About Mott MacDonald

The senior management team at Mott MacDonald has produced a video called Moving Forward, aimed at giving their staff an insight into the opportunities and challenges the company is currently facing and where they expect to be going as a company for the next five years. The video started with a reminder of how the company fared in the past 12 months and looked at the new reality impacting the business and the challenges it brings. To make it as easy as possible for everyone to see the video, the company hosted the production on their internal e-learning site as well as making it available on DVD for staff outside the office. To ensure maximum awareness was generated for the production, an email was sent out from the Group’s chairman well as notices appearing on the intranet encouraging all staff to view it. Feedback from staff showed this approach was welcomed and included positive comments about how sincerely and well the senior management came across.

Mott MacDonald have two programmes that give something back to the wider world either through their staff or through providing both financial and professional skills. Mott MacDonald’s global Community Award scheme celebrates the achievement of employees who make a difference in the communities where they work. The Community Award winners receive up to £1000 for their chosen charity or organisation. The 2011 awards saw 27 employees receive up to £1000 to donate to a charity of their choice. Mott MacDonald’s Community Support programme supports up to three projects at any one time, each receiving up to £30,000 over three years. Work is underway on three projects: Reconstruction of a secondary school in Bangladesh, which was destroyed by a cyclone. The Koutulai Farmers’ Charity Group in Uganda, which supports a programme to equip 300 woman and orphans so they can become agriculturally and economically self-sufficient. And a long-term, mutually beneficial community partnership in a Ghanaian village based on reciprocal support and learning.

Mott MacDonald utilises two primary groups to listen to the views of employees. To promote professional excellence, a Young Professional Excellence (YPE) network exists across all of the company’s business units. This network creates a learning culture among the company’s younger staff. YPE promotes two way communications and ensures that the views of their young professionals are fed back to senior management. As the YPE networks are representative of Mott MacDonald’s business units, the Groups can be targeted depending on the nature of the query on which the company is seeking views. The other channel which MacDonald uses is staff councils. These allow effective two-way communication between the company and staff at all levels. In doing so, they provide a forum in which company policy can be explained to staff. They are held on a quarterly basis and minutes are posted on the company’s intranet to ensure all staff have access to on going discussions.