EE Times:
How to keep engineers happy
David Roman
EE Times
(06/18/2007 10:50 H EDT)
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199905039
It's harder than it's been in years for electronics companies to hold onto
engineers as market dynamics have pushed unemployment rates below 2 percent.
How does a company keep its engineers from seeking greener pastures? What
makes an organization the kind of place an engineer wants to work?
Companies said they retain employees by setting the stage for them to find
professional opportunity, satisfaction, reward and growth. They keep
engineers close to the excitement of solving problems and creating products,
and try to minimize everything else. They reduce attrition by controlling for
factors that would give engineers cause to look elsewhere for work.
"It's pretty basic," said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger,
Gray & Christmas Inc., an outplacement consulting firm headquartered in
Chicago. "It comes down to making people feel valued and recognized, and
creating a place they enjoy working, where they get meaning out of their
work."
Forging such a workplace is a project, however, and some companies are better
than others at retaining engineering staff. A recent EE Times survey of
semiconductor suppliers found varying engineer turnover rates, from a high of
12 percent a year at Actel Corp. to less than 1 percent at Renesas Technology
Corp. Analog Devices Inc.'s rate was close to the survey's 7 percent average,
reported as 7.5 percent the past few years when the market was growing, up
from 3 or 4 percent the previous few years.
Interviews with a dozen engineers and managers in the United
States--conducted by phone, via e-mail or in person--show that most companies
control for as many workplace variables as they can to minimize turnover.
They also show that engineers change jobs in many cases because they want
more excitement, better recognition or greater opportunity than they believe
they can get from their current employer. Sometimes they are simply turned
off by factors their employer cannot control.
The flip side of companies' desire for low turnover is engineers' desire to
accommodate them. "Most workers would rather not change jobs," said Andrew
Iserson, director of information technology at Telvent Farradyne Inc. and an
adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University's Carey Business School.
Workers change jobs when pushed by some outside or internal force, such as a
call from an employment agency, the concerns of family or a change in the
company's stability.
"Engineers are no different than other employees in these regards. If an
organization pays a fair salary and constantly shows the engineer that they
are valued, the chance of their leaving is small," Iserson said.
Yet the very company that one engineer flees may be another's prized
destination. The style and ability of individual managers may partly explain
such differences in perception--and companies know they must groom engineers
to be effective managers.
"Engineers do not lean in the direction of being competent managers," said
Joe Javorski, director of worldwide staffing for Analog Devices. "That's
something you need to work on closely with them. They consider their primary
role to be engineers. They design products, and managerial requirements take
a backseat."
Micron Technology Inc. tries to instill management skills in supervisors and
encourages engineers to pursue opportunities within the company. "I do it, my
peers do it and my managers have done it for me," said Ed Jenkins, an
engineering group manager for CMOS imaging products who oversees 20 workers
at Micron. "It's good to have someone guiding the way."
As a manager, Jenkins said, "it's challenging to keep everyone challenged.
They're all very driven, like myself. Some parts of the work are not always
the most exciting stuff. The key is to keep people interested, because if
they get bored they start looking for other things to do."
Engineers and managers repeatedly stressed the need to keep irritating chores
in perspective (generating documentation, for example, is necessary, tedious
and temporary work). But problems with work, co-workers, supervisors or
expectations that can't be managed or eliminated can create a mismatch that
sends an EE packing.
"[My] previous employer had me taking too many trips to Japan, impacting
family life when the children were small," said John Seitters, senior design
manager with Intersil Corp. After two years working for that previous
employer in Washington state, he accepted a position with Intersil in Ohio
that was closer to relatives. Seitters has since moved to Research Triangle
Park, N.C.
Another common refrain among the engineers who reported satisfaction on the
job was that their employers stay out of their way and let them work. "It's a
laid-back workplace, where people aren't counting time on the clock in
seconds. They're more focused on results," applications engineer Joseph
Tarkoff said about Analog Devices.
Corporate structures and policies, which can grow more complicated as a
company expands, are enough to send some engineers out the door. "There are
no organizational obstacles that really make it hard to focus on my work,"
Sungjin Kim said approvingly of Spansion Inc., which he joined 10 months ago
as process development engineer after spending seven years in a similar role
at Samsung Electronics in South Korea and then earning a PhD at the
University of California, Berkeley. "At my previous employer, there were some
organizational inefficiencies that slowed down the engineering decisions
sometimes."
