Laura Dorval, SHRM-CP

I have been working in HR for about five years. I started as an HR assistant for a construction company in 2018 and progressed to an HR business partner before switching to recruiting. I served as a recruiter for a separate engineering firm before joining the Gannett Fleming team in September 2022.

Throughout my career, I have always had a strong affinity for data analytics. I’ve incorporated this into each of my roles, which led me to my current position as a compensation and benefits analyst with Gannett Fleming.

I was drawn to Gannett Fleming because of the firm’s long history of success in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) space, along with the sense of stability that provides. I’m still here because of my amazing manager, the company’s emphasis on innovation, and the career opportunities I’ve had that have helped me learn and grow in the ways that interest me.

I’m responsible for administering Gannett Fleming’s retirement plan and compensation structure. I complete and analyze compensation survey data to maintain our salary structure, audit data as it relates to compensation and our award-winning 401(k) plan, and act as the point person for 401(k)-related questions. I also recently started getting more involved with our other benefits programs.

We’re constantly looking for ways to enhance our benefits and have a robust set of medical plans that offer employees great coverage. We also have paid parental leave, which helps tremendously with the transition of bringing a child into the family.

I had both of my sons before coming to Gannett Fleming and had to supplement my short-term disability with my vacation and sick time to be fully paid during my eight weeks of leave. It was very stressful, and I wish I had been able to spend more time with my babies, but I couldn’t afford to without any sort of paid leave.

If I had been working for Gannett Fleming at that time, I could have received two additional weeks of pay, which would have meant more time with my newborns. This would have greatly helped my mental health and prepared me to be fully present upon returning to work.

Gannett Fleming has supported my career growth wholeheartedly from the very beginning. For example, the firm provides internal growth opportunities that allowed me to transition from being a recruiter to a compensation and benefits analyst just six months after starting here. Access to valuable resources, like LinkedIn Learning and Percipio, has allowed me to brush up on my compensation knowledge and teach myself how to leverage Power BI to create efficiency. And our leadership has encouraged me to implement that knowledge to improve processes and develop innovative solutions.

Throughout the last few months, I have been compiling data from various internal systems to develop Power BI dashboards. These dashboards provide crucial insights into human capital management and allow our HR department to further our abilities as strategic partners for our operations team. I have also increased our department’s efficiency by automating several of our recurring processes in Power BI, freeing us up to find other ways to support our employees.

When everyone at the table comes from the same background, they often have similar perspectives, which can limit ideas and innovation that can be discovered through collaboration amongst a diverse group. Diversity allows us to get ahead of and more easily adapt to rapid changes we are facing in the world and the AEC space while providing a wider array of strengths we can leverage.

I’m always up for watching a documentary on ancient Egypt, dinosaurs, or any other archeological findings. I also enjoy jigsaw puzzles and Sudoku, and the harder they are, the better.

My husband, John, and I just celebrated seven years of marriage. We have two sons, ages two and almost four, who are expert magnet tile builders. Our whole family loves music, art, and road trips – we try to take at least a couple per year!

When I started college, I planned to become a clinical psychologist. I set myself up nicely to get my Ph.D. after undergrad but decided a year before graduation that counseling wasn’t for me. I ended up following through on my psychology degree and then accidentally ended up in HR after graduation. As Bob Ross would say, it was a “happy accident” that I ended up on the career path that I’m on, as it’s certainly not one I had initially imagined.