At the cusp of the pandemic, we embraced a work-from-home strategy to keep our staff, their families, and our community safe. As restrictions eased, we had to decide: do we return to "the way things were" or move forward with innovation in mind?

We are proud to have chosen the latter. Inspired by our ambition statement to constantly challenge the status quo, WalterFedy embraces a fully hybrid work strategy that empowers our team to determine where and how they work to meet our client's needs most effectively. Continue reading to learn more about life at WalterFedy and the changes we’ve made to make hybrid work, work!

What is hybrid working? 

A hybrid working approach combines both remote and in-person work. It allows employees to work from the office or home, depending on their needs and the requirements of their jobs.

This approach aims to provide employees with flexibility and autonomy in how they work, while ensuring they have opportunities to collaborate and connect with colleagues in person. Hybrid working can lead to increased productivity, job satisfaction, and work-life balance for employees, and increased efficiency and retention for employers!

WalterFedy's Approach:

Flexibility from day one!

Upon receiving an offer letter, each employee receives a "hybrid work playbook" that outlines our hybrid model. Here we ask our new employees to start thinking about the best work mix for them. There are several options for our employees to choose from, including coming to the office full-time, most of the time, or working mostly remote.

We know that finding a work mix that suits your lifestyle can change and evolve, so no one is tied down to one option if they need to adjust their approach later. 

Touchdown Workstations

Employees that aren’t in the office full-time or most of the time, use a touchdown station when working at the office. A touchdown station is a flexible seating arrangement where employees can reserve a desk for the day when they come in. For employees that want to work full-time or mainly in the office, a desk is assigned to them to ensure they have what they need to work successfully.

Meeting rooms that embrace collaboration

Collaboration is essential to the ongoing success of our hybrid work environment. To keep communication channels open, several of our meeting rooms in Kitchener, Hamilton and Toronto have Teams computers ensuring employees working in-office and remotely can communicate effectively. Even if your coworkers aren't physically present, you can still see their smiling faces on the TV screen!

Work@Home Program 

At WalterFedy, we want our employees to have fair and equitable access to funds that allow them to create a healthy, ergonomic, and productive workspace at home. Through our Work@Home Program, employees can request tech items for their home office, including two monitors, a docking station, a keyboard, a mouse, and a headset. WalterFedy will also reimburse employees up to $500 for home office furniture, such as a desk or chair, for ultimate comfort. Our Health & Safety Coordinator will even provide the best recommendations to ensure it meets our in-office ergonomic requirements.

For employees that would like to elevate their office space, WalterFedy offers a payback program to support the purchase of up to $1000 in home office upgrades. The funds are paid back in 26 easy payroll deductions to distribute the cost over an entire year!

Find your next career at WalterFedy

We hope you enjoyed learning more about life at WalterFedy. As our team continues to grow, we are always looking for talented people like you! We encourage you to visit our careers page to see current opportunities in Kitchener, Hamilton, Toronto, and Calgary. Should you require an accommodation to participate in the application process, please get in touch with hr@walterfedy.com.

Thank you for being so interested in joining the WalterFedy team – we hope to meet you soon! 

To celebrate National Engineering Month in Canada, WalterFedy hosted a virtual event on March 10 with NEM Ontario and OSPE. Our virtual event, Pitch Perfect: Refining Your Interview Skills, consisted of an hour-long panel and open Q&A session featuring Matt Woods, Tyler Bowman, and Samantha Farrow from our Engineering Services team, along with Talent Acquisition Manager, Amanda Poll, and moderated by Human Resources Assistant, Jody Godwaldt. 

After welcoming 46 virtual attendees from all over the country, our panelists shared their experiences, discussed what makes a great interview, and revealed tips and tricks to help students and new graduates break into the working world with success. Following the presentation, we had a lively Q&A session where our panelists had a great time engaging with participants. As an added bonus for attendees, we are also providing a handful with the opportunity to participate in a one-on-one resume review with a human resources or engineering professional. We want to help the next generation of engineers polish their CV’s and perfect their pitch, so they are prepared for the job market upon graduation.

Thank you to OSPE and NEM Ontario for collaborating with us and providing the platform to engage with future engineers across the country. Another big thank you to our panel for generously sharing their expertise. We could not have pulled it off without you! Happy National Engineering Month!

WalterFedy is happy to announce we have opened an office in Calgary – our first in Alberta.

As WalterFedy has continued to thrive in

the Ontario market, we have been looking for opportunities to expand our business into new markets across Canada. Calgary jumped out as a great option for us. We are renting space in the beautiful Stephen Avenue Place WeWork office in downtown Calgary. One reason we're so excited about being in the WeWork space is the opportunity to mingle and connect with others in Calgary daily, which will help grow our network and presence in the city. It will also give us the chance to explore the city and find the right place for permanent office space in the upcoming months.

