civil engineer

engineer

senior project manager

project manager

wastewater engineer

Overall Experience
My three years at GHD were unsatisfactory. The company culture does not seem to prioritize employee retention or provide a clear path for advancement. In my experience, there was a noticeable divide in how staff were treated, which impacted morale.

Advice for Aspiring Professionals
Recent graduates in science and engineering should carefully consider the work-life balance here. I observed a high turnover rate among my peers, with many leaving within three years due to compensation concerns and heavy workloads. The professional environment did not meet the expectations I had for an entry-level role.

Management and Culture
The office culture was often isolating. Communication from leadership was frequently top-down and lacked a mentorship component. I found it difficult to receive constructive feedback because direct supervisors were often disconnected from my daily project tasks. I also observed instances of unprofessional conduct in the office that contributed to a high-stress atmosphere.

Growth opportunities for junior staff and interns were limited, with a heavy emphasis on administrative tasks over technical development. Despite maintaining a schedule that included significant overtime and regional travel, I experienced frequent micromanagement. Management's response to fluctuating workloads was often inconsistent, and I received very little guidance regarding my long-term career goals.

Work Stability and Compensation
Job security and performance expectations were not clearly communicated. Despite meeting high billable hour requirements through extensive travel and overtime, my performance was questioned using vague criteria that were never fully explained. I found that internal feedback was not always addressed productively.

The compensation structure lacks a clear merit-based system. In my experience, taking on additional responsibilities or receiving a title change did not result in a corresponding salary increase. Starting pay and subsequent raises were below industry standards for the region.

Work Environment
The culture was characterized by a lack of transparency. While the field staff and junior-level colleagues were great to work with, the overall environment was dominated by pressure regarding billable time and a fear of negative repercussions for circumstances outside of an employee's control.

On the surface, the company portrays themselves as caring and ready to invest in their workers development as an employee with and throughout the company. From my experience, it's more of a guise than anything. The only way you'd be able to travel to other offices and gain experience in different fields of work within the company, is if the stars magically align to where you can have the freedom within your own office to explore such things; which rarely happens, if ever. They try to manage effective communication throughout their ranks via town hall meetings and other team meetings, but get ready to be trained one way, then another way by someone else, and then told to change how it's done by one supervisor, and then told you're doing it wrong by another. They can't seem to get their communication in line and on the same page and that's probably the most frustrating part about this job. Next to the vast inconsistency in work. One week it's a 50-60hr week, and the next you're barely scraping 40 by doing inventory or some other remedial tasks. And I hope you're a quick learner who can juggle 10+ projects at once, and only needs to be told something once, MAYBE twice at most, because heaven forbid if you have a question and want to make sure things are done correctly. The tone they'll have ready for you is condescending at best with little desire to actually teach the correct way they want something done. The pay and benefits are what kept me in the role for as long as I was. Overall, I think I would've liked this job more if my supervisor wasn't drowning in work themselves and could actually spend a little more time and care to their subordinates success in the role.

The business has great people, tech skills and supportive underlying culture.  Leadership have invested in many well-being and other people initiatives.  The strategy is exciting and motivating, with emphasis on future energy, ESG, etc.  The issue is that the management of the business remains old-school, focused on nothing but weekly utilization.  Groups and teams are continuously downsized based on current numbers, with staff getting ushered out the door with no notice.  This is made worse in North America by separate regional and business silos, which creates unneeded competition every day.  The business is run by Australia (also several top North American leaders were brought in from there).  Growth prospects in the US market are not strong, as GHD is getting out-invested by most other players in the market and there is too much inward process and focus.  Digital business has done some good things but is behind other players.

It is important for applicants to GHD to know that a typical day at the office involves doing your best to avoid the bullying behavior by management so that you can focus on your work.  Engineering expertise, training and skills are so minimal as to be barely passable.  The bullying seems to be a direct correlation to the lack of engineering skills, including the ability to communicate and collaborate as a team. HR and other managers do nothing to curtail the bullying.   

If you take a job at GHD, don't for a minute believe that the people that you are working with are actually co-workers, in the congenial sense!  Instead, just remember that you are totally on your own, because management, including HR, demonstrates expert skill at sowing division among staff.   What I learned is that engineering skills and knowledge; the ability to bring in new clients; the ability to produce great work products for clients are not valued skills.  What is valued is acquiescence to the bully. The atmosphere reflects this -- a tense, strained atmosphere prevails, and finger-pointing and chiding among employees are rampant. Tech support staff is great though.

GHD is the kind of company where what you know or what you studied doesn't matter as much as who's group you are in. Routine sights at the company would include prank calls, rough-housing in the kitchen, people calling out their credit card information over speakerphone, massive layoffs with no warning (even of pregnant women and people returning from medical leave). This is supplemented by a general malaise onset by cut-throat principals with a reputation for firing people on a whim or if they're having a bad day. You are not in control of your destiny as your performance is based 100% on how billable your work is, yet groups and individuals hoard work whether or not they or anyone else in their group has the appropriate qualifications or knowledge to responsibly contribute to it.  This leads to an unfair level of office competition which skews the analysis on how actually valuable or knowledgeable employees are. Due to these systemic deficiencies, the client base is not given the highest standard of care. Therefore, GHD's entire business model is invalidated.

The company has been having a mid-life identity crisis for the last four or five years and the pandemic has accelerated the demise. Turnover is extremely high including amongst the leadership ranks. Leadership is a revolving door of people who couldn't cut it at other consulting firms. What used to be a decent environmental consulting firm with some niche civil water markets has deteriorated into chaos trying to reinvent themselves as future energy and climate resilient heroes. Staff are provided little mentoring and do all the work while leaders fight over credit and wax poetically on podcasts about topics they know nothing about. The firm is also privately held by a small portion of the employees in what is a cleverly disguised multi-level marketing scheme which is about to get blown up by a recent change to peddle equity to venture capitalists.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Not too much over the past few years 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Worrying about your billable ratio. Management in the office is incapable of generating,  or bringing in/finding work...but it's the employees that are given grief about it.
Also, lack of communication in the office results in poorly trained new employees.  They are sent out to job sites (untrained) which is a major safety concern.  This is all despite a company that preaches safety. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Poor at best.  A company that is still trying to get their employees to come back to the office after Covid.
Bad communication and comraderey. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Difficult.  There is a lack of leadership.

GHD Philippines is a highly respected, employee-owned multinational consultancy renowned for its collaborative culture and strong respect for work-life balance. A typical day involves navigating hybrid schedules and collaborating across global time zones to deliver large-scale engineering and design projects. Employees gain invaluable experience mastering advanced digital tools and navigating diverse international building standards. While balancing different regional time zones and corporate bureaucracy can be challenging, management is generally supportive and invested in professional growth. Ultimately, the most rewarding aspect of the job is contributing to high-impact global infrastructure alongside a supportive, inclusive team.

I was originally employed by CRA and we underwent a merger with GHD, Inc. The company culture totally changed after the merger went into effect. The management was too spread out geographically and there was no direction as to corporate priorities after the merger. I should not have had to deal with a direct supervisor on the opposite side of the country and who had never been a supervisor prior to getting me as a direct report (classic mistake of someone promoted on seniority alone).

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Civil engineer 16 salaries reported	$87,119 per year
Engineer 8 salaries reported	$81,125 per year
Senior project manager 24 salaries reported	$184,703 per year
Project manager 15 salaries reported	$136,468 per year
Wastewater engineer 6 salaries reported	$98,433 per year

Working at GHD: Company Overview and Reviews

GHD

GHD Ratings

Popular jobs at GHD

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected