When the GHD/CRA "merger" occurred, there was much talk about finding the best policies of each company and streamlining the procedures. There was talk of what great opportunities for employees would come about as a result of this "merger". After two years, nothing great had been created and no good opportunities especially for former CRA employees resulted.
Procedures and policies that have been implemented or continued have largely been GHD driven. There have been some exceptions, however most of the key policies and measurements are GHD based. There has been little attempt by GHD to learn about the former CRA client base and demands, how those projects are administered internally, and the project reporting that was done. The former CRA had a very diverse client base and along with it some specific rules on how the projects were completed and invoiced. It was a constant fight to try to meet the needs of the client while trying to follow the procedures and/or directives that were forced on us at merger time. GHD main focus is not on the client, but on the bottom line.
Opportunities for former CRA employees are few and far between. Again some notable exceptions, but time and time again I was bypassed for a promotion or better opportunity. Employees hired after the merger, seem to stay long enough to gain experience and then move on to much better opportunities. Across the board it is hard to advance and it's not a great company to build a career on. The culture is very male oriented, although there have been some attempts to focus on women's advancement. Those attempts have unfortunately done nothing to improve the situation and were extremely laughable. On International Women's Day there was a mad scramble a week before to try and do something on this day. Our office brought in donuts as a celebration, so the cause was lost in the mad rush to get a free donut. The most laughable and borderline offensive was the "On the Couch With" series... It was meant to spotlight a Woman in GHD that had achieved success and to offer advice and discussion. Unfortunately the title turned me off right away.. Did anyone associate a couch with advancement as a not so great title to highlight women in the work place? I feel my lack of promotion was due first to my being a former CRA employee, but being a woman did not help my cause any.
Employees, especially former CRA employees, have experienced harassment (not necessarily sexual) and bullying. I know I did, it did get better but only have upper management got involved. Many employees are bullied, harassed, or given work lower than their skill set in what is viewed to be an attempt to be pushed out. Many of the senior management have been pushed out via retirement. Low performing employees either through outside circumstances or having difficulty with the work are let go. There was never an attempt to find them work or to mentor them. If you were not billable and should have been you were let go. There was work hording in order to avoid dismissal and no one wanted to share their load, just take it from you to be busier. The employees who experienced this the most were the former CRA employees. Across the country the feedback from other offices was that they felt like they were being forced out, especially the higher paid and upper management employees. If you were a hire after the "merger" you fared better, but still faced some of the obstacles as far as advancement, low pay, and not getting enough billable work.
Communication and roll out of new procedures has been and continues to be a problem within GHD. New important procedures are rolled out days AFTER they take effect. There is not enough information communicated so rollouts were frequently chaotic and come with lots of subsequent problems/issues. The personnel tasked with implementing these new policies/procedures for the company were given little to no instruction on how to handle. One major change that was instituted there were no instructions given to the personnel who were implementing the change and late with little instruction to the general employee population. There was no thought put into the ramifications of this change either which created a lot of extra work and stress for everyone in the company especially the implementer. Training in general for project personnel was nonexistent which created problems all around and didn't lead to effective project administration.
GHD is very budget and KPI oriented and both are set at very high expectations. GHD is very concerned with the Financial and the bottom line. While that is an important focus, the expectations set are sometimes unattainable. Risky estimates and changes to financial data to meet budget goals occurred frequently.