As with all our offices, our goal is to have architects and engineers working together in the same ecosystem. This gives members of the WalterFedy team a unique perspective on projects and into the A/E/C industry while our clients reap the benefits of having architects and engineers in close quarters ready to collaborate at any time.

As architects and engineers, we recognize the crucial role in shaping the way our communities feel and function. Our ambition is to enhance the world around us. We look forward to delivering thoughtful holistic design solutions to a variety of projects, including a focus on education, food production, and the future of energy/sustainability, through our collaborative, multidisciplinary practice.

The city has a lot to offer and we are ready to meet potential clients and partners, and get to work! If you’re interested in collaborating with us or finding out more about WalterFedy, email solutions@walterfedy.com and we will get in touch.

From left to right: Benjamin Gregory, James Johnson, Jon Neuert

KITCHENER, Monday, December 5, 2022 – The WalterFedy Board of Directors is pleased to welcome three new shareholders to our ownership team: Benjamin Gregory, James Johnson, and Jon Neuert. Ben, James, and Jon are leaders in the architecture, engineering, and construction space, and have made exceptional contributions to the communities we serve. We wish them continued success as they grow in their practice and as partners in the firm.

“The addition of these three people to our shareholders’ table is great news for WalterFedy,” says Garth Cressman, CEO. “I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with each of them. Their unique viewpoints and experience will be instrumental as we continue to grow WalterFedy into a future-focused organization.”

In addition to their personal experience, our new shareholders bring with them the perspective of the talented teams they represent, including architecture, engineering, and the newly acquired boutique firm Baird Sampson Neuert.

Benjamin Gregory, OAA, MRAIC, M.Arch, LEED AP, is a problem-solver, passionate about design and particularly interested in architecture’s ability to promote social and environmental sustainability. He is certified as a LEED® Accredited Professional and is working towards becoming a Passive House Certified consultant. Ben’s expertise is focused on the residential and commercial sectors working with private developers, owner-operators, and non-profit groups such as the House of Friendship, YW Kitchener-Waterloo, and Beyond Housing. Ben has provided his design expertise and project management on many high-profile commercial and residential projects (including mass timber) and is currently designing a 9-storey Passive House project which, when constructed, will be the first in The Waterloo Region. Ben is also a mentor and team leader who brings a passion for his work, strong client focus, and creativity to every project in which he is involved.

James Johnson, P. Eng, is a seasoned mechanical engineer. His design experience is vast and varied, from institutional research laboratories and pharmaceuticals to office buildings and district energy. Backed by a solid technical foundation, James excels at finding creative solutions to complex design challenges and has a natural ability to navigate adversity. His vast experience make him a knowledgeable and supportive leader and mentor who willingly shares his expertise to help grow the next generation of engineering professionals. Outside of work, James supports his community as a Cub Scouter and as chair of the property committee at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto.

Jon Neuert, OAA, AIA, LEED, CAHP, FRAIC, has extensive experience in the programming, planning and design of a wide array of community facilities that extends over 30 years of professional practice — the last 20 as Principal of Baird Sampson Neuert. His professional experience has been focused in the area of public building and post-secondary facility planning, programming, and design, and includes projects completed for over a dozen University campuses. Inducted as a ‘Fellow’ of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Jon has served as project architect, designer, and principal-in-charge of many of the firm’s award-winning projects, including three projects recognized by Governor Generals Medal - Canada’s highest architectural design award. Jon is a keen collaborator and has decades of experience leading and working with stakeholder teams in the realization of impactful, public-minded projects and sustainable community development. 

Congratulations Ben, James and Jon. The WalterFedy community looks forward to your leadership as we strive to enhance the world around us.

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ABOUT WALTERFEDY

WalterFedy’s ambition is to enhance the world around us. As one of Canada's first integrated design firms, we play a crucial role in shaping the way our communities feel and function. We understand the art of multi-disciplinary collaboration and leveraging our collective talents to elevate design solutions. It’s an incredible responsibility backed by 70 years of experience and a simple principle – everything matters.

In 2022, WalterFedy acquired Toronto architecture firm Baird Sampson Neuert, a partnership that has extended both teams’ capacity to offer intelligent design solutions across Canada delivered by passionate architecture and engineering professionals.

WalterFedy Media Contact

Katie McQuaid

Manager, Marketing and Communications
kmcquaid@walterfedy.com

519-576-2150 x229

 

For the fifth consecutive year, the WalterFedy team has made the coveted Waterloo Area’s Top Employers list.

The annual selection is curated by the team at Mediacorp Canada Inc., best known for administering the Canada’s Top 100 Employers contest. Employers are judged on their ability to offer exceptional workplaces with a focus on physical workplace; atmosphere and social culture; health, financial, and family benefits; vacation/time away; employee communications; performance management; training and skills development; and community involvement.

