Retail - Practice Manager

Position Summary

The Practice Manager supervises production staff executing the work of the practice, including assigning project responsibilities, managing work performance, guiding employee development efforts, and fostering positive employee engagement. The Practice Manager informs employment needs and decisions for production staff within the practice. The Practice Manager maintains production systems, standards, and processes that meet client needs and contributes to strong client relationships and development opportunities. This role is highly matrixed and may include accountabilities to all members of the Sector Leadership team for their sector. This position may be a part-time or full-time role based on the needs of the practice.

Essential Job Functions & Accountabilities

Operations

• Assists the Practice Director to align resources appropriately with projects to maximize labor efficiency and prioritize client expectations.
• Provides feedback to Practice Director and Sector Operations Director regarding staffing and client needs to inform hiring decisions and/or improvement efforts.
• Serves as hiring manager for the practice leading interviews for production staff and project managers.
• Supervises production staff in project execution and client service to ensure consistency in service delivery across projects.

• Manages employee performance and operational needs, as necessary - e.g., evaluations, employee development, discipline, timesheets.
• Other duties as assigned.

Employee Engagement & Teamwork

• Practices effective employee relations and personnel management within the practice.
• Teams with technical managers to align appropriatetraining, development, and mentoring of talent.
• Communicates opportunities and gaps in employee development to practice and sector leadership.

• Collaborates with organizational, sector, practice, and/or office leadership to foster an engaged, dynamic employee culture and lead company-wide events and initiatives.

Client Experience

• Manages client relationships, especially within their geographical region, as requested by Practice Director.
• May serve as a strategic client contact within local geographic region for assigned practice and/or for other practices building a new regional presence.
• Maintains knowledge and presence within the industry to contribute to project pursuits.

• Assists Practice Director and marketing staff to generate proposals and determine a profitable fee structure that aligns with the practice strategy.

Project Management

• Ensures that production of drawings, specifications, reports, and analyses meet scope, schedule, cost and quality requirements, and practice trends.

• Serves as Project Manager for critical clients and projects within the practice, as needed.

Core Competencies

Communication

• Keeps others well informed and prioritizes audiences, accuracy, and timeliness.
• Facilitates an efficient, consistent workflow and exchange of information.
• Adjusts communication based on needs and make-up of audience.

Integrity

• Leads by example, challenges assumptions, and creates candid feedback loops.
• Aligns personal actions and words, extends and receives trust, and upholds commitments.
• Maintains the confidence of clients and colleagues, especially when handling sensitive information.

Quality Orientation

• Creates a sense of urgency to tackle problems and rewards responsiveness.
• Recognizes opportunity for improvement, creating and supporting processes and feedback to improve results.
• Holds others accountable for doing their best work.

Teamwork/Inclusion

• Promotes a culture of collaboration across roles and teams.
• Navigates difficult conversations with diplomacy and leverages cooperative efforts to resolve conflict.
• Confronts exclusionary behavior and participates productively in discussions of diverse, sensitive societal topics.

Continuous Learning

• Pursues challenging assignments and new knowledge.
• Encourages experimentation when faced with new challenges.
• Examines mistakes, clarifies lessons learned, and applies to future work.

Functional/Technical Expertise

• Leverages area of expertise to contribute to team and company goals.
• Promotes an environment where people openly share their expertise, experiences, opinions, ideas, and perspectives.
• Maintains knowledge, skills, and abilities relevant to success throughout job functions.

Leadership

INSPIRES THE ORGANIZATION

• Personifies the values of the organization and champions organizational culture and vision, earnestly supporting and mobilizing decisions made by organizational leadership.
• Navigates ambiguity and change in a positive way, proactively seeking support from leadership when needed.

FOCUSES ON CLIENT EXPERIENCE

• Fosters positive client relationships and coaches others to do the same, striving for best-in-class service and internal and external client satisfaction.
• Anticipates and responds proactively to changes in client needs, priorities, and/or expectations, ensuring quality results.

DEVELOPS THE STRENGTHS OF OTHERS

• Demonstrates empathy and builds strong relationships with colleagues.
• Seeks and shares productive feedback with candor to help others grow, celebrating the effort, progress, and everyday wins of colleagues.

DRIVES ACCOUNTABILITY, QUALITY, AND INNOVATION

• Expects and drives high-quality results and welcomes innovative strategies, especially in times of change.
• Models financially responsible behaviors and coaches others to be fiscally mindful as employee-owners.

Required Education, Experience, Licenses & Technical Competencies

• Bachelor's degree in any engineering, construction management, science, technology, marketing, or business preferred. Years of relevant experience in leadership/management position will be considered in lieu of requisite education.
• Eight (8) or greater years of relevant experience, with a minimum of two (2) years personnel or project management experience.
• Proven track record in contributing to the growth and development of client-focused engineering teams, as well as ability to motivate, direct, and coach staff.
• Demonstrates excellent motivation, team leading, and the ability to achieve goals and objectives.
• Broad proficiency of engineering design fundamentals and advanced knowledge of the A&E industry, codes, design guides, and standards. Knowledge may apply to a broad range of practice, project, or program types.
• Must demonstrate proficiency in all core competencies as described and characterized in this job description.

Physical & Other Requirements

• Prolonged periods of sitting or standing at a desk and working on a computer.
• Ability to read, write and communicate in English.