GHD builds a diverse workforce through partnerships supporting underrepresented candidates.Supplied
Melinda Mah currently has three roles at GHD Ltd. — handling the administration for the Ontario Integrated Water Management Business Group, remediating documents so they are more accessible to everyone, and taking a lead role in various working groups, including acting as co-chair of the Neurodiverse Employee Resource Group (ERG).
“People say I have initiative,” says Mah, project administrator/ document accessibility. “I’m curious and there’s encouragement here to talk to someone if you want to take something on.”
GHD is a global, multidisciplinary professional services network providing clients with integrated solutions across global markets of water, energy and resources, environment, property and buildings, and transportation. Nearly a quarter of employees are offered shares in the business, which is 100-percent employee-owned. Founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 1928, it has offices across Canada with its largest Canadian office in Waterloo, Ont.
“GHD has supported employees to join ERGs for several years, but we’ve now formalized recognition of people who chair the groups as part of our performance evaluation process,” says Sadaf Parvaiz, global inclusion and diversity leader. “Employees can set a developmental goal to chair a group and be evaluated and credited for their work.”
The company has also rolled out an ERG playbook. It provides a consistent structure for the groups that includes defined roles and expectations, while leaving the particular content up to each group.
“I’m glad our leaders look at ERGs as something that adds value,” says Mah. She says her group is a great place for people to share with one another, as well as to provide education on neurodivergence such as ADHD or something less known such as dyspraxia, which affects motor movement.
Mah also joined the Global Accessibility Working Group to help create a presentation for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities last December. She presented tips and real-life examples to make documents more accessible to people with disabilities — and everyone — to over 200 live participants. “There was brainstorming, discussion and great feedback,” says Mah.
The presentation showed how to use the technology her colleagues already have to do things such as turn on transcription and automatically create bookmarks for headings in a document. Parvaiz took part, and colleagues told her they had no idea these doable changes to documents would make such a difference for people. “When you try to make things better for a particular community, it can end up benefiting all of us,” she says.
Parvaiz says GHD continues to give employees the opportunity to self-identify and provide demographic information to help the company uncover needs specific to different communities. And the company continues to work on areas of need that have long been identified.
GHD is part of the Canadian Council for Indigenous Business, and the company tracks spending with Indigenous and other under-represented vendors. All leaders have completed Indigenous learning in a program co-developed by an Indigenous vendor. Now the program is being rolled out to all employees in Canada.
The company is also working to make good on its goal to have women in 40 per cent of roles at all levels of the organization by 2030. Currently, women make up 34 per cent of the workforce in Canada.
“A great driver of our work is that the leadership team has committed to continuing work on diversity and inclusion initiatives long term,” says Parvaiz.
Mah says she finds the ERGs are supported by leadership, with each group having an executive sponsor they meet with regularly. “GHD has built in executive support for the ERGs, and we have a global diversity and inclusion leader. This thoughtfulness helps to create an inclusive environment.”
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