Number of Employees- 25
Locations: Winston-Salem • Greensboro • Boone
Long hours. Demanding projects. Constant deadlines.
Those are just a few phrases that come to mind when describing the competitive world of architecture and design.
But STITCH Design Shop, headquartered in Winston-Salem, is creating a different blueprint — one that prioritizes employee well-being and family support. The company’s recent Family Forward NC® Employer Certification represents its commitment to creating a workplace that values professional excellence and personal fulfillment.
With 25 employees across North Carolina, the company approaches workplace culture with the same intentionality they bring to design projects. Taylor Ghost, associate and director of business development, says that supporting employees and their families isn’t just about retention — it’s about recognizing the whole person.
“Quality of life is important to STITCH,” Ghost says. “If you’re spending a lot of your time at work, having a transparent environment where we put our values forward and acknowledge them makes a big difference in employee satisfaction and retention.”
One of STITCH Design Shop’s supportive policies is its approach to parental leave. They offer four weeks of paid leave for both mothers and fathers (including foster and adoption), with flexibility in how employees use it. Though they are a small to midsize company, this policy is better than policies at international architecture firms, according to Ghost.
For Devon Leonard, an architect at the firm who became a new dad in March of 2025, this benefit was important to him (especially because his child arrived three weeks early).
“STITCH Design Shop worked with me to adjust my workload and let me take two weeks off immediately and take the other two weeks off at a later date,” Leonard says. “This gave me and my wife a lot of breathing room. They even sent us a care package.”
When STITCH Design Shop purchased and renovated its headquarters in Winston-Salem, the team used the opportunity to incorporate family-friendly design elements. It includes a dedicated wellness room that serves as a lactation space and a quiet area for employees needing a break. It features low lighting, a sink, a refrigerator and artwork. Ghost remembers showing it to a potential new hire.
“He said, ‘Where I work, our wellness room is a closet. We have a random chair. We slapped ‘wellness room’ on the door, but there’s just a bunch of janitor equipment in there.”
Ghost hopes STITCH Design Shop’s family-friendly approach will inspire other architecture firms to follow suit. In an industry known for demanding schedules and high-pressure deadlines, she sees the Certification as an opportunity to challenge outdated norms.
“Our leadership team has worked at organizations where employees were asked to breastfeed in the car or told to use their PTO time as the sole source of coverage for paternity or caregiver leave,” Ghost says. “I believe architecture firms have an opportunity to model better workplace practices, given their influence on physical environments. It makes sense that we apply that same thoughtfulness to our workplace policies.”
Besides the wellness room, the company’s day-one healthcare coverage is notable. Most companies make employees wait 90 days until healthcare coverage kicks in.
“We don’t want people to have an extreme lag in their coverage as they’re getting settled in,” Ghost says. “We know that insurance gaps can significantly impact employees facing health issues.”
A cornerstone of the company’s employee-focused approach is its commitment to ongoing feedback. Ghost implements weekly email surveys to keep tabs on team morale and identify potential issues before they become problems.
“These quick check-ins give everyone a voice and help us stay agile in our approach to workplace culture,” Ghost says. “It’s not enough to create good policies — we need to consistently evaluate how they’re working for our team in real-time.”
Sample Benefits:
- Healthcare coverage begins on day one of employment, with the company paying half of most premiums and an HSA option
- 100% company-paid short-term disability, group life and AD&D
- Paid parental leave: Eight weeks for an employee who has given birth or four weeks following the birth of a child or placement in connection with foster care and adoption
- One day of paid time for community service activities each year
- Paid bereavement leave and support for various caregiving needs
- Paid jury duty leave to support employees in upholding their civic responsibility
- Flexible work arrangements with offices across North Carolina
- Paid Time Off beginning on day one of employment
- Lactation/wellness room