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At the beginning of a new year, uncertainty abounds. Projects in essential markets for architecture and engineering firms are plagued by question marks.

But industry leaders remain hopeful for what 2021 might bring. With multiple vaccines approved, returns of employees to offices could become possible in the near future.

When the pandemic first hit the U.S. hard in March 2020, opportunities became disconcerting, said Kurt Haapala, a Mahlum Architects partner. The firm primarily handles public work for health care providers, universities and K-12 schools.

Instantly, projections for 2020 and 2021 just vanished, Haapala said. Also, clients were unable to give estimates on when stalled projects would resume.

With work shifting from an office to homes, productivity decreased, Haapala said. There were people who suddenly didn’t have anything to do, he added. Employee wellness became one of the firm’s top priorities. Staffers were able to take home their comfortable chairs, extra monitors, keyboards and anything else needed to make remote work easier.

Although most existing projects continued moving ahead, Haapala said, getting clients’ attention became challenging. The health care industry became a front line, and universities and colleges froze projects because of financial losses. K-12 school officials became preoccupied with figuring out remote learning.

Mahlum switched to a conservative financial mindset and reduced some benefit spending.

鈥淲e started to look at the end of the year as a break-even strategy,鈥� Haapala said. 鈥淲e weren’t looking at profits on projects but rather keep the ship afloat and get through the year.鈥�

The firm began to regularly update employees about its financial health.

鈥淚 think that bred confidence in the leadership and that we weren’t closing up shop,鈥� Haapala said.

Haapala doesn’t think Mahlum is out of the woods yet. The firm will continue to be conservative financially. It’s also creating an interruption plan to become nimbler if another pandemic or crisis dramatically shifts workflow.

Al Barkouli, chairman and CEO of David Evans and Associates Inc., said the company is keeping a constant eye on its key markets 鈥� housing, transportation and municipal. If local agencies’ funding were to drop significantly, industrial engineering companies could experience economic shortfalls, he said.

The challenge of guiding the company in a pandemic so far, Barkouli said, is staying adaptive.

Hacker knows all about making adjustments, said Sarah Hacker, a principal with the architecture firm. It’s continually focusing on fundamentals in order to maintain operations and keep employees employed, she said.

The architecture firm moved into a new space in District Office, in the Central Eastside Industrial District, on March 9, 2020. A week later, employees began working from home.

When developing policies, the firm has taken a person-by-person approach and tried to be really flexible, Hacker said. A lot of policies try to be one-size-fits-all, but that doesn’t work right now, she added.

Construction was able to finish in 2020 on projects that had reached a certain point, but timelines did need to shift, Hacker said. However, one of the firm’s biggest markets is office space, and many such projects either stopped indefinitely or paused. But Hacker said she’s starting to see more paused projects begin to ramp up.

Throughout remote work, Hacker said employees have been communicating in ways that they haven’t before. One problem, she added, is that it can be hard to read the room and see how people are feeling over Zoom and emails.

A big plus, however, has been an increase in equity, Hacker said. Previously, she explained, groups would stand around a whiteboard while usually just one person sketched ideas. But in the digital environment more people have been able to contribute ideas.

Employees are continuing work remotely, Hacker said, with an assumption that there will be a long transition period for them to return to the office. However, maintaining equity during the transition period could be challenging, she added, because people not in the office could feel disconnected or excluded. For example, attendees at a meeting could mostly be in person, but a few could be watching on a screen.

Once vaccines become more widely available, the industry could see another dramatic shift as workers return to offices.

鈥淚 think some different new normal will be emerging,鈥� Barkouli said.