It’s that time of year when we resolve to do better – for example, I have decided to invest more time in my health and wellness in 2021! If you started the new year with a resolution to advance your career or further develop your skills, FGIA provides an avenue for working toward those goals. The FGIA Leadership Development Program focuses on the soft skills a leader needs to achieve his or her full potential.Leadership is influence. The Leadership Development Program will help you connect,...

FGIA’s webinar program has been going strong since 2015, offering information on topics of industry interest – typically at no cost and open to the public. Previous topics covered in 2020 included field testing, security glazing, Florida Product Approval Program changes and financial management in a COVID Economy. But did you know the FGIA live-tweets from every webinar that is made available to the public? You can follow along with coverage of each session on Twitter.Using the hashtag #FGIAwebinar, FGIA Marketing writes live-tweet threads during...

2020 has certainly been a year of challenges for our industry. It is a difficult prospect, looking into 2021 and attempting to predict what is to come, but we at FGIA remain optimistic about the coming year.It is with much relief that I can report many fenestration and glass industry companies performed better financially this year than they may have feared earlier in 2020. While for many it was not as lucrative as the first couple of months of 2020 indicated, recovery did come, and...

FGIA just wrapped up its annual Holiday Staff Week, but this year, it looked a little bit different. Instead of celebrating with games and movies in the Schaumburg office, we gathered on Zoom to play remote BINGO and hold a gingerbread house decorating contest with prizes. Samantha Allen and I mailed boxes of supplies and tiny gifts to each staff member so they could participate. We met each morning for a “coffee or hot cocoa break” to share holiday stories of Christmases past and to...

Prior to my time with FGIA, I worked for a start-up in downtown Chicago. It was a new company with a lot of venture capital, and they invested deeply into portraying a fun, quirky company culture. With lime green walls and indoor swing sets, word quickly spread about the company’s culture. At one point, we had a game room, but it was almost always empty because everyone at the company was always too busy to enjoy it – perhaps a more telling detail about what...

Now that the holiday season has arrived, things are winding down for 2020. But what is not taking a break is FGIA’s commitment to our industry, more important now than ever with the unexpected changes brought by COVID-19. Last month, FGIA sent a survey to members to ask how companies have fared this year, and what FGIA can do to continue to ease their burdens. Three things were frequently requested by membership: education opportunities; a return to in-person conferences; and ways to combat the labor...

2020 has been an unconventional year, and that was the case for FGIA Education as well. While some of our offerings were already remote-friendly, a lot of work went into pivoting those that weren’t to an online platform. From creating virtual InstallationMasters® classes and planning a future video series version of the popular IG Fabricators workshop, FGIA’s Education team has been working round the clock to deliver the valuable professional development that our members have come to appreciate and expect. Here is a rundown of...

As 2020 comes to a close, most of us don’t have the luxury of getting the usual staff group photo for the annual company holiday card. That doesn’t mean you can’t still send your best wishes to customers and clients this holiday season. However, whether you need to collect employees’ selfies holding up signs of greetings or you need to coordinate a group photo on Zoom, time must be on your side to pull this off. Here is some guidance on how to craft your...

We had an interesting safety speaker at the recent FGIA Virtual Fall Conference. Michael Cook, Corporate Safety Director for Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope, shared what his company has done during the spread of COVID-19 to adapt workspaces and ensure employees’ safety in the pandemic.Here are some tips Cook shared:Stay current on advances in COVID safety devices and strategies which have evolved since the onset of the pandemicOffer more paid leave so workers do not feel pressured to come to work sickProvide facial coverings along with other standard...

FGIA offers its members a wealth of information. From our publications to our conferences to our task groups and committees, you can learn so much about our industry. We encourage you to take advantage of all that FGIA has to offer, but don’t miss out on one of the most important aspects of our organization: The opportunity to have a voice in what our organization does and how it influences the fenestration industry as a whole.FGIA documents and publications are the backbone of our industry....