Report on Business Magazine is featuring the 2023 winners of Canada’s Best Managed Companies, Deloitte’s awards program recognizing excellence in private Canadian-owned firms. Those winners had the option to purchase a Sponsor Content package highlighting their own achievements.
Michael Schatz, global managing director, infrastructure at Hatch (far right) and members of the infrastructure team at the site of the Pattullo Bridge replacement project in B.C.Supplied
Engineering, project management and professional services firm Hatch describes its employees as “entrepreneurs with a technical soul.” They take a knowledge- and data-driven approach to solving complex challenges around the world, whether that’s building better mines, electrifying transportation, helping businesses be more sustainable, improving cities, or transitioning to renewable energy.
“Innovation is part of our soul,” says Michael Schatz, the company’s global managing director, infrastructure.
“We celebrate innovation, right through to our senior management,” he adds. Senior managers are “all still involved in our projects and ideas; our executive management is not decoupled from being at the front line of doing this work.”
The employee-owned company’s management structure is flat, which encourages collaboration and connection across teams from around the world so that every project can tap into the best expertise. Mr. Schatz is an example of how an employee can advance with the company, as he began working at Hatch when he graduated university and now heads up its infrastructure team.
“This fosters an environment of ideas and thinking and being leading-edge,” Mr. Schatz adds. “We look at some of our challenges in the world today and ask, ‘How do we do better at solving these?’”
That spirit of innovation has led Hatch to work with clients to develop cutting-edge technologies that help manage climate change, from fusion reactors and a green hydrogen-based steelmaking technology that reduces the carbon footprint of the process, to managing the lifecycle of batteries, he explains.
To link Hatch’s approximately 10,000 employees in offices on every major continent and with experience in more than 150 countries across the globe, the company has a manifesto that outlines its vision, mission, values and personality.
“These are essential,” Mr. Schatz stresses. “They’re not just nice slogans to put on the wall; you have to live these. They’re connected, and so together they’re the manifesto, starting with our vision of being ‘passionately committed to the pursuit of a better world through positive change.’ We use the manifesto as a guide and a framework in our own internal conversations.”
That guide also helps bridge the differences in language and culture between employees, he adds. “We’re in different countries and cultures and business lines, but what holds us together is this manifesto. That’s how we can work together because we subscribe to these values and this approach.”
Being employee-owned also means the company’s employees have a stake in the outcome of the business and “we’re not beholden to other forces,” he says. “It creates a higher client focus and a view on the long-term outcome.”
Hatch and its employees love to give back to the communities they work in, and the company supports programs for Indigenous groups in areas where it operates, including Canada and Australia. One such program is the University of Saskatchewan’s Indigenous Student Co-op Program, which connects engineering students with opportunities in industry. It also has an active university scholarship program, providing more than $2-million in scholarships and bursaries to universities across the globe each year.
“We’re from our communities, and we’re making substantial changes to our communities with what we do in the business,” Mr. Schatz says. “So, we think it’s essential that communities are involved in our work, as well as being supported and benefiting from our outreach.”
See full editorial coverage of Canada’s Best Managed Companies in Report on Business Magazine here.
Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio with Hatch. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.