Working With Constant Rotation of Contract Engineering Help 1

[kontiki99]

Our organization recruits contract engineering help for 11 month terms. Our projects sometimes last 6-7 years and support work requirements last for decades.

I've trainied 4 people for one of my projects so far. Honestly, 11 months dosen't even fully indoctrinate some folks when there is a background mismatch. One person had minimal AutoCad skills, which was a big training problem. I'm not in management, I'm in the trenches with constant incoming issues from the field too.

I'd be interested in hearing about sucessful strategies for making best use of talent here 11 month terms.

 

[ColonelSanders83]

Find another Job where you arn't forced to put up with such stupidity.

A question properly stated is a problem half solved.

Always remember, free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it!

http://www.ap-dynamics.ab.ca/

 

[GregLocock]

Sounds like you need a better interviewing process, and some way of subdividing the contractor's tasks down to such small parts that lack of continuity is no big deal. That is, you'll have to supervise them and treat them like piece workers.


Leaving sounds like a sensible option if your management cannot understand the issue here.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[controlsdude]

11 months sounds like a european way to get around hiring people full time. You must be in europe.

So you can't just rehire the person who fulfilled his 11 month contract the following month after his mandatory break of month?

 

[Latexman]

When there is an obvious mismatch, just say NO! They aren't qualified. I won't use them. Since they are only here short term - send me someone that is qualified! And, btw, we're behind schedule so get them here PDQ!

Put the monkey on managements back!

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[monkeydog]

Quit, and come back as an 11 month contractor.

 

[KENAT]

We have (well had) similar issues. We'd get in hoards of European interns for 6 month placements, essentially as a source of cheap labor.

By the time you'd got them up to speed and productive (and 6 months wasn't long enough for some of them) it was usually time for them to go and a new batch to arrive. The really good ones just about came out even in terms of 'return on investment', average ones were a slight loss and the bad ones well, except for teaching me patience...

The novelty of training/mentoring them etc. wears out after a couple of rotations.

I'm afraid I don't have any great tips.

We did come up with some limited training materials to help get them up to speed on how we did certain things that they'd be involved with, things like our CAD folder structure, and some basic training on things they were frequently lacking, such as tolerancing. It helped a bit but wasn't a complete solution. Also my guess is your management will be even less tolerant of letting contract employees get some training than ours were of letting interns have some training.

(I did get to have some fun, when peopl would try to get interns working on stuff before finishing the training, and then come over to me asking me to show their interns how to do it, I took great delight in just referring them to the training material and telling them to read it! Not sure it made me many friends though.)

Like wise having very standardized procedures/BKM's etc. can be helpful for any 'standard tasks' etc.

Trouble with all of this though is finding time to prepare it, and then making sure the contractors take advantage of it/don't get rushed to 'do actual work' before completing the training.

Breaking down and better defining the tasks as Greg says may help, but effectively turns you into a manager.

Ensuring you only hire the cream of the crop/experienced folks will help, but if you don't have the final say in who gets hired and how much they get paid etc. then I wouldn't hold out much hope.

Finding another job sounds appealing but is sometimes easier said than done when all factors are considered I know.

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[kontiki99]

I've tried to insolate them from the small one off jobs that require a lot of tribal knowledge for small returns.

My biggest project is adapting a standard system installation to old airplanes when they come in for standardization.

Equipment and parts are standard, and schematically every installation is the same, but what old wiring gets pulled out and available resources for new wiring connections vary in every aircraft.

I don't like micromanaging people, but I have to always be ready to step in and keep it all together, so I can't have the organization of the package varing off in a different direction for every engineer.

They really need to perpetuate what I set when I worked the first block of airplanes.

The Cad is crazy, some people use layers, some blocks, some just one big giant free for all style with not much snapped to anything else.

Each airplane takes a lot of initial research.

Some have good sets of records, some are very spotty. Sometimes the cockpit photos provide the clue to what wiring we should expect to strip out. You wind up looking over the pile of old paper and just developing a feel for what to trust and what to ignore.

Not everyone picks the research end up well. No two sets of records look alike because they come from different outfits.

I don't make the hiring decisions, I don't know what we're paying. In the first week I loose 50% of my time, for Q&A. Sometimes they slow down when they get close to leaving too.

It really takes me back when I meet someone for the first time and I can't understand their english. I like folks from everywhere just fine, but I just have too much going on.

I have worked with people in this business that could not construct a single grammatically correct sentence in english (University of Michigan BSEE degree). How could that have happened?

The pay for keeping it all together is good. Actually despite the obstacles the quality of the finished product is good too. It's a crazy way to work though.

I wish we'd go back to hiring folks in the surge times and when business cycles turn, laying off the low performers. Thats the other end. If we avoid layoffs at all costs, it means we keep the hiring mistakes here forever too.

They say this is all because of some lawsuit at Microsoft, I think its just lowering efficency.

 

[Latexman]

Ah, co-employment.

You have to decide a few things. Is the company going to keep me here forever or do they have a better job for me in the future? If you are the only company man in the crew, you can't really mentor your replacement as things are now. They're all gone in 11 months. Maybe, they'll bring in your replacement when you get tapped for a promotion. Will there be plenty of transition time? Don't count on that. If you decide you are stuck, can you/do you want to keep up the pace for the long term? If yes, great. If not, you need to develop a say into the hiring standards. It would be great if you could talk to your boss about all this. Can you?

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[Radagast]

Why won’t your company hire them back after a year under a new contract? I’ve been contracting for some time now and rarely stay at one job for less than 3 years. When my date comes due, paperwork is dropped off at my desk and I have a new badge the day before my old contract expires. Five years in Alabama, Three in Dallas and will be starting my third year here in April.

