Tag Archives: Policies

How do You Develop and Retain Talent in a Competitive Market? Six Points

Situation: A company must acquire new engineering talent to sustain its growth. However, there are few local engineers who are experienced in company’s key technologies, and the cost of living in the company’s location makes it difficult to bring in new talent. The CEO is considering developing a remote office where there are experienced engineers that they could attract to the company. How do you develop and retain talent in a competitive market?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • There are a number of issues to consider: location, management of the culture, leadership and potential unintended consequences that must be mitigated.
  • The COVID pandemic has forced companies to adapt to remote employees. Has this been considered as an option?
    • High definition, large screen systems can be set up for $2-3,000 per site.
    • Web cams, projectors, etc. can be set up for several hundreds of dollars per site.
    • Add to this design and analysis tools, with technology for prototyping.
  • Consider where within the organization the remote people will fit?
    • How will the organizational structure impact the integration of design engineering and manufacturing engineering?
    • What policies and procedures are needed to assure that there is no clash?
  • How will leadership be implemented for the remote group?
    • One CEO feels that there must be a sponsor from the home office to assure smooth and consistent transfer of company culture to the remote operation. This may take 1-2 years to achieve.
    • Another CEO hired a qualified individual locally for their remote operation. The important point was that this company has a very tight process and found that they could package this process sufficiently so that the new individual could pick it up quickly.
  • Look at developing a remote office as essentially the same challenge as a mini-acquisition. Like an acquisition, the key resource being gained is new talent. Think through the integration process and trade-offs as though it were a new acquisition.
  • Developing a remote location can be a good solution for advancing the company’s ability to outsource. It will teach the company:
    • How to design using a combination of internal and remote resources,
    • What infrastructure is needed in terms of policies and protocols around designs, and
    • What works from a communications standpoint to assure knowledge transfer between sites.

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How Do You Manage a Difficult Employee? Seven Suggestions

Situation: A CEO and her staff are struggling with a difficult employee. This individual fails to send invoices on a timely basis, doesn’t provide required reports to management, and doesn’t return vendor calls. The CEO has spoken to the employee, who acknowledges the issues but then rapidly defaults to old habits. How do you manage a difficult employee?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Ask for specific weekly/biweekly AP/AR reports, and be very clear as to everything that this should cover as well as the required deadlines. Make it clear that these deadlines are mandatory and that there will be disciplinary consequences for failure either to meet the deadlines or to create the report as specified. Address issues with timely mailing of invoices and timely return of vendor calls the same way. Make all three standard operating procedure.
  • This is not an at-will employee so assure that there is very good and complete documentation over a period of time to demonstrate that the employee is not meeting required job responsibilities.
  • Tell the employee that he has 90 days to demonstrate that he can consistently meet required responsibilities, and that there will be a retain or termination decision at the end of this period.
  • Update policies that are not being following so that they are clear.
  • Check with a human resources expert for advice on what needs to be done. Regulations are shifting, so this will assure that the company is following regulatory requirements.
  • If the final decision is to retain this employee, adjust responsibilities to mitigate potential future damage.
  • Given the current challenges, why is this employee’s behavior being tolerated? What message is this sending to other employees?

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