Firm Handbook and Best Practices for Office Policies

In the wake of the #MeToo movement in the architecture community, and with the release of Part I of the AIA Guides for Equitable Practice, many firms are revisiting their employee manuals or firm handbooks to ensure proper procedures are implemented. These include providing an equitable workplace with policies and benefits to serve the staff and the firm. Please join us for a panel where industry leaders share their experience and knowledge and offer advice for best practices for improving or preparing the firm handbook to be relevant in today’s workplace environment.

Speakers:
Angelica Ruano, Founder and Principal, Plainspace Architecture & Design
Bradley Lukanic, AIA, CEO, CannonDesign

Moderators:
Maya Porath & Priyanka Shah, The Architecture Lobby

Angelica Ruano, co-founder of Plainspace Architecture and Design DPC, works with projects that involve the research and development of creative materials and methods of fabrication for custom furniture and interiors for residential work as well as extensive experience in retail store design and execution. Employee mentorship is the basic philosophy at Plainspace and the greatest asset of her office where the goal is to train every employee in the most complete way enabling the staff to perform independently every aspect of a project.

With a never-ending drive and passion for design and built experiences, Bradley Lukanic embraces situational change disrupters that transform the industry’s future – and he’s leading CannonDesign’s charge to get there. As CEO, Brad seeks partners that are curious to accelerate, command and propel design’s influences on environments with goals resolving cross-disciplinary thinking and engagement. He leads CannonDesign with a sincere approach of listening to employee and client challenges to guide a discovery of “what if” opportunities, instead of progressing in a silo.

Diane Windholz is a Principal and Litigation Manager of the New York City office of Jackson Lewis P.C. Since joining the firm in 1988, she has been engaged exclusively in employment litigation. Ms. Windholz has represented employers before federal and state courts and administrative agencies in matters involving, among other causes of actions, race, sex, sexual harassment, sexual preference, age, religion, national origin, and disability discrimination. Ms. Windholz regularly conducts training sessions on a variety of topics including sexual harassment, hiring and firing, avoiding employment litigation, employee discipline, employee evaluations, discrimination, and how to conduct internal investigations.

Joel Peterson, SHRM-SCP is the Associate Director of Human Resources at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), a global architectural design firm based in New York City. For the last thirteen years, Joel has worked in the AEC industry where as an HR leader he helps build the people who build the buildings. Outside the office, Joel volunteers for the New York State Special Olympics and is a public speaker. He is passionate about H.R., business, and the complexities of humanity. It has been said (by one of his employees, in fact) that if life was a sentence, Joel would be an exclamation point.

Maya Porath is an architectural designer and the co-Steward of the NYC Chapter of The Architecture Lobby. She has worked at several small design offices in the city, gaining experience in public, institutional and interior projects. In 2014 she co-founded Parlor Talks, a series of conversations about public space. Maya earned a BA at Brown University, and a Masters of Architecture at GSAPP, Columbia University and has taught history and design classes at NYIT and Parsons.

Priyanka Shah is an architectural designer and the co-Steward of the NYC Chapter of The Architecture Lobby. She has worked as a designer and urbanist on a range of projects at practices in Cambridge, New York, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. She received grants from The Architectural League of New York pursue research on the antecedents of parametric design, and from MIT to study the relationship of urban form to governance and social equity through a comparison of recent developments in New York and Paris. Priyanka earned and Masters degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.