The selection team pointed to WalterFedy’s retirement planning assistance services; retirement savings matching contributions; and vacation, volunteer, and time away policies as reasons for selection. The flexible nature of WalterFedy’s health benefits was also commended.

“As people start to return to the workplace, this year’s winners have made it clear that their employees deserve both the time and space to focus on their families, their health, and their education,” says Kristina Leung, Managing Editor at Mediacorp. “Organizations are doubling down on their commitment to flexibility, such as flexible working hours or a health plan that allows employees to tailor coverage to suit their needs.”

"Receiving this award for the fifth year in a row is a great achievement for WalterFedy and our team,” says Victoria Campbell, Director, Human Resources. “Our employees play an important role in shaping WalterFedy as we continue to grow. Their suggestions for continuous improvements have been essential to our overall employee experience.”

The announcement rounds out an exciting year for the WalterFedy team, which has seen a 22% increase in staff since January. This large jump in staff has also coincided with new initiatives like the roll-out of a people-first culture strategy and the launch of a comprehensive Learning Management System.

“As we continue to grow within the Waterloo Region and beyond, we strive to create meaningful work opportunities for our team,” says Garth Cressman, CEO. “We want our employees to love the work they do and love working for us. When our employees are thriving, so is our business.”  

View WalterFedy’s award profile on Canada’s Top 100 Employers website along with the full list of Waterloo Area’s Top Employers.

Interested in joining our team? We'd love to hear from you. Visit our careers page for a complete list of open opportunities.

It is with great pleasure that WalterFedy announces the company has achieved Canada’s Top Small and Medium Employer (SME) status for the fourth consecutive year. Administered by Mediacorp Canada Inc., the annual awards program recognizes employers across Canada for their exceptional workplace practices and policies, including workplace, atmosphere, social opportunities, benefits, vacation, and training, among other criteria. 

“Early in the pandemic, smaller employers were able to respond to employees’ needs quickly and with agility,” says Anthony Meehan, Publisher at Mediacorp. “Once again, small and medium employers are responding with agility by adopting many of the benefits previously seen only at larger, more established organizations.” 

In Mediacorp Canada Inc.’s official release, WalterFedy was commended for adapting to better support employees in the pandemic: 

“Along with moving all employees to work-from-home arrangements early in the pandemic, Kitchener, Ont.-based WalterFedy let employees take home needed tech and furniture along with introducing a special program to provide interest-free loans (up to $1,000) for home office improvements.”   

“We’ve learned we can work differently and want to ensure our employees have the resources and tools to do so,” said Victoria Campbell, Director, Human Resources. “Flexibility and communication continue to be essential elements in our strategy as we navigate through the future of our workplace.” 

WalterFedy was also recognized by Mediacorp Canada Inc in January 2022 as a Waterloo Region Top Employer. 

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Read the official MediaCorp Release. 

Learn more about WalterFedy’s 2022 award recognition here. 

We are always on the lookout for great candidates. If you are interested in joining our team, you can find a full list of open positions here. 

WalterFedy was among 25 local businesses recognized as one of Waterloo Area’s Top Employers today. This marks the fourth consecutive year that the firm has made the list, carefully curated by the team at Mediacorp Canada Inc, and the fifth win since 2016.

The Waterloo Area’s Top Employers competition is part of the larger Canada’s Top 100 Employers contest, now in its 15th year. Employers are judged on eight criteria – physical workplace, atmosphere and social culture, benefits, vacation/time away policies, employee communications, performance management, professional development opportunities, and community involvement.

The staff editors at Mediacorp Canada Inc. cited WalterFedy’s pandemic response and vacation policy in their reasoning for selection. The full employer profile is available here.

"Hearing from our employees through regular pulse surveys and open forums helped us understand their changing needs as we moved through different stages of the pandemic," said Victoria Campbell, Director of Human Resources. "We continue to adjust our approaches based on the challenges our employees face. Our hope is to maintain this invaluable open dialogue so we can continue to pivot to the needs of our business and our people."

“The past few years have been challenging for businesses across Waterloo Region,” said Garth Cressman, CEO. “That we were able to maintain our culture amid a pandemic without compromising on the programs and supports we could offer really speaks to our people. Despite the adversity and uncertainty presented by the pandemic, they continued to drive us forward and challenge us to rethink the workplace.”

And just like that, after seven fantastic weeks, our 70+ Acts of Good campaign has come to an end. When we set out to celebrate WalterFedy’s 70th Anniversary, we knew we had to do something that would include and benefit the community around us.

