HLM Architects has climbed five places from 23 to 18 in Building Magazine’s Top 50 Architects table, as part of the Top 150 Consultants survey for 2021.
“This achievement is one of many for HLM recently and it’s all thanks to our team and how brilliantly they’ve adapted to these new working conditions.”
After a break last year due to the pandemic, more than 350 firms took part in the survey and completed details on chartered staff numbers, staff recruitment, wage patterns and work expectations.
HLM has moved up the tables as a result of its reactive response to the pandemic, embracing the challenges and implementing a quick and efficient strategy to get its team set up and able to work from home.
We used our online HLM Academy, an initiative implemented by us that provides an individualised training programme for employees, so that resources were delivered to fit everyone’s schedules and we are embracing a blended working model, SMARTBlend, which gives everyone the choice of where to work.
These initiatives help empower our employees and provide them with the skills to make the right decision for them and their team, and this is further enforced through our recent transition to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT). Now that all employees have a long-term beneficial interest in a company, this helps drive a wider entrepreneurial and inclusive spirit and ensures that our team are focused on the future of the organisation.
This will involve ensuring that we continue to create sustainable developments, through maintaining our work with Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and upskilling the practice in sustainability, Passivhaus, and Retrofit. This ensures that we are part of delivering a net zero carbon future and are working towards reducing our impact on the environment, while helping to address the skills shortage in the industry.
Karen Mosley, Managing Director at HLM, said: “It’s fantastic to see that our practice has moved up the index. Our commitment to improving the work life of our team, coupled with their dedication, has allowed us to achieve some exceptional results despite the circumstances of the last year. We’ll continue to evolve our blended working offering to allow us to adapt to the changing needs of our team so that we can create places that have people, communities and society at their heart.”
Richard O’Neil, HLM Chair, said: “This achievement is one of many for HLM recently and it’s all thanks to our team and how brilliantly they’ve adapted to these new working conditions. I feel very proud to be part of a practice that prioritises both its employees and commitments to achieving design excellence whilst continuing to deliver the best outcomes for our clients, subsequently giving HLM the reputation that it has in the profession today.”
