Motivation and Innovation in an Engineering Dept. 11

[prohammy]

What I think is a very interesting situation is happening in the Eng. Dept. where I am presently working (as a contractor, I am getting what feels like an outsider's view as it develops)

The team (excluding myself and other contractors) has just had their quarterly 'state-of-the-nation' meeting and one of the issues that has been addressed is the percieved de-motivation of the Eng. Dept.

Each engineer has been asked to detail what he thinks is the problem and present his opinions to the Eng. Manager.

All of this has made me begin to think about two questions...

1. How do you effectively motivate an Eng. Dept.?
&
2. How do you create an enviornment within an Eng. Dept. that will facilitate innovation and creativity?

It is the second question that interests me the most, but I think the first question will also provide some points of interest. Your thoughts and ideas would be most interesting to read.

(I do realise that some, if not all, of the above has been discussed before, but without a search facility its a bit difficult to find. )

Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK

 

[Comcokid]

This thread reminds me of a book I bought as a gift: The Daily Drucker. It has 366 statements of Druckers thoughts - one for each day of the year.

I don't have the book in front of me, but I recall that the entry for May 1 points out that technical people look for "satisfying challenges". I have thought a lot about this statement since I saw it. It pretty-much sums up what engineers are looking for at work, or from an employer.

Too many times, I have worked in situations with: low pay, big projects with impossible arbitrarily-set delivery dates, design challenges with no resources, projects with constantly changing goals and specifications, major accomplishments rewarded with criticism, major accomplishments rewarded with a lay-off, etc. . . I do not consider such things to be "satisfying challenges".

A real key to motivation and innovation, after meeting the basic workplace needs (i.e. the lower levels of Manslov's Hierarchy) is to create a workplace aimed at providing "satisfying challenges".

 

[foxbat1979]

Well stated TheTick! I had an immediate deja-vu after reading your post...

Solidworks 2006/DBWorks 2006 user

 

[PeteWA]

It's irrelevant that it happens to be an engineering department (whatever that might be) that needs motivating (whatever that might be), if the people are fairly remunerated for their work, are constantly challenged and required to think and leave at the end of each day knowing a bit more about what they do than when they arrived in the morning, then there wouldn't be a problem.

pete

 

[ctopher]

I feel if you give engineers the right tools (most recent software/hardware), send them to periodic training, and give them rotational training within the company, most will be happy because they will learn something new ... which alleviates boredom. A good morale booster.

Chris
SolidWorks 07 3.0/PDMWorks 07
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 04-21-07)