OSPE - The Voice - May 2019 - 25

CAREERS

said Steve Quigley, P.Eng., GHD's North America General
Manager, Canada. "We went through a visioning exercise to
try and figure out what we wanted our workplace to look like
- we had a blank canvas - and we thought about becoming
a more collaborative, open, work-life integrated workplace."
CONSULTING WITH THE TEAM ON A DESIGN CONCEPT FOR
THE NEW SPACE

A core team at GHD put more than 1,000 hours into consultation
with various business units, using surveys, interviews, and
other means to determine how to best accommodate the
employee's needs now and in the future before coming up with
a design concept for the new space. It was important to build
an agile environment to allow for collaboration and knowledge
exchange between technical teams. To accomplish this, the
design incorporated enclave spaces, meeting rooms and
training facilities for collaborative and group work. In addition,
the workforce transitioned away from more than 240 individual
offices to the agile office concept with no assigned offices. This
meant people could freely move from one workstation to
another depending on their needs.
"The move into one large, open-concept modern space with
no assigned offices was a very significant and dramatic change,"
Quigley said. "But it also created an opportunity for GHD to
provide the amenities that people really wanted in a very open

and comfortable work environment - like onsite food service,
places to relax, lounge spaces, gym facilities, and more. People
spend a high percentage of their waking time working, and
we wanted to make sure it was in a place that was appealing."
GHD's IT group worked on plans to ensure collaboration
and group work was seamless in the new space. Every meeting
room has a collaborative TV screen with "airdrop", so three
to four laptops can be connected at once to each. "We looked
at our future talent pool and how children are learning and
working together across multiple digital platforms in schools
today," said Ferguson. "In 10 years, that's who we'll be hiring,
so we needed to start understanding how people will work in
the future."
ATTRACTING NEW GRADS

"I think the new office is a pretty big draw for people - it
definitely has a wow factor," said Laura Spiteri, P.Eng., an
engineer in the surface water group who has been with GHD
for more than two years. "One of the main things that attracted
me to GHD in particular was there's such a variety of projects
that come through our group, there's no chance that you'll be
bored or you'll be doing repetitive projects. Each situation and
design is slightly different."
Spiteri started her career working for a mining company
in northern Manitoba after graduating, then wanted to move
Summer 2019

THE VOICE

25
OSPE - The Voice - May 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of OSPE - The Voice - May 2019
