2 min read June 2023 — In an interview with Invest:, Bradley Lunz, president of The Lunz Group, talked about the company’s plan for expansion, effects of the labor shortage, how client demands are shifting toward home-office spaces and the affinity between the architectural profession and incorporating diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
How is the Lunz Group looking at expansion possibilities, whether regionally or across states?
We are looking at expansion and let me explain why. The Lunz Group is a firm that has designed and completed projects in 32 states and is currently working on projects in New York, California, Texas, Georgia and Virginia. Over our years in business, we found great success in growing alongside our clients, which helped us explore new locations and markets. While we have offices spanning Central Florida, I’m toying with expanding further North as new markets expand regionally.
However, we are facing challenges, such as talent recruitment and retention. The biggest challenge is recruitment, as there is flat growth in the supply of skilled labor. This is a significant challenge, as we are competing with others in the market who are looking to acquire the same talent. Many of the competitors’ contracts are multiyear and we need to factor in the inflationary cost of labor. We must also balance our expectations of labor costs with the overall cost of the project. With an 8.2% cost of living increase, the overall cost of goods must be recalculated, which can be a significant challenge for us.
However, despite these challenges, we have done an excellent job of retaining talented staff, thanks to our phenomenal benefits package.
We have seen a shift in the workforce where the market is increasingly becoming an employee’s market. The availability of talent has become a critical issue and it is unlikely to change anytime soon. The demographics of the workforce and the overall labor pool visibility pose a challenge to the labor market as well. Historically, the labor availability was at 88% but it has decreased to 83%, showing a 5% improvement in the total labor pool in the United States. However, simultaneously, the workforce has shrunk due to a simple decrease in population, as you go from 80 million people to 72 million, and there are larger generations retiring than we have available to replace them. So, this is a numbers game that will continue to affect the labor market.
Architecture is one of the most affected industries due to the financial crisis of 2008 through 2010. This prolonged period of economic downturn took out a whole generation of architects, who today would now be between the ages of 45 to 55, creating a huge gap in leadership positions within firms. This factor is causing an absolute shortage of talent in various industries, and also forces the discussion of succession planning for future leaders.
When you look at your portfolio, what are some of the projects that have meant the most to the growth of the company?
My favorite project is the design and construction of the NOAA Hurricane Hunters aircraft operations center in Lakeland, Florida. It was a challenging project:we had only six months to design and build a 120,000-square-foot facility following federal guidelines for GSA space requirements. The goal was to recruit a high-skill, high-wage, uniformed and non-uniformed service to Lakeland as we were competing regionally with Tampa Bay. Our aim was to create a project that would position the facility to become their lifetime home and we successfully achieved that goal. As such, it showcased what we could achieve in such a short period and offered us invaluable learning opportunities.
Working on this project with the city allowed us to spring into a different mindset of delivering projects. It helped us with cross-innovation within our industry and led to new mentalities like rapid procurement, early deployment, early bid sets, and pull-forwards, which are all commonplace now but were not in 2019. Delivering a project in a narrative fashion was another insight we learned that helped us tremendously. These lessons allowed us to become an industry leader during the recession.
The mission of NOAA is what makes me love the project even more. I am humbled to have served them in building their facility. It was a great opportunity for us to work on a project with a federal agency that has a greater purpose in protecting the nation’s environment, communities and economy from the consequences of natural disasters.
Regarding the interior design space, what are some of the common features or amenities or themes that your clients are looking for?
There has been a significant push toward the concept of a resident-commercial space, which is aimed at creating a home-like atmosphere within the office. In specific segments, such as office space, this concept is particularly relevant as it addresses the need for a work-life balance and caters to an increasingly itinerant or global workforce. The challenge lies in fostering a sense of community without relying on the toxic trait of undying loyalty that the term “family” implies. This requires a delicate balance, as the work identity and home identity must coexist within the workspace. Significantly, millennials have played a crucial role in reshaping this aspect of the workforce by putting a greater emphasis on work-life balance. Boundary setting has become essential and the interior design of the office must not be a replication of a home but rather a welcoming environment that promotes a sense of belonging.
What are some of your top priorities as you move forward?
We are creating a robust internal leadership program to cultivate and mentor architects, managers and leaders within the organization. We are actively supporting individual’s endeavors outside of the organization as well by promoting individual passions. Moreover, because design by nature is inclusive, we actively seek to find all of the voices and make sure they are valued. Thus, our entire company culture prioritizes seeking out all voices to find diverse ideas and solve problems that positively impact everyone – from the hiring process to how we manage projects.
As proof of our stance, more than 50% of the firm’s staff is female, with 33% of its licensed staff also being female. Additionally, more than 60% of executive leadership is female and 20% of staff identifies as from a variety of races, backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures. This is exceptional in the architecture industry, which is historically one-sided in terms of gender and race. We are also heavily engaged in community outreach through our volunteerism efforts as well, such as the ACE mentorship program, which is a high-school program that creates pathways to the architecture, construction and engineering professions and promotes career awareness at an early level. In fact, 100 percent of our staff are engaged in community organizations outside of the office.
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