Stantec reviews

The overlay of corporate bureaucracy is terribly burdensome. It gets in the way of doing the work our clients pay us to do. It often feels like the services and processes that Stantec cooperate try to implement to improve productivity simply detract from the goals of the design firm. The IT system, the HR system, even the hiring system are all impersonal, electronic and cold. The human aspect of running a business is definitely lost on Stantec corporate.

The culture and lack of leadership is terrible. Their growth model is through acquisition which means they don't invest in supporting growth any other way. Creating innovation, improving processes, employee engagement, client engagement is not something they really care about although there is a lot of communication about these issues. They have a creativity and innovation initiative but even the decision making around that is so political that it's hard to sustain employees interest in creating innovation as the company won't sustain ongoing initiatives. Because of the growth through acquisition, employees / managers really struggle to get moved around and promoted to senior level roles which means they primarily focus on politics instead of business improvement or business at hand. They are all controlled by the engineering leadership in Western Canada-all men- otherwise new roles go to the newly acquired company's leaders. I can't recommend it for anyone interested in being a top performer, market leader or creative innovator.