff on time.
Many of you have questioned the logic of the practice’s takeover of YRM when it’s having a hard enough time managing its own affairs. But the ripple of disapproval — over RMJM but also over the behaviour of YRM and Austin-Smith Lord — is something new.
Some of it is part of the general view that the implosion of the financial system in the US and Europe was caused by bad bosses at the top of large corporations — but in the fallout it’s those underneath them who are now being squeezed even harder.
This is happening everywhere but in architecture — un-unionised with a well-meaning but fairly powerless body to protect it — the disquiet felt by many architects is that the profession has actually changed, and that RMJM, however much it likes to believe it is the future, is the dinosaur. As a practice you can and should be business-like, even ruthlessly commercial, but you can’t be unprofessional.
This is not how most practices behave and there is justified outrage that one of the world’s biggest thinks it can get away with it
Professionalism isn’t just about hitting deadlines for clients, it’s about human factors like management ability, which has never been ranked very highly in architecture but is the chief reason why architects are badly treated by their employers.
RMJM staffers in the US have had their health insurance cancelled with no warning, and claim they can’t do their job properly because outside consultants haven’t been paid either and so refuse to work with them. This is not how most practices behave and so there is justified outrage that the one of the world’s biggest and best known thinks it can get away with it.
We accept that the line between what is going on and what is part of the rumour mill is a thin one — as one unfortunate RMJM employee found to his cost this week after allegations were made about the business to a Scottish newspaper.
But the lesson that RMJM needs to take from that, indeed from all the bad press it tends to attract, is that: first, you have to communicate what’s going on before it’s in the press; and, second, you can’t trade on the goodwill of your staff because eventually — as it is learning to its cost — they turn.
Women find there’s less flexibility
Women architects are in the news not for the old issue of pay but because they are losing their jobs rather quicker than their male colleagues. Sorry, but is anyone very surprised?
For the RIBA’s president and others who see themselves as championing women, this week’s figures from the Office of National Statistics, coupled with the RIBA’s own, are a good enough reason to have a periodic wail about the unfairness of it all.
They cite discrimination and gender imbalance among a long list of woes, but the reasons for letting women go before men are rather more pragmatic. They include the fact that women architects prefer to design schools, for example, rather than commercial projects, so are finding the schemes they’ve been working on are on hold or have come to an abrupt halt.
And while the lack of flexible working hours is seen as another example of discrimination, it is precisely because practices have bent over backwards to accommodate those women who want to work part time that when push comes to shove they’re the first out.
Related Articles
- Bad managers are a danger
3 February 2012
- US design director quits RMJM
26 January 2012
- RMJM's US employees say they are owed wages
19 January 2012
- Aukett chief lays into YRM directors
17 January 2012
- RMJM struggles to pay staff after YRM takeover
16 January 2012
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Readers' comments (20)
Good question AL ... the main business decision makers at RMJM are not members of ARB because they are not architects. They may not even know the ARB code exists, and if they do they don't appear to want to follow it. The critical part of your question is, does ARB care that this situation exists? and if so what will they do about it?
I do not believe that in 2012 we are still having an argument ‘who prefers to design what’…by end of the day what really matter is how it has been designed!
If we enjoy and prefer to concentrate on particular areas of expertise, so be it, as far as we remain professional.
It is unfortunate and rather strange that women are still looked at as an easy target but it does not mean that they should accept or tolerate it.
Recession has caused not only decrease of employment but most importantly lost of valuable expertise built over the years. It’s something we can not recuperate quickly and easily.
It's a damn sight better to be designing schools, which serve the public good, than commercial buildings, which serve nobody except nasty people.
I don't totally agree with the comment that practices bend over backwards to accommodate their mum architects. It's usually more about staying on the right side of employment law with statutory maternity pay/ leave being the order of the day.
Anyway, I'd rather see one part time mum architect on a board than ten John Clemlows any day!
Claire Matheson - couldn't agree more!! As a female architect who has only worked on large commercial projects, I do hope that that Ms. Baillieu's comments are better informed than they first appear.
I think female architects are treated differently anyway, and this is not always about children. I've had experience of a male architect caring for an elderly relative being treated in a very different way to a female architect caring for a child. How is this right? Shouldn't an employer be supportive as possible in any situation??
As for having "bent over backwards" to accomodate working parents - how ignorant to make it sound so one sided! It isn't and many practices can see the benefit of loyal and experienced staff even if they do only work part time.
And for the record, I do not have, nor plan to have children; I just can't bear it when our profession does each other down.
i would like to see a table of the percentage of women in architectural offices in london, not including the admin or finance staff and compare this to the percentages in the architecture schools in london. it is the lack of work/life balance that makes it hard for women in architecture. i currently know a woman working in a known practice who feels she has to and does work till 8 or 9 most nights to be taken seriously.
RMJM were always in my top ten practices of the UK as I was going through Uni...
Now though the management seem to have tore it apart. I'ts a great shame. Hopefully the it will break up into it's component parts and the Glasgow branch can get back to doing what it does best without pig chairmen.
Architecture is, to its discredit, plagued by poor business managers. Amateur-level management skills prevalent in the profession may barely serve domestic scale practices but clearly fail miserably in larger firms. I remain astonished that some architects actually dare to run practices - their arrogance is a danger to staff and the profession. I feel a sharp sense of responsibility toward the student who wrote in these pages that perhaps he should take up another profession. I hope the RMJM episode is the bottom of the chasm and that we can now move upwards? And make Architecture an attractive proposition for young architects.
Peter...then maybe more Architects should be doing an MBA?
And be rewarded for doing so?
The STaff need to think long and hard. RMJM couldn't operate with no staff!!