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"No organization in the 21st century can afford to derail its outstanding engineering talent or diminish their motivation and enthusiasm for performance excellence." Vice President of Engineering, Technology and Research.
Every organization that depends on scientists, engineers and technical professional for success has at least one or two high-flying risk-takers--partners, owners, executives--who triumph in the end and are a firm's public face, getting all the attention and kudos. Moravec and Associates argue that companies, research organizations, non-profits and professional firms need more than heroes to succeed. In fact the most impressive, effective scientists, engineers and technicians are often the unsung professionals, those who labor patiently in the shadows.
Nurturing engineers is an increasingly important challenge in today's workplace. 0ur organizations, however, are sending mixed messages to their human assets. We tell them: "If you perform well and give us loyal service, we will reward you with a management role." But then the economic crunch hits and we eliminate manager, director, and vice president management positions.
Likewise, we say: "We want you to belong. We want to empower you." But we then fail to give employees career alternatives that motivate engineering and technical performance.In most organizations, career paths, whether formal or informal, have been designed to motivate and give recognition to only those who opt for a management track (sometimes creating titles, unnecessary roles and levels). And, if a company offers a non-managerial track, it often has a low ceiling, Thus, after a certain point, management is the only route to the top.
Unfortunately, many employees have little interest in, or aptitude for, management. The vast majority of researchers, engineers and professionals would be happier and more productive simply doing what they do best--whether it's being a civil engineer, systems designer, engineering specialist, or marketing expert. That's why efforts to reconfigure individual contributors into "real" managers rarely meet with success.
Thus, outstanding individual contributors are left with three career choices:
But in creating this uneven playing field (in which managers are regarded as more valuable than engineers and professionals) we may have shot ourselves in the foot in two ways.
First, the excess management delays the decision-making process at a time when technology and business cycles demand that decisions be made quickly.
Second, a management emphasis diminishes engineering prowess and sends the wrong message.
So, at long last, it is time for organizations to demonstrate that they value their individual contributors--those people with the analytical competencies, perseverance, and engineering capacities to turn ideas into client satisfaction--through dual career paths.
Such dual career paths (already used by such world-class companies as Bechtel and Hewlett-Packard) offer one track for those motivated by managing and another track--equally rewarding in terms of decision-making, influence, compensation, and accountability--for individual contributors.The paths stay parallel all the way to the top echelons.
In most of these paths, employees have the option of switching from the individual-contributor track to the management track and back again as their qualifications-- and the needs of business--change. Exceptional contributions are expected by employees in both paths.
Since professionals know exactly what is required to move up or laterally, they control their own career direction, sense of belonging and recognition.
As one corporate vice president told a Moravec and Associates consultant: "We have empowered the associates (workforce), nourished our culture of engineering excellence, and we now have an invaluable recruiting incentive for experienced and exceptional new graduates." The introduction of a career path for motivating individual contributors, which can lead as far up as the managerial path, in no way diminishes the importance of employees who opt to become managers.
But it does help the organization avoid the trap of pushing everyone into management, creating a glut, and then having to let go of people who are talented engineers and effective "intrapreneurs."
Certainly, it is a challenge to develop individual-contributor and management paths that are truly comparable. Usually it means rethinking both paths, since existing managerial paths may no longer support the real mission and may offer too few robust roles for would-be managers.
Thus, in order to ensure that the paths for each job family reflect the way work needs to be done to create the firm's future, it is best to have the paths designed by teams of experienced managers and individual contributors.The design teams must be careful to make the levels in each path clearly distinguishable, so that the work, the skills, and the necessary behaviors and results for each step are challenging.
Although one path may end up with more levels than the other, the two paths must manifest comparable increases in risk, influence, accountability, and results all the way to the highest level of each path.
Despite the difficulties inherent in such advancement, the challenge must be met. Today's leaner, flatter organizations require all the talent they can recruit, retain, and develop to successfully achieve the increasing expectations of clients. Dual career paths give both employers and employees more choices, more flexibility, and more control over their careers and contributions.