Company Report: Golder Associates

Golder Associates, Australia

Golder Associates, Australia

Golder Associates, Australia

Celebrating its 50th anniversary as a global ground engineering and environment services company, Golder Associates has been committed to client service, technical excellence and sustainability since its inception in 1960. The company has successfully combined culture, employee ownership, technical focus and an equally global and local framework that allows them to enjoy an annual turnover of US$1 billion globally.

In a rapidly changing world, global companies and governments constantly evolve and concurrently create vital infrastructures, develop projects, restore landscapes and renew themselves. Golder works with them to deliver technical understanding, cross-disciplinary thinking and a passion to help them achieve their goals with a comprehensive, sustainable, cost-effective and customized approach.

Golder’s clients span the mining, manufacturing, oil and gas, transportation and power industries. They offer specialist consultancy for ground engineering and environmental projects, as their clients can benefit from full project life-cycle solutions through utilizing Golder’s specialist contracting and construction services.

DRIVING CHANGE FROM THE INSIDE OUT

With over 7,000 employees worldwide and over 800 consultants in Australia alone, Golder takes a serious approach to how its organization is structured, and they implement a variety of continuous improvement strategies that are vital to their success. According to Managing Director of Golder Associates in Australia and Global Vice President of the Australasian Operations Darren Watt, “We use the Balanced Scorecard to translate strategy into operational excellence in our company. This suits our company well as we focus a large percentage of cash into developing the intangible assets of our company.”

This Balanced Scorecard tool translates their strategy into four perspectives—learning and growth; external elements, such as clients, suppliers and markets; internal strategic goals and operations; and, financial returns. “In addition to the BSC, we use ISO systems to help manage the procedures we use to standardize, where necessary, and integrate our approach to managing the quality of our service offerings, our health and safety and environmental performance,” Watt adds.

The company drives change by constantly investing and improving its intangible assets, such as human capital. Golder’s Human Development team is responsible for recruiting, retaining and developing programs for each of their 160 offices around the world. The HD team employs various strategies to ensure that the top talent is recruited so that they can ensure their clients enjoy the most technically excellent solutions.

Watt adds, “The user-friendly employment section of our website underpins all our recruitment programs, allowing users to simply upload their details and resume. We regularly attend University and recruitment fairs across the world and find many outstanding consultants this way. There is a chronic shortage of scientists and engineers in many parts of the world, which means we have to cast a wide net in order to ensure we continue to grow strongly.”

Golder is employee-owned, with over 55 percent of employees owning shares in the company. This lets employees approach their projects with an owner-operator mentality and get satisfaction out of delivering outstanding solutions for their clients. “Our relatively flat structure is also very popular with our employees, as it allows both our consultants and corporate staff to work to their unique strengths and to utilize their leadership skills. We also have excellent benefits at Golder that include the ability to take extra annual leave, a monthly share purchase plan and a gym subsidy,” Watt says.

Golder is clearly committed to and understands the value in the continual development of its employees. They have several internal training programs that are presented annually or as required, and their employees also go through numerous external training programs. Further tertiary study is encouraged and supported, and each Golder employee will have their membership paid for the industry association of their choice.

SUSTAINABILITY, TECHNOLOGY AND SAFETY

Golder recently invested in a brand new energy efficient building in Melbourne, Australia, and relocated 230 employees there. Located in the Botanicca Business Park in Burnley, the park’s sustainable features were a significant factor in why Golder chose to become the buildings’ principal tenants. The site’s 4 green star and NABERS 4.5 energy star ratings have been instrumental in helping the company achieve its carbon footprint reduction targets. Watt explains, “A new laboratory has recently been installed on the ground floor at the eastern end of the Botanicca building, to replace facilities at Hawthorn and Ferntree Gully. The new laboratory is equipped to conduct soil, air, water, noise and other geotechnical and environmental testing services.”

In addition to continuously reviewing green initiatives, Golder does the same with technology. Watt said, “We constantly assess and update our technology. Golder is valued for technical excellence and using the latest technology helps us to maintain and build on this reputation. As our consultants are technical specialists, they provide constant feedback on technology that is currently in use and new technology that could further strengthen our ability to deliver technically excellent solutions for our clients.”

Golder also utilizes NEXUS as their master database, which has become an integral tool for their consultants. NEXUS is built with acQuire software, a sophisticated, well-established and stable geoscientific data management tool with a robust underlying data model. The database platform allows Golder to supply fieldwork data to their clients very quickly. The application is used for borehole draft logs, which can be reviewed and delivered to the client within one to two days of completion of a borehole.

Safety is another key factor in ensuring the quality of their operations, all the way down the supply chain. Watt explains, “When we choose vendors, the safety of our staff, clients and contractors is our number one priority. We invest a great deal of time in finding, assessing and building relationships with the best possible vendors. One of our latest initiatives has seen the development of Drill Rig Safety Standards for our drilling contractors. We are working closely with each of our drilling contractors to ensure that they are meeting the requirements of our Drill Rig Safety Standards.”

ACCOLADES AND AIMS

Watt has been with Golder since 1994, but since being elected to Managing Director in 2004, the company has achieved strong and consistent growth including four successful strategic mergers and an annual staff growth rate averaging 18 percent. The company has been awarded twelve BRW Client Choice Awards and four successive Hewitt Best Employer Awards. “No other firm has won so often and with such consistency since the awards’ inception in 2005,” says BRW.

Going forward, Golder is currently looking to establish an affiliated company in Papua New Guinea in response to strong demand for their services in the last five years. Current projections for work in the Oil & Gas industry in Papua New Guinea suggest opportunities will continue there for the next five years and beyond.

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