Continuous improvement is a cornerstone at AME Group

Amy Xu knows that her work has a real-world impact. Xu, a project manager for the building performance team at AME Group, works on energy models for buildings – looking at factors including the projected carbon emissions of a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system as well as insulation, lighting and windows to find ways to drive down a building’s energy footprint before it is built.

After her four years at AME, a Victoria-headquartered mechanical consulting engineering firm, she’s starting to see the fruits of her labour: housing projects in other parts of the country that she’s been part of have made it onto the news, and she sometimes walks by the construction site for a building in Victoria that she consulted on.

“I really like my line of work – it provides me with income, yes, but also a sense of meaning,” she says. “When I go into a meeting, I know my suggestions will help shape a building in the future.”

Nic Besseling, principal and human resources director, says the impact of AME’s work resonates with employees. The company frequently works on municipal projects, affordable housing, education facilities and more, many with high energy-efficiency standards. It also does pro-bono work every year for community organizations as part of its commitment to give back a percentage of its revenues to the community.

“Having meaningful work is really important, and we feel like that’s an essential part of what we do,” he says. “We’re not just doing engineering, selling our time, settling bills. We feel like we’ve got a duty to give back to the community.”

In 2023, AME received its Just label from the International Living Future Institute. The Just program is a transparency platform for organizations to disclose their performance on a number of metrics, including sustainability efforts and community investments, investment in employees and more.

As part of its work to attain the label, Besseling says the company reviewed and improved its workplace policies, including expanding its parental leave policy to include four months of top-up pay for both birth and non-birth parents; renewed its commitment to giving back, volunteering and charitable giving; outlined a training and education budget; and more. Soon after the parental leave policies were implemented, two new moms and four new dads were able to take advantage of the program.

“We believe strongly in having an equitable, diverse workforce and also working directly in sustainability with our building designs, and we wanted to find a way we could track our progress,” Besseling says. “It helped guide us in a few areas with good ideas that we’ve implemented, and it gave us a roadmap for areas we can improve.”

One new area of focus is improving workforce gender diversity, he says. Last year AME launched its first diversity survey. It is also starting to focus on diversifying the talent pipeline for the industry broadly, by sending team members to high schools to do career presentations and encourage more young women to consider a career in mechanical engineering.

After AME received the label, Xu says employees attended a town hall where the directors shared not only the categories where the company had received top marks but also its areas for improvement.

“A lot of the time private companies want to focus on profit, and that’s fine,” she says. “But AME cares about more than that – social responsibility, supporting employees. They set up an engagement survey and collect our feedback. They want to do more and they actually put in the effort to do it.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's BC’s Top Employers winners, published February 13, 2024 in the Vancouver Sun. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

AME Group employees have a stake in the firm’s success

When Stephen Timlin arrived in Calgary in 2014, the Irish mechanical engineer interviewed with plenty of engineering companies. But AME Group stood out from the rest. The B.C.-based mechanical engineering consulting firm was almost as new to the Calgary market as Timlin was, and he saw the opportunity to build something.

“I got in at the ground floor. With something so new, you can have a genuine impact,” says Timlin, noting he was one of AME’s first hires in the city. Within 10 years, Timlin climbed the ladder from project manager up to principal. “They gave me everything I needed. I’m an ambitious person, and they gave me the opportunity to grow with them.”

Another draw was AME’s commitment to quality work and client satisfaction – something that has remained a constant over the past 10 years. “Everyone is on the same page and has the same vision for the company,” he says. “I’m dedicated to making people happy, and that is a shared mentality within our teams.”

Rob Walter, AME’s managing director and founder, says the commitment to superior quality work is part of the firm’s mission statement, Building Legacy. Another part is employee ownership.

After leaving a large engineering company that had just been acquired by another major, Walter wanted AME to have staying power, and for employees to feel committed to its success. AME sold shares to employees very early on, and to date, 50 per cent are shareholders. As part of the firm’s succession planning, AME’s leadership also begin selling off their shares at age 55 to give future leaders the time and financial ability to buy in.

“We want to have this company succeed generation after generation,” says Walter. “And as shareholders, they have an invested interest in the success of the company.”

As AME has grown, its culture has evolved. In the past five years, AME revamped its KPIs to focus on product quality, happy and engaged employees, and social and environmental responsibility. The firm now has regular employee surveys, five employee-led resource groups that provide direction to the company on its culture, and smaller teams to encourage leadership opportunities. “We have a very collaborative leadership group, and that energy funnels down to employees,” he says.

It also introduced the AME Gives Back program, in which employees raise funds for causes they care about, and the company provides a matching donation.

The efforts to build a legacy are bearing fruit. In the firm’s early years, an annual backyard barbecue at Walter’s home was a small group – just the four founding partners and a handful of employees. Nearly 20 years later, the ranks have significantly swelled: AME rented space at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus last year to accommodate its more than 170 employees and their families. Victoria, Edmonton, and Calgary employees were flown in.

“It’s changed in a very positive way. Some employees that have been with me right from day one, now their kids are coming to these events,” Walter says.

Timlin says the barbecue is a major highlight and has given him the opportunity to strengthen his ties with co-workers across the company.

“It’s a stronger base for the company and the team if you’re invested beyond the day-to-day projects and work,” he says. “You feel more connected.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers winners, published April 2, 2024 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.