Jacobs Go!: Niki Roy’s Story
Connecting and growing with international opportunities
As part of our Boldly Moving Forward Strategy, we’re focused on intentionally building deep, trusting relationships for our people and nurturing our inclusive culture, including in how we approach wellbeing.
Wellbeing is foundational to everything we’re able to do and accomplish. We continually evaluate our wellbeing programs and benefits to best support our people – and we’re sharing stories of how these programs and tools are helping each of us individually be at our best, so we’re able to do more – together.
In this feature, we connected with Civil Discipline Specialist Niki Roy about her experience growing her career and reconnecting with her culture as part of our Jacobs Go! program in the Philippines.
Featured benefit:
Jacobs Go! – an employee program aimed at facilitating inter-regional and international six-month career opportunities. This early career program encourages connectivity across our business – enhancing our employee experience, providing professional and personal development opportunities and expanding global networks.
What prompted you to take advantage of this benefit?
As a Canadian-born Filipino, I applied for the Manila office because I wanted the opportunity to work and live in the land where my parents had emigrated from before I was born (especially since I had only been to the Philippines once before as a teenager.) It was also an opportunity to try structural engineering work, which is outside of my day-to-day transportation engineering work.
How did it help?
The Jacobs Go! program allowed me to grow both professionally and personally: I got to work on a high-rise structural engineering project and learn many aspects of structural design. I was also able to experience life in “the motherland” and got to improve my Tagalog-speaking skills through conversing and connecting with my extended family.
What did you like most?
Getting to connect with my cultural roots, developing relationships with my new Philippine colleagues and traveling around the Philippines.
Are you still active with Jacobs Go!?
Some of the skills I learned while working on a structural high-rise project in Manila allowed me to continue expanding my structural engineering knowledge now that I’m back in Calgary. In addition to my transportation engineering projects, I have been acting as the resident structural engineer on a major $1 billion wastewater treatment plant expansion project for the last three years.
What do you want others to know?
Jacobs Go! is a great program to learn new skills (both technical and soft skills) and grow your international network within Jacobs. If I could do it again, I would!
“Jacobs Go! was an amazing program to be a part of where I got to learn new skills, meet new people, and expand my horizons while working and adapting to a different cultural environment.”
Wellbeing at Jacobs
At Jacobs, the wellbeing of our people is fundamental to our success. When we’re each able to be well, our collective power is limitless.
A world where you can is only achievable when we’re each functioning at our highest abilities. We can’t be our true selves, get our work done, and develop and grow unless our ideal states of being are sustained. We embed wellbeing into all, so we’re able to deliver on our purpose – today and into the future.
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