Pros
Not on the stock exchange like other large Engineering firms.
Cons
Top heavy management, and those sitting at the top "managing" don't even know how to manage. Lots of money spent on marketing, business development, and extra paper work with absolutely no results whatsoever. Those who are pulling in the work/money are the project engineers and technical staff, only to see it wasted by overhead and promotional knick-knacks, and extra admin time from all the extra forms we have to fill. The engineers/technical staff work extremely hard (50-60 hr work weeks) and management wants more. Many prominent staff who are well respected in their field of work have left within the last 3 years and there were absolutely no means of trying to keep them. Instead, they were cited as "not team players". Massive lay-offs at the financial year-end (May/June) with no notice to other staff; you'd be trying to contact the person about a project and then a day later you'd discovered they were let go. Your performance is based on your utilization (project bill out) and if it dips below 80% you can expect a pink-slip... everything is number based, in fact, you're nothing but a number. If your company is part of a merger/acquisition to GHD you will notice that GHD will protect their own staff, not your company's. Salary is extremely low... you can expect to be making $15K less than the Ontario average (as issued by the Professional Engineers of Ontario) and if your role has changed there is no increase. You'll be lucky to receive inflation. My advice to whoever is considering this firm, is to run... fast.
