engineer

technologist

water resources engineer

environmental scientist

environmental engineer

Dillon Consulting Limited

If you are looking for a firm where you are treated as an investor in the company's future rather than just a resource, Dillon Consulting is an exceptional place to build a career. I have found that the defining characteristic of working here is their 100% employee-owned model.

Dillon is owned by its employees, and because of this, there is a distinct lack of the hyper competitive, cutthroat behavior you sometimes see at large, publicly traded engineering and planning firms. When the company wins, we all win. This fosters genuine collaboration across different disciplines and offices. People are actually willing to take the time to mentor you and help you succeed. Without the pressure of external shareholders demanding quarterly profit spikes, Dillon can focus on sustainable growth. Leadership makes decisions based on what is best for the employees, our clients, and the communities we serve over the next ten years, not just the next ten weeks.

The multidisciplinary nature of the projects, ranging from environmental sciences to urban planning and engineering, means the work is always dynamic. Knowing that you have a personal stake in projects that positively impact Canadian communities adds a deep sense of purpose to the daily grind.

It's still consulting, the reality of billable hours, project deadlines, and client expectations is still very present. There will be busy seasons that require extra effort and careful time management. However, the difference at Dillon is that you feel supported by your team during those crunches, and your hard work directly benefits you and your colleagues.

Dillon Consulting walks the talk when it comes to being a people first organization. The employee owned structure creates an environment of accountability, respect, and shared reward. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to grow their career in a supportive, forward-thinking environment.

Poor local management and frequent belittling and bullying tactics used to manipulate jr staff.

Inconsistent project work leads to stockpiling by managers to make sure they have work flow regardless of jr staff utilization.

Project managers often force jr staff to do project work while charging hrs to admin time to save on project budgets. This lowers utilization rates and makes jr staff less likely to achieve pay raises or advance in the company.

Company has great HR policies and talks a lot about work/life balance, unfortunately these policies are not followed on a local level.

Company talk a lot about being employee own but shares and annual bonuses only really benefit Associates and Partners. Full time regular staff do not receive bonuses and are so limited in the number of shares they can purchase that the dividends received are minimal.

During project work, hrs of work expected were unhealthy and unsustainable. (Sometimes over 100hrs/week, 7 days) Management would push field staff to maintain and exceed these hrs but when confronted would blame field staff for working the hrs management had forced upon them.

Engineers or EITs are hired to do field technolgist work with no clear plans or path to develop or advance within the company. At times local management turned away more fulfilling and more technical work for their jr staff so that they could keep their team on standby for field supervision.

I have reached out to many employee's (former and current) about their experience working at Dillon Consulting Winnipeg and the response is generally "stressful", "Overwhelming", "Undervalued" and "Toxic".  I agree and I felt the same way.  Everything from being sent up north for weeks at a time with no consideration for personal life responsibilities to yearly "reviews" that add up to an audit of you position and your perceived company value...developing as an employee is impossible but your effort to do so will be heavily scrutinized.  There is a religious old boy's club in management and if you are not viewed as one of them (in the fold) you will be judged and made to feel as a lesser employee.  You will never get a raise and constantly harped on about buying shares in the company that require you to take out a bank loan.  The turn over rate is high as there is a superficial "push button" methodology for replacing staff which leads to a high turn over rate.  The individual is not valued. Project teams suffer with lack of experienced team members - this is often compounded with the less successful or green engineer's leading green project teams.  These engineers will throw you under the bus to protect themselves - I can sympathize with them as they are working with the same anxiety producing work environment.   They are cheap when it comes to your salary and encouraged working off the clock to ensure projects stay under budget.  Beware.  

After accepting a contract with Dillon in summer of 2014, I received deceptive information about workload, contract length, and job security. After being told I would be working 8-9 hour days from June through to the end of October, I ended up with no work for about half of that time. The work I was hired for didn't start until September, though I was told for months it would start the next week. Half way through September I was told they were able to have their full time staff finish my work and I would have no more work until the end of my contract. They had asked me to buy a car for work, and then didn't need me to use it at all (I had to push to use it for mileage), and they purposefully kept me in the dark about upcoming work. Working for Dillon Consulting put me behind in my career, as I had other offers and would have accepted them had I known the truth. I have heard of this happening to several other people through this company.
Dillon played by the rules and in the fine print my contract specified I was not guaranteed full time hours. I believe they simply lack good management and weren't prepared for the uncertainty that is consulting work, and lacked respect for their employees.

