Re: Question for Engineers in the Private Sector; What to do a with bad engineer?


John E. Hadstate wrote:
> <jjlindula@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1133926362.623331.309010@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Hello, I have a question that is off the topic from the
> > newsgroup but
> > I want to get responses from engineers. I would like to
> > know how
> > engineers in the private sector deal with engineering
> > co-workers who
> > are ineffective, troubled or un-cooperative? I work for
> > the government
> > and what generally happens is that engineer is assigned
> > collateral
> > duties rather than engineering tasks, or you promote the
> > individual to
> > another position and then hire a replacement. I don't have
> > any clue
> > what would happen in the private sector, would they do the
> > same, or
> > just fire the individual? Sorry for the off-the-wall
> > question, but I
> > would appreciate any comments.
> >
>
> After serving 25 years in the private sector (Fortune 100
> company), I don't think there are any hard-and-fast answers
> to your question. I have seen people "carried" for years
> and years, then terminated by being offered early
> retirement. I have seen competent people marginalized-out
> because their managers were incapable of adapting to new
> technologies. (Marginalizing a competent engineer is a
> politically-risky but often effective way of getting him to
> leave voluntarily.) There was a much higher tolerance for
> incompetence than for "rocking the boat". During the last 5
> years I was with them, "go along to get along" was really
> the order of the day.
>
> I hasten to point out that this approach was disasterous
> from a business perspective: the company that I helped build
> was first spun off by its German parent, then looted, and
> finally put out of business by competition from Mexico (that
> I helped develop). It's part of the circle of life, and
> proof that there is a God, after all ;-)

This was a very interesting thread. My own experience from
Norwegian public institutions, is that no one leaves for no
other reasons than retirement. There are the occational
firing due to embezzlement(?), but never because of
inefficiency or anything like that. Well, there is one
excempt, more on that below.

In the private sector, the main tradition is that the people who
were hired last are the first to go. I don't think it is formally
included in the laws governing the economy, but it is such a
strong tradition it is a de facto law.

So all the companies that hired in the boom of the late 60s and
early 70s are now in deep trouble, since their main workforce are
getting into retirement, and they have no recruitment base.

It's near christmas, so I will not get even remotely close to
recruitment practices for management. Suffice it to say that
the Norwegien "operational body for air traffic" (the government
department that runs the airports and air traffic control) just fired
a manager only three weeks after he enetered the job. The reason
was his lack of competence and experience in air traffic at all,
and that he found it impossible to cooperate with his employees,
who are responsible for air traffic safety.

I don't know if him being fired was due to any sort of incompetence
or inefficiency; I suspect most of it was due to the Norwegian
equivalent of the FAA raising an eyebrow over somebody without
relevant experience being appointed to this type of position.
Even the FAA may have played a part, for all I know. There were
reports in the press of the EU equivalent of the FAA "reviewing the
standards of Norwegian air traffic control" after this guy was
appointed
and the reactions in his staff was known.

The Director of the air traffic control authority was on the news
yesterday saying something I did not make much sense of, but that
apparently was based on the philosophy that "a manager can lead,
without knowing anything about his/her business."

I have never understood those kinds of claims.

Rune

.

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