Nice People - Terrible Management - Aquatic Ecologist GHD Employee Review

2.0
12 Feb 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Team full of kind and knowledgeable people. Lots of experience to draw from. Genuinely interesting and wide variety of projects to work on.

Cons

The pay is below market value. Raises are rare and poor. You’ll make more elsewhere. No bonus incentive. Training for employees is non-existent beyond what is a “project requirement”. GHD will not support training that is geared towards your career development. Management is secretive, hiring and firing occurs without warning leaving you with a constant feeling of unease. Staff experience levels are top and bottom heavy. Many juniors, many seniors, little to no intermediate professionals. Seniors are so busy they hardly have time for juniors, thus support is limited for juniors and they too become overworked. Lack of communication between different groups at GHD is frustrating. This lead to many last minute headaches and overall drop in deliverable quality, as well as mismanaging budgets. Work-life balance was limited. 40hr minimum work weeks, which you often have to exceed, but GHD does not compensate the hrs 40-44. Other firms allow this time to be bankable, GHD only offers OT Pay or bankable hours after 44. As a result you often work for free.

Explore other reviews about GHD

5.0
28 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Evolving with the times to best serve client needs. Investing in employee learning. Attracting high caliber talent.

Cons

Change can feel disruptive for some, but GHD is on a disciplined journey.

4.0
19 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great starting point as an internship, gives you good experience to the professional and consulting world, pay for an engineering intern is satisfactory. Values of the company and support from coworkers is appreciated. Seems to be a psychologically safe place to work and make mistakes. No noticeable workplace toxicity or politics. Everyone seems to be authentic and chill. Not noticing anyone keeping their heads down and received reports of satisfaction with work environment from coworkers. Exposure to a variety of projects, including field work experiences. Seems to be a solid resume builder.

Cons

Need to be pretty proactive for work. For me who enjoys having work to do, its kind of stressful. You have to take initiative in making your own plan. For someone who thrives in structure and needs a bit of help in planning, this is a struggle. Limited flexibility in doing a hybrid role (even though job description stated it was when I applied) For someone who is 42 mi from the office and with heavy traffic takes 1h 15 min to reach the office, its a struggle. But I understood that my commute time is longer than average when I took the position.

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