Stowers:
I am a principal geologist with Broadbent and Associates, I am also
treasurer and on the board of directors.
Charbonneau:
How long have you been with Broadbent?
Stowers:
I just passed 30 years in April.
Charbonneau:
How long have you been doing that current position and how has your role
changed over that time?
Stowers:
I started as a staff geologist which is our lowest level position in
1992. I have been a principal now for I want to say 15 years or 12
years, somewhere around that. But I have been an owner of the company
since I think 1999.
I have been on the board of directors. I have been on in the past too,
but this most recent stint, I want to say it is about five years and I
have been treasurer for two years.
I am also the office manager for the Las Vegas Office of Broadbent and
Associates. So, I have management over about 25 people. I wear a lot of
hats.
Charbonneau:
What would you say was the level of impact you face due to the pandemic?
How greatly were you affected? What changes did you see walk me through
that little bit?
Stowers:
Well, of course that that depends on a little bit. There is the fiscal
impact and then there is the impact of our daily operations.
I do not remember the date exactly, but I want to say like March 12th
seems to be of 2020 which was about the time for everybody. Our IT guy
for the company had lots of access to web information and he had had
been tracking the pandemic in China. By that I mean, like YouTube videos
and what was going on there. He told me in mid February that we are
about to have a problem and because of that he is going to start
gathering stuff so people can work exclusively from home.
By that he meant basic stuff like cables and stuff like that, and sort
of gearing people up. So, when the day came, which he was certain was
going to come, he would distribute the cables to everybody. Then we
would all go home and figure out our home systems. In that case we were
taking home our PC towers. We all took those home and figured out how
they plugged into our CenturyLink or Cox routers.
That first morning, we had an all staff meeting online, which I oversaw.
We were all sitting at home except for two people that remained in the
office, which was one accounting person, which agreed to stay because
she needed, we needed to receive checks physically at the office through
the Postal Service. The other was one of our administrative people, one
of our upfront people, sitting at the front desk.
For exceptionally long time, they were at the only two people in our
office. They were just receiving the mail just keeping things running,
and it was just them. Everybody else was either working from home, which
is most of the project manager levels and up. But our staff was still
out in the field and their work is by themselves.
We were concerned for them of course. They would leave their house, go
to our office, and load up the materials they need for the day by
themselves. They would get into a pickup truck alone and then go to the
job site where they would sample monitoring wells or do whatever their
work was. That did not require them to be near anyone else. If it was
two people that needed to go out and work on the job together, we sent
them in two separate trucks.
They kept their distance from each other during the day, and that was
phenomenally successful. For a long time, no one in our Vegas office got
COVID. If they got it, it was through their personal life, over which we
have no control. I do not think there is anything to date that we can
trace back to transmission of COVID within our workspace, nothing
obvious. Most of the cases of COVID that we have had either pre-vaccine
or post had to do with vacations people had taken or exposures outside
of the office. We were never able to point to some of the companies we
worked with. We can point out that eight people got COVID. We did not
have that mostly because we were not putting ourselves in a position to
have that happen.
Charbonneau:
How did you maintain staff communications during the pandemic? How
frequent were your meetings?
Stowers:
They were every week. Once the pandemic started, we bought several Zoom
licenses. Teams was not as well developed in 2020. We had bought some
Zoom licenses prior to the pandemic, and we were starting to incorporate
them to work. But what we ended up doing was just buying more of them
and having one or two per office that people had access to so they could
schedule meetings. We bought more when we needed them. If there were
three people needed a meeting at the same time, we bought more and we
still have a few residual Zoom licenses. I still have one, but Teams has
caught up. Teams is through our existing system. Now Monday morning
meetings or most internal meetings within our company are in Teams just
because it is easier to set up and it does not cost anything.
Charbonneau:
What is the current mode of apparatus for your employees? How often are
they working remote versus coming into the office?
Stowers:
My company itself has always had a fair amount of flexibility and it
seemed to work well. We have people with kids that work for us. Even
before the pandemic, our philosophy was to be available by cell phone
during work hours. But if some of your work gets done at unorthodox
hours, it is up to you if it gets done. Since we are consulting firm,
you have a way of measuring that. If perhaps if you are a municipal
employee or state employee or something, you are supposed to be doing
stuff from 8-5.
