Category: Tips for Engineering Managers
Career Contractors
We thought you might be interested this article of Today’s Engineer. The article speaks to the notion of “career contractors,” those engineers who prefer contract work over full-time employment with a single organization. Moving from project to project enables veteran contractors to work on projects they prefer. Besides being able to work on plum projects,… Read more »
Top Engineering Managers Share Five Morale-boosting Tips
By: Leslie Stevens-Huffman The lackluster economy has taken its toll on employees. A research report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that only 29 percent of workers in the 31-to-61 age group were “very satisfied” with their job. The rest were either “somewhat satisfied” or not satisfied at all. To avoid losing… Read more »
Four Ways to Save Money by Hiring Contract Engineers
By: Leslie Stevens-Huffman In the dog-eat-dog world of engineering, managers are constantly seeking new ways to lower operating costs. That’s why savvy managers are taking a hard look at the return on human capital and strategically integrating contract professionals into the engineering talent pool. Four Cost-Reduction Strategies No. 1: Control ancillary employment costs Although managers… Read more »
Three Tactics for Hiring Customer-Centric Engineers
Look for traits and behaviors that reveal the presence of customer-centric DNA By: Leslie Stevens-Huffman Engineers are renowned for their ability to solve problems and manage details, but they aren’t typically known for their customer service skills. Frankly, finding customer-centric contract professionals is so difficult that engineering managers often employ product managers or other go-betweens… Read more »
The Need for Speed
Jump start the selection process to overcome a shortage of contract engineers By: Leslie Stevens-Huffman “Time kills deals” should be the mantra of managers and human resource leaders who need to keep agile competitors from cornering the market for highly qualified contract engineering professionals. Recent news reports confirm that pending retirements and a lack of… Read more »
What Do Contract Engineers Care About in an Assignment?
Savvy managers know that part and parcel to having an engineering contractor be successful on the job is to make sure they’re doing what they want to be doing. Engineers in their element are far more likely to be productive than those that are biding their time, suffering through a suboptimal assignment waiting for the… Read more »
Dynamic Staffing Duos
It takes a unified front to win the battle for top-notch contract engineers By: Leslie Stevens-Huffman Imagine heading into combat without support from allies or a strategic battle plan. Unthinkable, you say? Well the unthinkable happens every day when managers try to win the war for top-notch engineering contractors by relying on vague connections with… Read more »
Ten Engineering Recruitment Interview Questions to Avoid and What to Ask Instead
By: Leslie Stevens-Huffman Managers performing engineering recruitment need to evaluate a contract engineer’s commitment and work ethic in addition to their engineering skills. However, they often ask illegal questions to uncover relevant information. Unless each probe is carefully worded, it may violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or a slew of… Read more »
Maximizing Profit and Morale
Optimizing the Balance between Core and Augmented Staff By Joseph Salvucci Every company confronts the essential question of how much core staff is needed. Too few and you run the risk of diluting your core competency. Too many and you wind up with bloated salaries and benefits you staffed up for during peaks. When the… Read more »
What Microsoft’s Worker Misclassification Suit Tells Us About the Future of Contingent Workers
By: Leslie Stevens-Huffman It was the shot heard ’round the employment world back in 1999, when the U.S. District Court ruled that Microsoft’s long-term contractors were entitled to participate in the company’s tax-qualified employee stock purchase plan. While some companies responded by capping the length of contract assignments and scrutinizing the status of independent workers,… Read more »