How a Culture of Learning Can Drive Success at Your Organization

Investing in your internal talent can benefit your firm in several ways.

How would you describe the culture at your firm? If you’re looking to make some tweaks, totally revamp, or even define and invest in your organization’s culture for the first time, we think there’s one specific type that brings benefits to everyone in its orbit. That’s a culture of learning!

Here are some of the ways that you as an information manager can utilize a culture of learning to accelerate BIM training and achieve greater success for your organization.

Upskill your teams and increase efficiency

It stands to reason that when people are more educated and prepared for their roles, efficiency flourishes. When they have the knowledge and confidence from being properly trained, it saves the time and frustration of making mistakes or searching for hard-to-find answers. And that time is valuable - a McKinsey report estimated that employees spend on average 1.8 hours every day searching for information and answers to their questions. That’s 9.3 hours each week that could be spent on billable work!

When employees know where to find the answers they’re looking for right when they’re needed, they’ll save billable time and help grow their skills on the go.

Attract top candidates to the company

Most of the best workers in any industry share one thing in common: they enjoy and pursue learning on an ongoing basis. In a rapidly evolving space like AEC, you want these willing learners on your team!

Creating and promoting a culture of learning makes your organization more attractive to top job candidates. In fact, a

Pew Research Center analysis found that 45% of millennial workers prioritize jobs that help them develop their career skills as ‘very important’. Showing prospective hires that your organization is a place for them to grow and develop professionally can help increase the chances that they’ll want to join - and stay on - your team.

Reduce onboarding and turnover costs

The costs of searching for, hiring, and onboarding new employees add up quickly. A Glassdoor study found that the average U.S. employer spends around $4,000 to hire a new employee, including money spent on job sourcing, background checks, technology, recruitment, HR system, and more.

By training and retaining internal talent, you reduce these costs and any disruptions to a team’s workflow from members coming and going. You also gain the opportunity to promote internally, so their careers can grow and the organization flourishes!

Improve digital competency

Keeping up with new technology is essential to staying competitive in the AEC space. When your firm prioritizes a culture of learning, your teams won’t have to speed through BIM software training when an update is released or waste money and time on in-person training that employees won’t retain.

Instead, employees will have the tools and support to learn on the job, and complete BIM training in the way that makes the most sense for them and their role. The result? A team that’s up-to-date on the latest tech and ready to apply it to projects right away.

Share knowledge internally

A culture of learning is a culture where all team members are encouraged to value and share knowledge. Promoting a mindset of learning and collaboration can lead to a variety of benefits, including encouraging team members to pool their knowledge and learn from one another.

Encourage new innovations

Innovation is one of the most difficult things for an organization to increase in a measurable, quantifiable way. You can’t put an output requirement on human creativity! But what you can do is create an environment where ideas are heard, and creativity can thrive. In a culture of learning, employees are constantly being steeped in new ideas and exposed to different information, leading them to lightbulb moments of their own.

Increase teams’ sense of community and pride

These are two more things that you can’t exactly quantify, but they make an enormous impact on everyone’s experience working at your company. Learning together, growing together, and improving as professionals gives your team a bond with each other and increases their loyalty and satisfaction at your organization.

Earn more business

Lastly, financial success comes with a learning culture too! Upskilling your team prepares them to take on more ambitious projects and clients in the future. When they’re growing, the company is growing, and profits are growing - what more could you ask for?

BIM CoordinationWhat’s THAT all about?

Rina Sahay

You would know members of this tribe by many names - BIM Coordinator, Specialist, or Manager. If you aren’t sure - look for the individual who is seen enthusiastically conducting training events; patiently mentoring team members; and creating and maintaining family libraries that work within office standards. And of course, this is the person you would see turning prematurely gray as they perform their magic enhancing, troubleshooting, and resuscitating dead or dying projects.

While the BIM Coordinator may be mentor, sage, resource, all rolled into one, they are only as good as the project data that they hold sway over. So join me, folks. This is the cue to put on your sparkly shades and blingy kicks and join me in my favorite song - Lite Lite Baby (sung to the tune of Ice Ice Baby).