Every time sheet in my office weekly passes across my desk for approval.
Then those hours go to a billing report at which they could get written
off if the budget will not sustain them. It is easy to figure out if
someone does not really work a full day. But we have not had much
problem with that. I have not noticed now as the pandemic draws on. To
answer your first question, hybrid work is allowed in our company.
I am becoming a little concerned that some of our employees that are
working exclusively from home. A few of them are showing signs of a lack
of socialization, or I guess for lack of a better word, mental health
problems that are worsened by the fact that they have been in their
house for 2.5 years all by themselves for substantial portions of the
day.
Nevada is one of the few states, I think the only state, that has low
transmissivities for all counties. On Monday I made a pitch. I
understand people can work from home. They come in one or two days a
week. We have temporary workspaces that we have set up. It used to be
everybody had an office, but people that are now working exclusively
from home no longer have offices. But we have set up workstations that
are not dedicated to anybody. We have completely got rid of our tower PC
setups. Everybody has a laptop that connects into a docking station. It
is easy for someone to come in and just pick one of our workstations and
plug right into it and everything is there, and they have access to the
printer and stuff like that and just be around people a little bit.
It is overstated by some people, but there is some work benefit to
having people in the office too. If it were up to me, I want people to
come in one or two days a week. Just to for the social aspect of it,
because I think that problem could get worse. I see evidence it is
worsening. I have an HR person, but I oversee, everyone in the Vegas
office. There are a couple of instances in which people are very much
struggling that I believe could be helped by them coming in a bit.
All the field people are still doing the same work. That is unchanged
and that is about 10 out of the 25 people. Their work is unchanged, and
our stack testing guys are doing the same work too. We are talking about
a category of 15 people. I would say that I see 8 every day or most
every day. 5 are working exclusively from home, and then there is only 2
or 3 that are coming in off and on.
I am one of those people in charge of the office. I knew I was going to
run this morning and then I knew I had a meeting at 9:00. Then I know I
have a lunch meeting at 11:30 that is right by my house. So, I am not
going in until after that lunch meeting because it makes no sense.
But at the same time, I was in the office Monday and Tuesday of this
week and will be in tomorrow too, but I would consider my schedule a
hybrid.
I oversee the office, so I am the leader of that group of people. That
is what I am modeling to them. There is one or two people that we have
decided they need to be in the office because their work is better when
they are in the office. But everyone else seems capable of doing their
work from their house or elsewhere.
Charbonneau:
What strategies have you tried to keep your team connected throughout
this change in work environment?
Stowers:
There are certain parts of our work that has been elementary changes. I
would say even just Zoom meetings. We are not super excited about them
all the time, but they are very convenient, and they are a convenient
way to stay connected with people. I would say we do not have any
meetings that are just meant to just stay connected.
I will have two or three meetings in a day now. Before, one of those
would have been in person, but I think we could understand that it is a
pain in the ass to get in your car and go somewhere. It burns 30% more
of the time or even 50% of the time that the meeting requires. You can
get on the phone for an hour or drive an hour somewhere, spend an hour
in a meeting, and drive back for another hour. It is not efficient. In
terms of virtual meetings with people, I hope they will turn on their
video sometimes, so they are not a disembodied voice.
My two children were home during this time. There was a major difference
between students having their cameras on versus having their cameras off
in their school setting. That translates to my work setting as well. It
is not necessary to have the camera on all the time. We have no fixed
rules. There is nothing that says you must have your camera on, or you
must work this number of days under your hybrid schedule. It is all very
flexible. But I also trust my staff to do what is best for them and what
is best for their company they work for. They have earned that trust.
They are doing an excellent job at it.
Charbonneau:
What did you notice in terms of your productivity levels during the
pandemic?
Stowers:
We had a down year, and it is hard for me to quantify except that we
were $700,000 less in profit then we would in previous years. We are a
net $23-24,000 million-dollar gross revenue company. With a standard
profit every year of $1.41 point $1.5 million. So, our profit was cut
in half year one.