The position I worked was as a Field Technician in the SHaRP Program, which is available as a worker to those who are student aged and are looking for entry level work. 
 The typical day would consist of driving out to your work location, doing an on-site hazard assessment, the beginning to work on whatever was the assigned project for that location.
 Management was friendly and great to talk to, but was also firm with their expectations. Co-workers were all roughly the same age group, so it was easy to get along with them in both the workplace and outside of work hours. 
 The most difficult part of your day would be if you were working outside in a hot environment with little to no shade cover, in which you would find yourself sweating and working hard. 
 Overall,Dillon Consulting is a great employer for those looking for seasonal work within the SHaRP Program. I cannot say much about working within the offices, but those who I did have contact were friendly and agreeable.

Dillon is a great company from my experience, as far as benefits and flexibility goes. Pay is perhaps not as competitive as it could be. Staff are friendly. However, there is a lack of oversight and management of individual staff’s workload. There were many days on end where no one would respond to my messages when I was looking for work. I would end up just wasting days away without anything to do. Dillon has left me feeling under-utilized, under appreciated, and unmotivated.

 Also, because work is shared across the whole country, I would rarely be working with the same PM’s and engineers on projects. Because of this, I would often feel like I had to prove my worth and abilities on every single project I was assigned to, to different staff. And learn how to work and communicate with those different staff. And then get to that point, and then never work with that person again. That gets tiring. 

I believe that Dillon is a good company to work for, if you enjoy working in the engineering consulting world. I believe that I do not.  

Dillon is a great place to work; I was surrounded by a wonderful team of administrative assistants to a team of project managers for the overall life-cycle of multi-disciplinary projects.

Dillon has its own financial management system, standard templates, and business procedures, which need to be followed.

All admin staff take part in preparation, maintenance, and filing of project documentation in accordance with Dillon’s business procedures, and assisting project managers with drafting project plans and health and safety plans.

I found the title naming confusing, and not at all in keeping with industry standards, but all admins provide assistance with word processing and report and proposal production activities, including formatting, editing, proofreading and working with graphics, and other administrative duties as required, as well as Reception back-up (Mitel 5500 switchboard system.)

But if you’re interim or in an admin role don’t expect to be paid market rate for your experience, and management will not value your opinion nor consider your job when making any changes whatsoever.  Communication is top down only.  Performance evaluations don’t use actual KPIs nor SMART goal-setting.  The owners are also employees so it’s a bunch of high faulting engineers trying to engineer the business without any kind of change management nor consultation with those in the role.  Veteran employees are promoted and continued in their roles despite lack of skills. Only select people get the chance to buy shares - there are no owners who are in admin roles, not that they could afford to be owners anyway cause they still pay admin $25 an hour (even with 19 years of service to the company).  Even on a tech role if you’re not favourited by the other owners you can forget about your voice being heard or feeling like you’re part of the team. 

The people who work at Dillon are happy to assist when needed.

There has been difficulty obtaining new work in certain disciplines. At times, this can mean your career goals are at odds with the company's goals. You'll find yourself in roles that don't line up with your desired career path.

Lack of available project work can be frustrating at times. Due to a "flat" organizational structure, it can be difficult to find work as no one is held accountable for your work load other than yourself. Similarly, there are manager workflow meetings to gauge utilization among employees, but their main purpose is to ensure no one is overworked rather than making sure people are busy.

The structure can also make it difficult to grow in your career because you're doing work for various different managers who don't often communicate. Your role can vary wildly depending on the manager. There is little opportunity to deviate from a role.

At DIllon, depending on what industry you want to end up in afterwards, provide a great platform for "learning the ropes" - i.e., things to do and not to do working for a engineering firm. They have a very firm power structure that is fairly top heavy with partners and associates with the bulk of project work completed by regular employees. Their culture is a good one - very community focused with lots of opportunity to socialize with coworkers. They are very process driven, so if you're not, you won't last long. There is also fairly moderate pressure for ownership for those who want to move up in the company. You will learn good technical skills for the type of work they do, and compensated decently.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Engineer 3 salaries reported	$88,833 per year
Technologist 4 salaries reported	$75,425 per year
Water resources engineer 3 salaries reported	$110,833 per year
Environmental scientist 3 salaries reported	$63,667 per year
Environmental engineer 3 salaries reported	$114,150 per year

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