M A N A G E M E N T

Keeping Your Engineers Happy Program of parallel progression levels equates growth patterns of administrators with specialists

JVEDTJCING TURNOVER among technical employees is one of management's pressing problems today. Keeping spe­cialists satisfied in the face o f tempting offers from competitors is particularly difficult. But Procter & Gamble's in­dustrial relations director, James H . Taylor, has a number of suggestions for better management—engineer relations. Speaking before the recerxt General Assembly of the Engineers Joint Coun­cil in New York, the P&G official out­lined a development and promotion plan along what he calls "parallel pro­gression levels." Here is t l ie gist of Taylor's approach:

• Whether a graduate engineer will ultimately be a specialist i n an engi­neering field, an administrator in the engineering field, or a manager in pro­duction, it is still axiomatic to recruit and employ the most able and most ctainGvo. engineer.

• Early orientation and personal de­velopment programs should h>e the same for all young engineers in a given or­ganization. Taylor doesn't go along with current practice in many com­panies of making an early decision (sometimes at t ime of hiring) a s to just where the new engineer should ultimately b e placed withira. the com­pany's operations.

• Make your decision as t o the direc­tion t he young engineer will take after an initial training period which may last from two to four years. Taylor sug­gests this important decision be based on many things including: the man 's interests, his inclinations, tris demon­strated abilities, the considered opinion of his management echelon, and the needs of the organization. Wherever possible the man's desires axe the con­trolling factor.

° Progression levels should be de­veloped so that men of equal ability and performance advance " equally. And b y "equally" Taylor refers to equal in respect to position, pay, honor, re­sponsibility, and recognition. This is Taylor's keypoint. T h e specialist who knows most of what there is to know about a given process—one which is the fundamental process behincl the com­pany's major product line—should b e

on the same level in all respects as the administrator who heads u p an impor­tant department in the . engineering di­vision or the superintendent who runs the plant where the key process is lo­cated.

Taylor doesn't believe that in this high level of m a n utilization it is pos­sible to evaluate jobs. Instead h e is

Are You Doing This to Your engineers?

• Saying you want them to have high technical competence and then assigning them to nontechnical jobs. • Asking them to be creative and then reprimanding them when they depart from time-tested ways. • Asking them for a high degree of professionalization and interest in their field and then, if they show signs of supervisory skill, encour­aging them to direct their careers to production management responsibili­ties. • Requiring from them identification and loyalty to management thinking yet isolating them from management concepts and ideas. • Emphasizing the importance of their contributions as technical spe­cialists yet passing out the kudos and the dollars to the engineer who be­comes an administrator or a produc­tion supervisor. • Demanding performance from them as individuals yet treating them physically as members of an unidentified mass. • Asking for and training them in technical skills yet criticizing them when they fail to handle simple per­sonnel problems for which they have received no training.

suggesting the far more difficult area of evaluating men not only on current per­formance but on expectations as t o fu­ture performance.

It must be a top management respon­sibility to arrange the parallel progres­sion charts. A sales manager will not rate the engineer who designs the equipment as high as he will the pro­duction superintendent who delivers

enough product at the right time. A n d the production head may not appreci­a te as much as does the advertising manager the engineer who twists a process just enough to give the prod­uct a distinctive edge over competition, explains the P&G executive.

Limiting factor in the parallel p ro ­gression concept is the fact that t he "headman" of any organization must b e an administrator. The specialist cannot be converted into an administra­tive executive without serious losses on both sides. The administrator must advance to the top spot insofar as or­ganizational responsibility is concerned. But Taylor emphasizes that it does not follow that other factors such as recog­nition and pay must be so Hmited.

ί Are Engineers Disillusioned? T h e graduate engineer now in industry is not finding exactly the situation he h a d anticipated while a student, says Tay­lor. He cites a study made a t Purdue University by Henry E . Sodke as a p a r t of a master's thesis. The survey based on questionnaires sent to both students and practicing engineers revealed tha t there is apparently a real difference in att i tude between these groups and tha t the actual association of the engineer with management is not so close as students anticipate.

As an example, 3 1 % of the students assume management recognizes the en­gineer as a professional with a correla­tive authority and responsibility; only 2 4 % of the practicing engineers agreed with this assumption. And 36% of the students believed an engineer felt a sense of importance to his company while only 2 2 % of the practicing engi­neers agreed.

With respect to evaluation and com­munications, only 10% of the engineer­ing students said the student seldom knows if management is satisfied wi th his work. Of the practicing engineers, 2 8 % were convinced their employers did not keep them advised as to the competency of performance. Only 2 3 % of the students believed personnel policies of companies would not maxi­mize contributions of engineering per­sonnel—while 3 7 % of the practicing en­gineers agreed that they did not maxi­mize engineering personnel contribu­tions.

Taylor doesn't believe his parallel progression concept is the answer to all of the problems faced in encourag­ing post-graduate growth of the engi­neer. There are many equally serious problems.

But Taylor is convinced that the adoption of the parallel progression concept will form a secure permanent base from which successful forays may be made in the attack on many of the problems of postgraduate engineer growth. •

6 9 8 C & E N FEB. 13, 19 56