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Principles of Ownership
When salary just isn't enough...
You are making it happen. You deliver high quality successful projects, develop client
relationships and enhance your firm's reputation. Your creative ideas solve Client
challenges, your leadership keeps staff wanting to come through for your projects.
You do more than work for your firm, you are building it. Salary (no matter how
competitive) and bonus (no matter how generous) just aren't enough any more. You
are building the business and you want an equity share in what you build. You want
to be an Owner.
The founding members of Water Works Engineers
set out to create a consulting engineering firm owned and managed by
those most responsible for its success. The merits of such a cooperative approach
to building and sustaining a practice seem obvious; however, most consulting engineering
firms do not work that way. Typically, consulting engineering firm ownership is through
one of two models:
- The firm is owned by a small group of "old timers" who are not currently the ones
making the firm prosper, but reap the reward of the firm's success. Joining
these "old timers" as an owner requires more than just hard work, success
and good engineering practice and is often impossible.
- The firm is "employee owned", but keeps ownership so dilute and disconnected from
performance, the annual share distribution rarely reflects an individual's
actual contribution to the growth and value of the firm. Obtaining significant
ownership in the firm is often not allowed or highly unlikely.
In either of these models, obtaining significant ownership is difficult, is not based directly
on an employees contribution to the firm, and almost always requires the employee to
"buy-in" in one way or another.
Water Works Engineers believes there is a better way. We believe in ownership through "sweat equity".
The organizational structure of Water Works Engineers, LLC, strikes a balance between
recognizing the contribution of those who have made the firm what it is today and those
who are building the firm into the future. Employee ownership is broad and obtainable by
anyone who makes the effort to be a significant part of the firm's growth and performance.
As employees of the firm earn ownership positions, their contribution to firm growth is
directly recognized by shares in the firm's ownership (and, consequently, profits). As an
Owner's contribution to the firm increases, his/her share in the firm increases accordingly.
Conversely, as long-time owners phase-out and reduce their efforts in firm growth and
success, their share in the firm will decrease. No dead wood. No figureheads. No bull.
The path towards ownership...
New owners will be voted in by the existing owners. New owners can be from any part of the firm,
but will all show the following traits:
- Unwavering Ethics
- Client Focus
- Technical Excellence
- Creative Thinking
- Firm Leadership
- Superior Performance
Ownership is not limited by anything artificial. Anyone who displays these traits, grows the
business, is making Clients into happy, repeat customers and has the desire will be an
owner. Period.
"I don't want to be an Owner, I just work here ... Why does this matter to me?"
- Decisions regarding salaries, bonuses, promotions, project assignments, training,
facilities, equipment, benefits and everything else that affects the quality
of your work-life are made by the managers who you work with every day and are
directly involved in the execution of the firm's business. Your hard work will
be more directly rewarded. Your needs will be more immediately addressed.
- You have immediate access to the power structure of the firm. When you have an issue,
it will be resolved by a firm Owner who is someone you know and have worked with
on a day-to-day basis. When you have an idea on how to do things better, it will
be assessed by someone with the immediate understanding of how your work is done
and the power to make change happen.
What's in it for our Clients?
- Water Works Engineers is owned by the people doing the work. From the day we propose
to perform engineering services, throughout project execution, delivery and close-out,
our Clients have day to day access to an Owner of the firm. Immediate access to the
firm's power structure allows for quick, decisive action on the part of Water Works
Engineers to creatively solve client problems and be responsive to Client needs on
a project-specific basis.
- The profits from the business go to the people who do the work. What Water Works Engineers
earns from the work we do for our Clients goes to the people who earned it, not to a
disconnected ownership structure with whom our Client has no relationship. This leads to a
Client-focused organization whose unrelenting goal is high quality work and Client
satisfaction.
Water Works Engineers' founding principles of Ownership were created to form an organization that
will provide an exceptional work environment and superior Client service by removing the
barriers to Ownership that exist in the vast majority of the consulting engineering world.
Water Works Engineers is a firm where the hard work that people put into their careers is
rewarded with an equity share in the firm they are building. Our firm was intentionally not
named after the founders. The firm was not created as a legacy of the founders--it was created
to always be about and for those people who are making it successful.
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