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

 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. 

 Thanks, 
 joe

<jjlindula@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1133926362.623331.309010@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> 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.
>
> Thanks,
> joe

Joe,

One who is effective, troubled and uncooperative might still be highly 
valued!

With good management, an employee who is ineffective today can often be 
assigned to things more appropriate - not necessarily out of engineering. 
For example, some engineers are good engineers, good project engineers in a 
team of 1 but not good team leaders.  So, if the ineffectiveness is in team 
leadership - you don't give 'em a team to manage!  The trick is in 
recognizing the issue.

There are no rules.  Industry is often like government as you've described 
it.  And, people also get fired for being ineffective or for any number of 
reasons.

Fred

jjlindula@hotmail.com wrote:
>  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. 
> 
>  Thanks, 
>  joe
> 
Usually it starts the same way, but if they work at it they get fired. 
The smaller the company and/or the more assertive the manager the 
quicker they're out the door.

Of course if it's the manager who's troubled or uncooperative (and 
sometimes ineffective but good at hiding it) then it's your coworkers 
who go, but not the manager -- for a while at least.

This is not surprising:  If you aren't psychopathic it is _really_ 
difficult to let someone go.  Everyone knows all the excuses, so the bad 
apples will make themselves sound like good apples (they will often even 
think so -- few people set out to be ***holes).  Worse, you can have 
good people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and aren't 
pulling their weight even if the had been at their last place and will 
be at their next.  Finally, there is often high emotion when someone is 
let go.

So in a corporate environment a middle manager will avoid letting 
someone go as long as possible: the only times I really saw someone 
being let go at close to the "right" times were once by an extremely 
conscientious, by-the-book manager, and once by a manager who just 
thrived on conflict.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Pretend to take them for a coffee and give them a good kicking instead.
I find the louder and more important someone sounds the less they
actually know.

<jjlindula@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1133926362.623331.309010@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> 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 ;-)

Tim Wescott wrote:
> So in a corporate environment a middle manager will avoid letting 
> someone go as long as possible: 

That's what I've seen too.  Usually the incompetent are let go during a 
downturn when an executive decision to pare down the work force is made. 
  Then the manager has to let /someone/ go, so it only makes sense to 
get rid of the deadwood.

-- 
Jim Thomas            Principal Applications Engineer  Bittware, Inc
jthomas@bittware.com  http://www.bittware.com    (603) 226-0404 x536
Visualize whirled peas.

"Jim Thomas" <jthomas@bittware.com> wrote in message 
news:11pdsgejfknluc8@corp.supernews.com...
> Tim Wescott wrote:
>> So in a corporate environment a middle manager will avoid letting someone 
>> go as long as possible:
>
> That's what I've seen too.  Usually the incompetent are let go during a 
> downturn when an executive decision to pare down the work force is made. 
> Then the manager has to let /someone/ go, so it only makes sense to get 
> rid of the deadwood.
>
I think that's the way it's supposed to work but it often doesn't. Instead 
they say "we'll have to make some redundancies before X months time" and 
anyone who doesn't have a strong personal reason for staying and has a bit 
of self-confidence leaves for a job with better prospects. After a round of 
lay-offs like that you can end up with a smaller bunch of really good 
engineers (those with strong reasons not to leave the area at that time) and 
all your original deadwood too. You now have a situation where the 
drone/worker ratio has increased

Best of Luck - Mike

John E. Hadstate wrote:

> 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 ;-)

;-)  I' d like to hear about that in more detail!

Ciao,

Peter K.

On 7 Dec 2005 07:17:02 -0800, "Peter K." <p.kootsookos@iolfree.ie>
wrote:

>
>John E. Hadstate wrote:
>
>> 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 ;-)
>
>;-)  I' d like to hear about that in more detail!
>
>Ciao,
>
>Peter K.

Yeah, those kinds of stories are always good.

Everybody likes to stick it to da man.  ;)

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp.
My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

Mike Yarwood wrote:
> "Jim Thomas" <jthomas@bittware.com> wrote in message 
> news:11pdsgejfknluc8@corp.supernews.com...
> 
>>Tim Wescott wrote:
>>
>>>So in a corporate environment a middle manager will avoid letting someone 
>>>go as long as possible:
>>
>>That's what I've seen too.  Usually the incompetent are let go during a 
>>downturn when an executive decision to pare down the work force is made. 
>>Then the manager has to let /someone/ go, so it only makes sense to get 
>>rid of the deadwood.
>>
> 
> I think that's the way it's supposed to work but it often doesn't. Instead 
> they say "we'll have to make some redundancies before X months time" and 
> anyone who doesn't have a strong personal reason for staying and has a bit 
> of self-confidence leaves for a job with better prospects. After a round of 
> lay-offs like that you can end up with a smaller bunch of really good 
> engineers (those with strong reasons not to leave the area at that time) and 
> all your original deadwood too. You now have a situation where the 
> drone/worker ratio has increased
> 
> Best of Luck - Mike
> 
> 
I have yet to work somewhere that announced the layoffs before they 
actually happened.

Even so, you have a round of layoffs & get rid of as much deadwood as 
you can (or the people who threatened you with their competence, 
depending on your mindset).  The workload doesn't go down so the good 
people who were staying on out of loyalty don't feel so loyal anymore, 
and they leave, too.  Then Management has to hire back the last few 
folks who were laid off, who for some reason are feeling just a bit 
usurious.

In "The Corporate Viagra Curve*" the ex CEO of GE (Peterson?) advocates 
letting 10% of your people go each year.  I've seen it tried and fail 
through inattention by the higher-ups -- of course the idea was mandated 
by the CEO at the corp. I was working at after he read a review of the 
book; if he wasn't going to take the time to actually read the damn 
thing how could he be expected to follow up on his edicts?

* Well, "Corporate Vitality Curve", but I like my title better.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com