One of my engineers, I am sorry to say, was not the easiet to get along with in terms of getting work done the way it was meant to be done. I mean, outside the office he was the nicest guy to talk to, but at work he had this nagging attitude that he’s the best (actually he graduated from the UofT’s Applied Sciences program if that relates to anyone) …
Letting him go was not an option since he’s quite possibly the most qualified engineer in my team and our business is quite specialized so we do not have many people who are advanced in this field and yet don’t charge over 100k per year.
He’s the kind of guy who would not want to do documentation because he felt it was redundant, that he would come in the office at 10AM in the morning since he knows he wont be fired because of his specialization, and he will definitely not hear others out (well at least those from the management because “management sucks”) and he had apparently done well for himself so he was not overly worried about being fired anyway. It was our company that needed him… and he was not the kind of guy who would not deliver on time… he was always on time with an excellent solution/implementation, but just not the way the “extras” of the job were to be done in terms of the project requirement.
So, a conundrum for the PM to get the job done: How to motivate this guy for Proper Reporting, Proper Documntation and Proper Behaviour?
I’ll share my course of action after I hear some answers on this forum.
He is motivated enough already. He submits his work on time doesn't he ? You do not want to motivate him for Proper Reporting, Proper Documentation and Proper Behavior.
You want to discipline him for lack of proper reporting, proper documentation, and proper behavior.
If this guy is as indispensable as you say then you have to do the proper reporting and proper documentation yourself or give him an assistant or a technical writer. As for coming late to office if it does not hurt anything I will let it slide.
^ The company cannot (and should not) afford redundant employees... it is his job to work as an engineer just like everyone else or else it is bad influence "He doesn't do it so why should I". It brings the productivity down and is just bad atmosphere that people are not being treated fairly.
Our software is so specialized that the engineer has to do the documentation, at least comment the code and prepare proper interface spec and internal design docs (in fact, from him, that is all I asked given my situation).
And I tried to "discipline" him many times and his answer is "I won't do it... what are you gonna do?"
But you're right: He is motivated so finding out what makes him tick is the key here :)
by not putting proper documentation, he is making himself more indispensible.
forget motivating the guy, this is a huge liability to your company because the dude can eventually have the company by the ding dongs.
I mean reasoning with him can help, I had the exact same situation with an engineer in my prev company and eventually we got him someone that reported to him, and started documentation plus really doing knowledge transfer at the same time.
its funny how some indispensible people really aren't, and when that reality stares them in the face they shape up.
The intention was to not sideline him but to protect the business by having the needed paper trail, and of not being too dependent on the guy, him becoming a little less indispensible was a pleasant bonus.
he shaped up big time, although later we did put him in a role where we took benefit of his knpeledge but he was not directly responsible for any deliverables.
^ You're catching on!!! Since money did not motivate him, I figured he would be afraid of being sidelined or feeling unimportant... so for some projects I used to prefer junior engineers to take the development lead so they learn. I also initiated a one-year intensive training program for this very reason so people catch up on the technology and be near his level of expertise. So far it seems to be working! :)
So give one of those trained guys to him as an assistant . He will feel important and this junior will do the dirty work for him. That will be a transfer of knowledge too. This Junior should show-up on time and leave on time and nag the senior for the need of the senior to be on time too. There are ways and means to deal with the situation you are in the trench you can assess the situation and come up with a game plan. We can just throw some ideas your ways. I never dealt with a situation like this so I can just theorize. X2 has done this his ideas are more tried and tested. Let us see what else others come up with.
Like I said, I gave more than one person the chance of being in the lead so each engineer has no choice but to go bug this guy for help and learn if they hit a snag... while he would feel left out because of this, he was pleased that people were asking him stuff. But now especially with the one year series of training sessions complete, he's on edge that I do not have to depend on him for algorithmic issues :) so the tables have actually turned on him.
Now I am confused. So he is not indispensable anymore ? If he is not then disciplining him and then ultimately firing him should not be a big issue.
yes... as I said, "One of my engineers, I am sorry to say, was not the easiet to get along with " :) I wanted to know if people had similar scenarios and how they went or would go about it. Looks like I reaffirmed that my approach was sort of in-line with what ought to be done.
This discussion may also help upcoming managers to deal with non-conventional (non-textbook) scenarious like these.
Aah – the indispensable employee syndrome – I’ve had my fair share of problems with it… why is it always U of T guys though . At one of my past jobs, I actually heard that the company had stopped recruiting from U of T because of this attitude problem and that they’d much rather go with a Ryerson grad. Needless to say, being a U of T grad myself, I was a little discomfited.
In any case, your approach was very practical and it sounds like you were reasonably productive in ensuring knowledge transfer before letting go of the problem employee.
In my experience, the problem employee would have known that he’s “on the bubble” and would be fired if the company had a choice. After realizing that you don’t have that choice, he might actually become more of a zombie and do even lesser of the work that he deems as marginal or peripheral. In effect, he’s daring you to terminate him if you can and if you keep on delaying it, you’re facilitating an atmosphere where he can poison the morale of other productive employees in the organization who might start believing that it’s alright to slack off in their jobs as well. It’s like a cancer that needs to be removed before it spreads any further.
So all in all, I think he had to be let go, but I really liked your approach to try to rehabilitate him by trying to get him to pitch in with training – giving him more authority and recognition on the outset while ensuring knowledge transfer to other employees and simultaneously getting him to realize that the company does indeed have a choice and he isn’t as indispensable as he thought he was.
The only thing which I think I would have done differently was while initially talking to him about his work ethic and responsibilities, I would have confronted his conceited attitude by mentioning that perhaps this job isn’t suited to his caliber and he should seek opportunities with some type of government research cluster or a think tank concern. If he was wise enough, then he’d realize how difficult those jobs are to come by and he needs to shape up if he wants to keep this job.
. At one of my past jobs, I actually heard that the company had stopped recruiting from U of T because of this attitude problem and that they’d much rather go with a Ryerson grad. Needless to say, being a U of T grad myself, I was a little discomfited.
lol