GHD reviews

The biggest issue is expectations. How to manage expectations for new hires. There is no real education program or mentoring program here. Your tasks are not listed out. You have to beg for work to be billable. I was hired for a geotechnical engineering position. And there were no projects to work on. I had to go to offices of all high level managers at my office asking to file papers to be billable. There is no strategy on ho development young talent. and I noticed alot of young people leaving the company in the 9 months I worked there. I truly didnt enjoy the idea of worrying of billable rate 6 months into my hiring and no work to do. Overall ghd is great if you're an older experienced individual. Not the best if you're starting your career and you actually want to learn and be developed. The managers here have no clue what to do with you. You're expendable and just another body. Not an integral part of the team.

My impression is that GHD came to the US in 2008-2009 flush with cash resulting from the desalination work they had done during the Australian drought. They purchased several small to mid-size American companies and then went home to Australia. The people left in charge were given orders to hire even though there was little backlog. GHD's management seemed to believe that because of their reputation in Australia, they could walk into the US market and garner large projects; all they needed was the staff to do the work. Unfortunately, no one in the US knew who GHD was and other than the Oceanside desalination plant, they remain something of an unknown. Although staff were hired, those in charge were irresponsible and because of GHD's lack of oversight, were held unaccountable. I believe that to their credit, GHD has learned that they must integrate their US operations into the overall company. I would advise anyone interested in working for GHD to thoroughly research the company. It seems that there is a significant amount of turnover. As one recruiter told me of GHD: It's a place where you can always find a job while you look for the job you really want. In a 30+ year engineering career I have had the pleasure to work at several well managed firms that offer challenging work and a pleasant work environment. I was surprised that an organization as large and seemingly successful as GHD approached its US operations so cavalierly and with so little responsibility.