In the final three weeks, we covered a lot of ground, including purchasing 70 trees through the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) to be planted in the Waterloo Region via their Give Grand program. This isn’t the first time we’ve teamed up with the GRCA and we hope to work with them again to help plant some of those trees!

After a successful run at Community Fridge KW, we connected with Community Fridges Hamilton to fill up the Beasley Fridge in Downtown Hamilton for three days. Like their Kitchener counterpart, Community Fridges Hamilton provides 24/7 low-barrier access to free food provided entirely by the community. We were happy to play a small part in filling their fridges for a week and look forward to supporting them again in the future.

We also purchased seven essential items from YWCA's wish list for their affordable and supportive housing project on Block Line. We’ve been providing project management services to this project and were happy to give back and help support a build that is so important to the Waterloo Region.

We wrapped up the campaign by delivering 401lbs of food and $915 to the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. That translates to 3,060 meals to help feed our hungry neighbours. In Hamilton, our team rallied to provide an assortment of festive gifts that will be distributed through the Good Shepherd this holiday season. 

We’re sad that the campaign is over, but after a long 2021, this was the perfect way to end the year. We might be 70, but we’re feeling spritely heading into 2022. We're looking forward to finding new and exciting ways to live out our core value of community building over the next 70 years! 

This year marks our 8th annual year participating in the Hockey Helps the Homeless (HHTH) tournament to help raise funds in support of five local charities. This year, Lutherwood, House of Friendship, Cambridge Shelter Corporation, oneROOF Youth Services, and YW K-W Emergency Shelter will split the funds raised at the tournament, set to take place on Friday, October 29th.

Our Team Captain, Patrick Darby, has been involved with HHTH since WalterFedy began participating in 2014. When asked why he joined the team all those years ago, he had many reasons. “First and foremost, I share WalterFedy’s corporate value of community involvement,” he shares. “It’s also a great opportunity for our employees to come together to support important fundraising initiatives in the community.”

This year, the day of the tournament will be structured a little differently, but that hasn’t dampened any of the anticipation for gameday. “With current Public Health guidelines in place, the tournament will look a little different but that won’t stop us from enjoying the day,” said Patrick. “With the cancellation of last year’s tournament, we’re eager to hit the ice this year.”

In past years, our HHTH team organized various fundraising events in the office to help meet the team’s fundraising goal. Because of COVID-19, the team has been unable to host their usual events like the much-anticipated company barbecue, jeans and jersey day, and bake sale. This has forced our participants to double down on their individual fundraising efforts to meet the team’s fundraising goal of $15,000.

In addition to organizing the team and fundraising leading up to the event, as Captain, Patrick is also responsible for team coordination on the day of the tournament. But it can’t be all work and no play for the team. “I really like hockey, so this is a natural fit for me,” explained Patrick.

We couldn’t complete our interview without asking Patrick if WalterFedy has ever brought home the winning trophy. “Well no. But it doesn’t matter! It’s not the driver behind why we’re there. It’s about hitting the ice to support local organizations doing great work in our community.”

Leveraging inspiration from our new strategic plan, last October I sat down with our Sustainability Advisory Committee to discuss what bold steps we could take to reaffirm our commitment to sustainability and enhancing the world around us. We had just purchased carbon offsets for 2019 and for the first time in WalterFedy’s almost 70-year history, we could say that we were a carbon-neutral company. While we were excited about this big step we wondered where we could go from here.

One of our core values at WalterFedy is Integrity. Integrity means that we “do the right thing,” and not just when it’s convenient. We had set strong carbon reduction goals with Sustainable Waterloo Region and we felt we had done a good thing in purchasing carbon offsets, but we also knew we needed to do more. A true commitment to the environment comes through real organizational and operational change and not just strategic giving.

We used this as a springboard to propel our firm toward more substantive changes and set to work in building an ambitious plan to present to our board. Our proposal included a commitment to aggressively cut our greenhouse gas emissions from our 2017 levels by 60% by 2030, all while purchasing enough carbon offsets annually to offset our remaining emissions - and pull us 10% below zero emissions. The board overwhelmingly supported our initiative.

Our largest carbon footprint is linked to transportation-related emissions – more specifically in Employee Commute and Business Travel. Our Sustainable Advisory Committee is currently working to develop strategies to help us achieve our reduction goals, but we know that we will all have to work together to realize this ambitious vision. 

Beyond the carbon emissions directly linked to our employee’s daily activities, we know that our team can make an even greater impact on the world around us through our design and construction activities. As a firm, we are committed to improving the materials and methods used in our projects so that the spaces we design and construct have minimal impact on the environment.

Our Sustainability Advisory Committee is actively developing an implementation plan to integrate The Canada Green Building Council’s (CaGBC) Zero Carbon Building Standard and additional sustainable design measures in all our work.

Learn more about our corporate sustainability goals.