Opportunity is the main reason engineers change jobs. David Schie recently
left Maxim Integrated Products Inc. to become vice president of analog design
engineering and R&D at Micrel Inc. "It was an opportunity to take a leading
role at a company that is poised for growth, that has the ability to become
one of the analog leaders," Schie said. Micrel's co-founder, president, CEO
and chairman, Raymond Zinn, made a big impression when he and his wife,
DeLona, entertained Schie and his wife at Zinn's home. "Ray is a very good
salesman," Schie said. "There was good synergy. Micrel had a need, and I had
an opportunity."
Companies that aren't as big, don't have multiple offices or aren't in a
prime location put extra effort into making a positive impression. Analog
Devices finds it hard to attract engineers to its headquarters location
outside Boston, when it must compete against employers in Silicon Valley,
Austin, Phoenix, Europe and mainland China. So it participates in a
cooperative education program with Northeastern University that brings
undergraduates into ADI for what staffing director Javorski called "a
seven-month interview." Each co-op student is considered a potentially
strategic hire. "When we can attract people, we are able to hold onto them,"
Javorski said. "Getting them here is another matter."
Location is a card that companies play with care. Single-location operations
can provide stability; multiple offices may mean more opportunities. But
while mobility opens doors, it's a double-edged sword. Intersil's Seitters
moved to Washington from Florida and didn't like it. "The great Northwest was
too rainy," he said.
When borders aren't barriers, however, opportunities multiply. Giuseppe
D'Onofrio worked with Texas Instruments Inc. in Avezzano, Italy, then with
Dialog Semiconductor GmbH in Kirchheim, Germany, and now is with Micron
Technology in Boise, Idaho, where he is a senior engineer in the CMOS imaging
product engineering group. "I am starting again, and my idea is to spend most
of the remaining part of my career here at Micron," D'Onofrio said. "There is
a chance to apply for a PhD" and to move into management.
In contrast, Micron's Jenkins has held three positions at the company over
the past 10 years--all in Boise Valley. "I can't imagine another place where
I'd want to live," said Jenkins, who pumped gas and started a family while
earning an engineering degree before joining Micron. "There's great culture,
a low crime rate. It's a great place to raise your kids. It does play into my
decision to stay at Micron."
Effective leadership is another factor in keeping employees motivated and
engaged. It comes down to communicating goals and conferring respect, both
personally and professionally. "There is no reason that this cannot be
accomplished," Johns Hopkins' Iserson said. "And respect for professionals
costs the company little to no extra money."
David Boisvert, design director in the data conversion division of National
Semiconductor Corp., said he sees his work contributing to corporate
objectives in a "broader sense" than when he joined National 13 years ago. "I
consider the long-term economic and application-specific aspects of a given
project, not just the technical solution, such as how to meet a
specification," Boisvert said. Taking on added responsibilities and having a
good mentor have also helped his career, he said.
Mutual respect is key. Minh Van Ngo said he has "stayed and stayed" with the
same company--having joined Advanced Micro Devices Inc. 21 years ago and
stuck with its spin-off, Spansion--because of "the people and the company
culture."
A Spansion fellow and manager of the Thin Films Technology Group, Minh Van
described his colleagues as "technically talented, but also cooperative and
friendly" and added that "upper management has always listened to ideas from
technical people." Spansion's development facility, he said, is "filled with
state-of-the-art process, metrology and analytical tools," and "breakthroughs
and innovations in advanced technology are well recognized and rewarded."
People vary, however, in their definition of what constitutes recognitions
and rewards. For one employee, it might mean greater compensation. For
another, it's public recognition. A manager has to know which button to push.
"Some engineers really like the fanfare [of approbation] and consider that a
reward; others do not," said ADI's Javorski. "It would be an error to
recognize someone when that's the last thing they want."
One difference companies recognize today is the need to make the workplace a
community that speaks to employees on both a social and a professional level,
said consultant Challenger. "There's more focus on creating an environment
where someone wants to stay--a physical environment, and one that is involved
in civic or charitable programs as a group. It might be responsive to what
employees are interested in," be it golf outings, parties or some other event
that brings people together, he said.
And "survey after survey" shows that "having a friend or friends at work" is
central to an employee's desire to stay put, he said. "So having an
environment that's collegial is an important way of helping retain people."
If an employer does right by an engineer through the first two or three years
of employment, the chances of long-term retention increase, said ADI's
Javorski. "This includes all of those things that contribute to workers'
wanting to stay," he said: good communication, good compensation, good
leadership, good products and good strategic vision.
"I call it 'managing the transition,' " Javorski said. "If you take care of
that, other things take over. All of these are plans, not just happenstance."
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199905039
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