Unable to get and maintain work in a poor environment. They can't compete with other engineering firms in difficult times, their rates are too high for a similar quality product.
During the mining boom, they had ridiculous rates and massive margins. Work was easy to obtain and they could turn away work, without ever having to look for any. This drove up the share price and number of shareholders. During the downturn, they are trying to maintain these margins and returns. This is extremely hard to achieve with their business model and is leading to poor decisions and a toxic work environment.
They replace local engineers and managers with Canadians, who they claim are 'world experts'. After many years of trying to get work in Minerals Processing in Australia, they finally hired a local expert and got lots of work (no surprise there). Hopefully they keep them rather than replace them with a Canadian 'expert'.
They treat junior staff extremely poorly. There is a culture of black-mail and threats to get them to do unappealing work, outside of their contracts.
Focused on shareholders and associates. Other staff are treated poorly and led on with the promise of shares.
White+Male engineers will have a slow career progression, the CEO inferred this in various talks. They are trying to achieve an equal representation in the workplace, despite the office and industry not having this.