That was large and all our divisions were down in terms of work. I think
as everybody adjusted to whatever the world was going to be at that
point. It should be noted that we got PPP money that year too, and so on
paper the year was quite good.
Then in 2021 for reasons that I we have not looked too carefully into,
my division got busy on January 1, 2021. That did not let up all year
and all the other divisions in the company did not have that success
last year. For whatever reason, they were still lagging. Keep in mind in
my office is the most mature office of all of ours, meaning it was the
first one. It has had the longest amount of time to generate a
clientele. It is in one of our largest markets of Las Vegas. So that is
not surprising that our office was doing well when the rest of the
company was not.
Now that 2022 started, every office is killing it for whatever reason.
2020 was down. 2021 was a mixed bag, but overall good. We made a profit
that year and 2022 shaping up to be one of our best years.
Charbonneau:
Is your organization like looking to hire increased staff? What is your
like outlook in terms of staffing given the current situation?
Stowers:
We are hiring. I mean, we were. I think our total number of people this
time last year was 105 and this year it is 124. I would say we have
grown 15% from this time last year to this year. We have been hiring
accordingly. If you want to get in the jargon, for the first time ever
our full-time equivalency went above 100 hundred people. That is the
first time we have hit that as a company ever.
We had difficulty hiring starting last year and into this year. We had
to reassess salaries of key personnel late last year, beginning of this
year, so we did not lose them to other companies because of the
competition.
It is funny it the start of 2021, everyone was incredibly grateful to
have a job. By fall 2021, people are starting to grumble about their
salaries. I get it. That is what the market did. They could have found
better salaries elsewhere.
Charbonneau:
As of today, do you have any is all restrictions in your work?
Stowers:
We are not running under any restrictions whatsoever. Nevada has not
given us any, and we do not have any internally as a company. We go by
the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines is the short answer if
someone has COVID. We defer to whatever the CDC guidelines are that day
for what they are allowed to do and when they are allowed to come back.
I was looking for it daily because it changes with a certain frequency.
That is how we protect ourselves. This person got COVID. On that day,
the CDC said they had to work from home for five days and wear a mask in
the office. If they came back to the office the five days after that,
that is what we are doing then.
Charbonneau:
Did you notice that there was a difference in employee retention? Or did
your employee retention say consistent throughout the pandemic?
Stowers:
Our HR guy has done some statistics on this. He has been tracking it
from the beginning. Our retention is better than the national standard
across all industries. Which I think was something that the turnover was
5% a month at one point 3-5%, I want to say our turnover month to month
during that same period was 1%. We may have lost a person and gained a
person each month. It was low. I do not I do not think we had any
retirements during that time.
We did have a few people that were not as into environmental consulting
as they thought they were. They were the ones that changed professions
altogether. Which does not happen to us with frequently. We had one
person that decided she did not want to be a consultant anymore. Now she
is silk screening T-shirts in her garage. But that was that was a
choice. She evaluated what she wanted and the things she wanted to do
and that was her choice. But we did not have a large exodus.
We did not have any programs to incentivize people to leave. We tried to
hold on to everybody and keep paying salaries. I mean the PPP money made
it easy. We got PPP money both years that it was available because we
thought it was part of our responsibility to the company and our
employees to take what was offered. We did not need it as much the
second time was, we did the first, but we did not know that when it was
available. We took advantage of a program intended to keep our business
practical and healthy. It for sure helped. There is no question about
it.
I am not saying we would have gone out of business, but it was not clear
whether we were going to go out of business or not. The PPP money made
it for sure that we were not going to go out of business. At the end of
the day, if we had extra PPP money, we distributed some of that to our
employees. Our thought was that this was also intended as stimulus. We
gave bonuses to our employees that were larger than our financials
suggested that they should be. We also took an opportunity to tool up
our business. I thought that was in the best interest of the economy and
our company.
Charbonneau:
What is the background of the people you are looking at to hire?
Stowers:
As of late, we have diverged from our standard business practice, for
most of our company had been hiring people right out of college and
trained them in the way that that we do things. More recently we have
hired more senior people just because the opportunity has arisen. It is
not really a change in our philosophy, but we have had some people that
were doing what you talked about in terms of reevaluating their
employment.
