ENGR 100-600 | University of Michigan

GFL, Inc. Handbook

WHO WE ARE

Our mission

To offer our clients innovative, collaboratively designed ROVs tailored to their specific needs. Design, build, test, communicate!

Our people

Get to know your team and explore the company! You will be joining one of our project teams. Each project team at GFL Inc. is responsible for determining its own operating agreement and devising its own time management system. GFL connects each project team with a peer mentor; a peer mentor is a former employee of GFL that serves as an outside resource for guidance, advice, and general support. Let your division head or one of the partners know if you have a great idea for a team-building activity!

PRODUCT & PROCESS

Project Process

When clients decide to contract our services, they provide details about their needs in a Statement of Work or similar document. We pass the document to our design teams, who then create prototypes according to their (often varying) interpretations of the client’s highest priorities.

Teams pitch their designs to internal leadership throughout the design process and then finally to the client when their prototype is complete.

Weekly Meetings

We expect our employees to manage their own schedules and do not require you to clock in or clock out. However, we have regular meetings – some company-wide, some among divisions, and some as individual teams with partners – when employee presence is required.

Employees who are ill and not able attend meetings should notify their team members and company leadership in advance. The employee is still responsible for their own work on missed days and must also see to it that their team is supported in their absence.

Employees who find themselves in emergency situations that require extended leave should contact their division head and the partners right away.

Prototype Performance Bonuses

Here at GFL, we value innovation, creativity, and quality. Though each team pitches their prototype directly to the client, GFL also holds an intra-company evaluation at the end of each contract period as another way to evaluate the prototypes. The details of the evaluation are provided along with the other documentation of the project specifications and client needs.

Bonuses are distributed to those teams whose prototypes perform the best in one or more categories, whether or not those prototypes are ultimately chosen by our client.

Review process

Effective collaboration is crucial to the success of GFL’s business model. To better support team health and productivity, we depend on Tandem, a tool that allows us to solicit, sort, and evaluate individual employee and team data. Employees are required to provide feedback on a continuing basis via Tandem and to track their own progress.

ONBOARDING TASKLIST

Use the following checklist to help you navigate your first day as an employee of GFL. We are excited to have you start your career with us!

• Thoroughly read the Statement of Work for the project you will be assigned on the first day it is released.
• Review all of the project’s dates, identifying any conflicts and clearing your schedule where necessary.
• Familiarize yourself with any other resources you’ve been provided to complete your first project.
  • This employee handbook
  • The course website
  • The company-wide Google Drive folder, which includes templates for company communication and reports from previous projects.