How changing my firm to a virtual practice allowed for a fuller life.
By Jennifer Kretschmer, AIA
The pandemic altered many parts of architectural practice, but we are now well beyond looking at the last few years and believing that firms will go back to doing business and practice the same way they did before. It’s just not going to happen. Our profession has changed forever. And quite frankly, it’s for the best.
Architecture’s culture of overwork is an obsession that has gone on far too long and is unsustainable. We ask a lot of our aspiring professionals, often leaving them with a poor work-life balance. They don’t earn the title “architect” until the completion of many years of practice. Before I was licensed, I interviewed at a firm where I was told the standard work week was 60 hours and 6 days. I wasn’t willing to work like that. The retort was I must not be dedicated to the profession, and I shouldn’t want to be an architect. Insulting!
At that moment I realized if I wanted to craft a life that had meaning and stay within the profession, I needed to design a new method of practicing.
Identifying goals for your firm
In 2003, I set out to establish goals and a vision for my new firm. I took business law and accounting classes at a local community college, and I studied for the licensing exam with just two tests to go. I attended any AIA session that discussed practice management, and I read the Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice every night, focusing on the sections on the financial aspects of practice. I wrote a mission statement and put together a business plan.
The key components of my firm’s goals included: a profit plan that set a revenue goal for the next five years; the types of projects I wanted to do that supported my goals and vision; slow, purposeful growth and to intentionally remain a “small” firm.
And I had a vision for my firm and my life: freedom to make my own schedule and work when I want; time to enjoy my favorite sports and hobbies any time of day; great clients who I enjoy partnering with.
I started as a sole practitioner working out of my home, but I was actively looking for an office. Once I found a space, I started looking for staff. I hired one administrative assistant and one architectural team member. This first architectural team member didn't want to be an employee because he had other work, so we created an independent contractor (IC) relationship, with him working primarily from home. This staff relationship set the foundation that made it possible for me to move toward a virtual office when the necessity arose.
Transitioning to a virtual practice
At the end of 2008, the Great Recession was underway. In an effort of firm self-preservation, I let my administrative staffer go and moved my office into my garage. Because of zoning restrictions, I wasn’t allowed to have staff working there, so my architectural IC worked from home full-time. I didn’t know at the time, but I had just transitioned my firm to a virtual office/virtual firm—a firm without a geographical location or base of operations for all staff to congregate and that made all owners and staff remote workers. This is different from a hybrid firm, which has an office but staff work either remotely or in-office.
Here’s a warning... don’t do what I did back in 2008, which was react to outside issues to drive the transition. It’s probably something plenty of firms did in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, which wasn't purposeful or intentional. Planning to make your firm virtual or hybrid takes careful consideration and planning. By jumping in without planning, it took me years to establish efficient and effective processes to run the firm and lead staff.
Once I realized I had established a virtual firm, the next step involved creating systems that allowed firm operations to run more effectively. It also required me to reevaluate my vision to align with running a firm virtually.
The vision of “Freedom to make my own schedule and work when I want,” transformed to, “Freedom for all team members to create their own schedules and to work when they want.” This became the cornerstone of my virtual firm. Once systems were developed to hire, train, retain “staff” as all remote, independent contractors, I was able to grow and expand my team by the time we came out of the recession.
Utilizing online tools for project management
Today we utilize online task management to assign work and schedules, cloud-based documentation, e-signatures with clients, online financial bookkeeping and banking, online whiteboards and visualizations, and video conferencing. Even our checklists, documents, manuals, CAD/BIM standards, and templates are digital and online.
The firm is currently dedicated to residential work thanks to the housing crisis in our area. We design projects from single-family residences to multifamily and senior independent living facilities. We have also ventured into assisted living and skilled nursing. On occasion, we do a commercial tenant improvement such as offices, retail, and restaurants.
Technology is dynamic and changing constantly. Thus, we are continuously evaluating our systems and improving or adapting them to meet current team needs. The team consists of myself, my first remote team member (hired in 2005), and five other licensed architects from all over the United States.
Once the pandemic hit, our firm’s internal practices remained unchanged. We already met remotely, with technology facilitating. Our major change was training our clients to work with us remotely. We had been meeting clients in person at our co-working space, a coffee shop, their place of business, or their home.
We trained clients to use video conferencing and cloud services for file transfer and viewing the design deliverables. Video conferencing allowed out of state team members to participate in client meetings. That improved communication, transparency and gave clients an opportunity to interface with all the project participants and improved our service to clients.
Running a virtual practice certainly has pros and cons. Challenges included clients who thought we weren't a real company, the anticipation of less expensive fees, and an assumption that I worked alone. I’ve mitigated these issues through early discussions with potential clients; the pandemic helped in changing perceptions about working from home. But it can be a bit lonely, and so I volunteer in a few non-profits and the AIA for camaraderie. For me, the pros completely outweigh the cons.
Pros included being able to play tennis in the middle of the day, plein air paint, co-ownership of an art gallery, and volunteering as an art docent in my children's school district. The flexible schedule also gave me time to raise two children, care for ailing parents, and support a husband to get out of a job he didn't like.
On-demand learning, turning your firm virtual
As an architect dedicated to running a virtual practice, I’ve had the opportunity to speak at AIA conferences and the CRAN Symposium about my practice and train other architects on running their own virtual practice.
Once I saw firms struggling to adjust to staff working remotely, I partnered with Leah Alissa Bayer, AIA, a Principal with Architects FORA, to create coursework to help other architects learn how to transition their practices to a virtual practice model. This coursework discusses the fundamentals of running any practice from the lens of having remote staff. The course is available at the Practice of Architecture.
Our virtual firm thrived during the pandemic, so much so that we need to adjust, once again, our systems and operations, so we can continue my vision of a healthy work/life balance. Constant evaluation and adaptation make us aware and purposeful in everything we do. My new purpose and vision for fulfillment comes from the joy of creating a practice that allows others to thrive and to train other architects to create a virtual or hybrid practice.
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Jennifer Kretschmer, AIA, NCARB, LEED Green Associate, founded J. Kretschmer Architect in 2003. Her firm has been a virtual office since 2008. Jennifer was a speaker at the AIA’19 Conference on Architecture and 2019 CRAN Symposium about the virtual office for architects and continued to speak on this topic through the pandemic. Awarded AIA National Associate Member of the Year, 2002. She is the founding CRAN chairperson of the AIA Silicon Valley (2016-2019) and was the 2021 AIASVC President. She currently serves on AIACA Practice Management Committee, AIACA Housing Steering Committee and AIA Practice Management Knowledge Community.
(Return to the cover of the November 2024 PM Digest)