Today a question about purging a family out of a project reminded me of repeated battles with project teams which I fondly refer to as the Battle Of The Purge. Picture this. Project is underway - slow, sluggish, crashing, glitching. Takes forever to load, save, or sync. Primary recommendation (among others) - Purge ruthlessly.

Does this pushback sound familiar to you?

This is stuff we need!

We don’t want to reload families!! We can’t and won’t purge the project!!! We don’t have the time to audit the model!!!! After throwing up my hands in supplication to the BIM Gods, here are some (hopefully helpful) thoughts purge. Open with Audit every couple of weeks while you’re at it. Keep it Lite Lite Baby.

1) Your Project Template/Project file is not a dump for just-in-case stuff. Load what you need. Dump the just-in-case stuff in a Container file. Or dump it altogether. Remember - Insert From File is your friend! Keep it Lite Lite Baby.

3) Restrain the urge to model in place any and every single piece of geometry unless you need just an instance or two. If you need multiple copies, take the time to convert the in-place model into a family. The last thing that anyone wants to see is 300+ in-place models cluttering your Project Browser (believe me, it HAS happened!). Don’t forget our theme song!

Other additional challenges to spice up the mix are Cloud collaboration, model collaboration and clash detection, digital documentation and communication, and the multitude of tools available and about to be available to address them. However the ability to sing Lite Lite Baby in perfect tune is the razor sharp tip of the BIM Coordination iceberg that can bring an entire project literally crashing down.

Remember - in addition to these basics - you are not only a resource, but you are also an interface funneling information between the world of technology and your team. You will experience pushback, you will also receive kudos for your life saving superpowers. Enhance those connections.

Read. Listen. Learn. Network. Explore. Communicate. Think out of the box.

And that is why we are all here, attending the BIM Coordinators’ Summit - to revel in a plethora of learning opportunities as a member of the professional community. Lose no chance to inform yourself about the new and wonderful developments taking place in the industry around usand then siphon that information back to your team!

4) Finally, please be wary of the dangers and explosive potential of CAD (DWG files - I’m looking at YOU!!) files. Involving them in your project with utter disregard for the potential havoc they can wreak are unforgivable sins. You will no longer be deemed worthy to sing our theme song.

2) A purge for the health of the model does not have to involve the Purge Unused tool. You can and must do a periodic selective

BIM COORDINATORS SUMMIT 2022 & Where Minds Meet Information Matters

Celebrating the Heroes of AEC Architecture | Engineering | Construction

8th September | Live in Dublin + Virtual

Stage 1

9am – 1pm Information Management for Strategic Project Planning Location - It’s Everywhere (and Everything!) when Planning

Sponsored & Coordinated By:

Planning

Digital Project Delivery Made Better with Location Intelligence

9:00-9:20 Welcome / Introduction

Marc Goldman

AEC Industry Leader

Esri

9:20-9:45 BIM & Smart Cities: The Challenges and Opportunities

Paul Doherty

IFMA Fellow, DFC Senior Fellow President & CEO

The Digit Group, Inc.

9:45-10:00 BIM + GIS = GeoBIM for Smart Territories

Ignasi Pérez Arnal CEO

BIM Academy

10:00-10:15

State of the Art: BIM in Spain

David Barco Moreno

Digital Leader

Berrilan BIM

10:15-10:30

Digitalization of Project Delivery in Aviation

Lewis Watts

Global Major Projects Development

Executive

Autodesk

10:30-11:00 PANEL DISCUSSION

Just Buzzwords, or is it Real (Part 1)

11:00-11:30 TEA / COFFEE BREAK

11:30-11:35 Welcome / Introduction

Marc Goldman

AEC Industry Leader

Esri

11:35-12:00

The Framework for Integrated Project Delivery: Essential Steps to Information Management Nirvana

Clive Jordan

Co-Founder Plannerly

12:00-12:15

Construction Intelligence - Let the data tell the story

Omar Habib

4D Planning & Digital Delivery Manager

WiiPlan Projects Solutions

12:15-12:30

Practical BIM: Confessions of an Information Manager

Nigel Davies Director

Evolve Consultancy

12:30-12:45

Integrated Digitalised Solution for Construction Industry

Swapnil Joshi

Founder & Principal Consultant

Intento Associates

12:45-13:00 PANEL DISCUSSION

Just Buzzwords, or is it Real (Part 2)