Mike

 

[KENAT]

kontiki, our HR have got their knickers in a twist over the Microsoft case precedent too.

Now I'm not saying they're wrong to pay attention, but I can't help but think that in our cast they're being overly conservative, and not taking into account the reality of engineering etc.

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, maybe our HR depts have actually got it right and Radagasts are skirting in IRS lawsuit.

However, there seems so much variation in peoples interpretation of what the situation for long term contract employees is that I can't help but think at least some are over reacting.

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[Radagast]

Not skirting any IRS lawsuit. I am a full time employee with my Contract House/Job Shop. The contract is between my employer and the company I am providing services to.

Mike

 

[kontiki99]

There are clerical temps that work for a firm that provides services on site, and they are here for several years, but it's not like that for contract engineers.

We did have one guy that left after a 11 mo term, was apparently considered for a second contract doing support overseas (but not in our office) about 6 months later. Now he's back in our office after being gone maybe a year, but only for another 11 months.

I don't see it changing any time soon. I expect we'll just have to make the best of it.

We see a lot of talent come and go. There is an upside to having so much diverse talent come through, lots of good experience sharing both ways.

Some of these folks are very good and would be great permanent engineers. In the past the company has had trouble recruiting because people didn't want to live in this city. Many of these folks would probably be happy to, just for the stability.

 

[KENAT]

"but it's not like that for contract engineers."

Why not?

As Radagast said, we at one point had guys in through a 'job shop'.

We were pretty sure this covered IRS concerns since the job shop were paying taxes, offering benefits etc. However, our HR dept tried telling us this wasn't acceptable, or tried putting limits like 'they couldn't work on our network' or 'they couldn't have card keys to get into the building' etc.

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[MikeHalloran]

IRS rules allow contractors to take a substantial portion of their rate as nontaxed per diem. ... but not for more than a year, hence the 6 month or 11 month contracts. The justifiable fraction varies by location and rate, according to IRS tables of cost of living by city in dollars/time.

Hence a contractor faced with the opportunity to extend his/her contract at the same rate will be forced to declare all of their rate as income after a year in one location, and suffer a reduction in after-tax pay.

Offer of a contract at a higher rate or a direct position at its equivalent might be accepted, especially if the contractor has found affordable housing and/or started to grow roots.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[controlnovice]

You're designing airplanes or airplane parts with temp help...and are having to retrain every 11 months????

Let us know which airplane company so we know which ones not to fly on......

______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.

 

[KENAT]

Mike, you make a good point about the per diem - a lot of contractors really get hung up on that.

However, I don't think that's the main issue from the HR depts side - they're more concerned about the 'Microsoft precedent'.

Basically they had long term contractors, IRS view was that they were effectively like regular employees and should have been treated as such from a tax & benefits point of view. Or something like that... I don't think it was just a per diem issue but if I'm wrong please do let me know.

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[eng3000]

I've just done an MSc project on inducting contractors into aviation maintenance organisations.

To cut a very long story short:

Use people doing the actual job to design a good induction;
pace it, so it can be assimilated over days, weeks or months;
start only with the absolute essentials;
consider providing information before employment/contracts start;
get feedback from the contractors often and on leaving and update the induction accordingly.

From your own standpoint, avoid doing the same job a second time -spend a bit more time on preparing a particular orientation or training session so you can reuse it.

By the way kontiki99, did you ever follow up on your idea for a wiring manual (

http://eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=248263)?

I may need to do some work in this area shortly.

 

[kontiki99]

eng3000,

I haven't had time for pet projects lately. Anytime I see wiring selection data, I collect it in a folder for future reference.

Shortly after I posted that, someone in our group uncovered a Boeing Maintenance Program requirement (AD related) that was interpreted to essentially make the use of any non-BMS wire unnaceptable on our Boeing fleets.

I read that as; vendor of wire has to be listed on Boeing QPL and also list wire manufacturers PN under a Boeing BMS number too. It's almost non-sensical.

So, I was just forced to revisit the topic again on my project to purge all of our MS wire call outs. Our STC vendor went through an AMOC to address their MS wire callouts.

I still haven't seen a single resource that lays it all out for design. I bet Boeing has some dandy design literature though.

On a single shelf for a single system, with only twisted 429 shielded twisted pairs and single conductor wire requirements (power, pin programming, ground, and signal), they call out 5 or 6 different BMS wire spec numbers.


I'm still only guessing at why there is so much variety.

 

[indme]

The best thing is to just request that the people are hired. And never cease to request that the people are hired. And once those contractors start to be hired, your problem will be solved.

The whole contract engineering phenomenon is a tragedy because it illustrates the fact that engineering has become a commodity in the eyes of most corporations. And the engineer becomes pigeon-holed as a temp worker in the eyes of HR after just a short period of contracting.

After college in 2002, I was in dire situation because the economy was in a downturn and the market for regular employment was full of highly experienced, laid-off engineers. As a new grad, I was lucky to obtain a contract position. And after 1 year of that, head hunters started to assume that I was one of the transient lifetime-contractor types. I found this incredulous, as I'd been seeking a FT position the whole time and couldn't beg my way in, and now to be pegged as a transient worker...

The contract situation is pretty horrible for most people. It keeps you from obtaining a fair overall compensation, from maintaining a personal relationship with an SO due to moving so often, from owning property, and many other things. I go so far as to not support contract workers in their efforts. Not to hurt them, but to decrease their effectiveness to nil, so that mgmt gets the idea that contract employees are not desirable and that they need to be human, and respectful of the professional, by offering an regular employment opportunity.