We are getting more people now that are more seasoned hires that I think
were frustrated with their larger corporate jobs. We were more of a
mid-size corporation that was a little less corporate and a little more
approachable, had a different vibe. Recently it has been half and half.
We have some recent college graduates that we have hired, and we have
had some more seasoned personnel that we have been able to find. I would
say it is a mixture now.
Charbonneau:
Have you noticed any skill gaps, shifts, or changes you in the people
who are coming to work for you?
Stowers:
I have not seen people show up with obvious deficiencies due to an
interruption in their education. I have not. I have not seen that or
even heard about it anecdotally.
I have not seen that at all. There are always a few insular people in
the scientific work we do. You get your introverts, but the guy we had
intern for a year we just hired this summer. He is full time and is a
boisterous and outgoing guy. But these are very few data points. We are
hiring, but we are hiring over all our divisions. But I have not seen
that in my experience with the people we have.
Charbonneau:
What new opportunities were available to you due to the pandemic?
Stowers:
We are getting more seasoned people that were tired of what they
perceived to be the bullshit of their more corporate jobs. At a certain
point hey just throw their hands in there and say: “I am not doing this
BS anymore and I want a place that values me a little more as an
individual.” I do not have hard data on that loop, but that is the
impression I get because suddenly these people are showing up.
Oftentimes they will bring work with them.
I mean sometimes that is not allowed and I get that, but most of the
people that we had shown up recently in that category in the Vegas
office at least were allowed to take work with them because some of
their companies getting out of that field. It is weird to have people
show up with work in hand.
But it is no expectation for us that that would ever happen. We do not
ever expect that from a new employee, but it is starting to happen with
a greater frequency. There is shifting going on. There is mom and pops
consulting firms, 5-10 people. Then there is big sprawling AECOM, which
is international, with tens of thousands of people. We are at the
125-person range and those companies are starting to get bought by the
larger entities that want to have pieces in certain sectors, either
market sectors or actual physical locations.
For the mom and pops, sometimes it is a little touch and go whether they
are going to survive. In the big corporations you can really get lost
and not feel important. I think one of the advantages that we tout
ourselves is that we are a mid-level company that is still small enough
to care about the individuals in it. We are starting to draw those
people in. How much of that is related to the pandemic might be a little
just because the corporate thing sucked quite a bit.
It sucked before that, but you know at a certain point you just throw up
your hands and be like: “OK, I cannot. I do not want to work 70 hours a
week anymore for just my salary. I have not seen anybody for weeks and
they are making me come back into the office.”
Once again, I will return to our flexibility. If you give people
flexibility to manage their own lives and give them work / life balance,
they will be happier. We absolutely offer that and emphasize it because
we do not want people chained to their desks. It is a little weird. It
may be a blip, but that has been 3 or 4 of our last hires.
Charbonneau:
What piece of advice would you give yourself or somebody else entering
your field of work given the current conditions and outlook? What is
your biggest takeaway?
Stowers:
I would say just maximize your flexibility and listen to the struggles
your employees are having. It is not easy. It is genuinely nice to be
able to work from home, but I think some of the gloss of that wore off.
It is nice that I do not have to go into work at 8:00 AM every morning.
It really is and I am sitting here talking to you from home. My wife
brought in my breakfast right before we spoke. I had time to run with my
dog outside. That flexibility is important to people. It became more
important during the pandemic.
We can have disagreements, but we should also be respectful of each
other. Some people felt very strongly about masks on both sides, and
that is fine. let us just have a little care about each other. I know
you do not like to wear a mask, but I am going to need you to in the
office because this person over here has a health concern and is
frightened.
Let us be cool. I know your stance on that, but we could all just go the
extra mile for everybody else. So, the most vulnerable person does not
feel like they are being persecuted or that people do not care about
them. We did an OK job at that.
I would encourage someone to just see who is in trouble, see who is
having a problem, manage expectations, and if everyone can just put
their head down and maybe leave some of those private opinions that are
far to either side at home that work best for everybody. Existing
problems worsened during the pandemic.
The employees I have talked to felt that we did an OK job managing the
situation. That is the feedback we have received. I am curious to see
where we are headed. I do not necessarily know where we are headed.
