Building Your Engineering Team Culture

Engineers build things that delight customers

Engineers focus on the challenge at hand not worry about what they did wrong yesterday or what will happen when they’re gone

Engineers create a culture of continuous improvement

Encourage engineers to continuously work on improving and not dwell on things that can’t be fixed.

Build the right thing right (encourage MVPs first)

Execute faster than your competitors

But how do you build that great team and keep it together?

The Headhunters Dream 

In case of any confusion, we find great people for great businesses. We're a product innovation/engineering, manufacturing, process improvement consulting business, but at the same time a recruitment/placement business.

It's fascinating, what we see as "headhunters" for the Engineering Services sector.

Some organizations missed the training course: Employees 1st, Customers 2nd.

It's still a relatively new concept and an even less practiced approach for many.

The good news is for a recruiter, it leaves the door wide open to recruit your employees/contractors. All you have left, when they resign is more money and promises (80% of candidates who stay at their current company after receiving a counter offer end up leaving within a year) 

Spotting the signs

It matters not the name of the company or the type of organization you work for, but instead who you work for. If the culture is “old school” you’ll frequently see the signs:

They counter-offer when someone resigns

It’s the classic secondary focus on employees, who only become the short-term #1 priority upon resignation. Up until this point, their needs, their hopes and their dreams had been consistently in second place to their boss’

They resign, the boss scrambles to counter-offer to fix their (The Boss’) problem and at the same time PROMISE to fix the employees, coupled with more money.

They don't ask for input

The saying is Teamwork for Dreamwork and unless you’re involved in the overall understanding of the product problem to be solved, the architectural/design solution; it’s hard for you to adapt and resolve in the face of challenges. You end up as a mere “pawn” in the overall game. How can you grow, if you’re kept in the dark?

Don't value your time

This is a classic sign - your boss cancels meetings, they start late, they finish your meeting late. In other words they’re saying “my time is more important than yours”

They forget, the reason there’s more than one person in the company is because the owner is unable to carry out all the functions essential to building the business and solving customer problems. Everyone’s time is important!

Don't pay you fairly

To me, this is often misunderstood as payment comes in various forms and is personal to your situation.

Getting toward the latter part of your official pre-retirement years then of course every cent counts, as promises don't fill-up the pension fund.

However, with several years ahead, stock options, equity, & long-term bonuses can make a whole lot of sense versus a high basic salary. 

There's no right or wrong, just as long as your employer acknowledges what is the fair market rate for your role and builds a package around that

Mushroom Management

They don't share company news - need I say more? 

Micro-management

For any business to be successful, it must learn what makes the real difference – the core business, people’s lives & the community… And put everything else into some reasonable context. That context doesn't mean ignore, but probably means improve over time. Not shout and worry about today. Keep these distractions– everything that doesn’t matter– to a minimum. 

Empathy 1st, Judgement never

Every great culture starts with Empathy. Unless you understand what your people want next and perhaps in the future, how can you possibly help them to help you get where you want to be? it’s a two-way deal and is regardless of them being on your payroll.

If you understand your people, the naivety of judging others starts to dissipate. Everyone does things for a reason - what gives you the right to judge? Who made you the higher authority on their lives? 

Upside down Leadership

When you’re in “the trenches”, you need support be that customer feedback, money, leadership, direction, payment or whatever and that’s why we have HR, Finance, CEOs, Marketing etc

Sometimes these departments forget who they work for!?

Authenticity

Authentic leadership is a management style in which leaders are genuine, self-aware, and transparent. An authentic leader is able to inspire loyalty and trust in her employees by consistently displaying who she really is as a person, and how she feels about her employees' performance. Authentic leadership is the single strongest predictor of an employee's job satisfaction.

People 1st, Customers 2nd Benefits

Measurable improvements. 

Studies show that cultures that put their People 1st experience 26 percent fewer mistakes, 22 percent higher productivity, 41 percent lower absenteeism, and 30 percent stronger customer satisfaction than other businesses

Happy employees = happy customers. 

CEOs running People 1st businesses say the impacts are real. "When your people are happy, your clients are happy--no matter what industry you're in,"

The organization benefits

Engaged and inspired employees are more than twice as likely to recommend a company to friends, and the people they recommend are nearly three times as likely to be hired and stay. So, engagement and inspiration play vitally important roles in attracting and retaining great talent.

Fixing the culture

Over the years, I’ve built businesses, I’ve worked inside corporations and I’ve worked for entrepreneurs and it’s come down to a difficult balance of selfish and selfless for each

As I cast my mind back, here’s a few of the things that have worked for me and that we as “recruiters” / engineering consultants we looked for:

In order to be a people-first culture, you need to actually care about your employees. Truly care about who they are as individuals, why they choose to spend a big part of their day working with you and their uniqueness.

I know they may want their employees to be at the core of their success, but in truth, it’s hard to start from there – when you have to deliver certain bottom-line dollars. (and any person on the front-line will do to produce your product). But, at the end of the day, unless you want to run a “one-man show”, the people are the engine that drives your business

Do your decisions start with how it would impact/affect/influence your employees? If yes, then you are being “people-first.”

Over-communicate

No organization has fixed the lack of communication issue, if we’re truthful with each other. However, if the gap is too wide then employees start creating their own stories. And they are usually a lot worse than what’s actually going on.

WHY would they want to be engaged and tapped in to the company’s outcomes?

Do the platforms that you use along your employees’ experience, reinforce your commitment to them?

Are you being extremely clear in what you communicate and what action/info they need to take away from it? Do your messages say what you mean?

Authenticity is everything - drop the corporate spin, tell it as it is, see it as it is, know where you want to be and lead the business there through relentless communication.

Gather genuine feedback

Keep in mind, everyone has their open or secret insecurities and feedback hurts. It’s hard to hear it, it’s hard not to be defensive about it. It’s hard to change behavior to ensure the feedback is heard and actioned upon.

But if you want to be a people-first culture, or even just want to really know what your employees think and feel, they want to tell you. But we have to change how we’re capturing it.

It has to be real and accessible. And likely, anonymous.

It’s a big ask. And you’re going to have to pass along bad news and be on the bad-end of the message stick, but it can change your organization dramatically.

What does real feedback look like? How do we get it?

Providing several different ways for people to submit/share feedback is critical – but what’s most important, is the transparency around it and the ultimate action/response. To ask for feedback and never close the loop, will be the biggest killer in being able to successfully obtain feedback.

You can never go wrong

In putting your people at the center of your thinking and implementation, you can never go wrong. Creating engaged employees is important, but having them be your company’s biggest ambassadors has an even bigger payoff.

Design, Engineering & Manufacturing Acceleration

Satellites, Propulsion, Thermal, Avionics, Guidance, Navigation & Control, Systems, Aeronautical and of course more - the skills required to accelerate our steps into space.

Need help?

Let us know who you need from our engineering team.

Andrew Sparrow

I'm a huge believer in constant change. Standing still is going backwards

It starts with People changing their mindsets & Processes, enabled through Technology.

Innovative Products, Smarter Manufacturing all happen through Agile Revolutions - start small, empower people & scale fast.

Oh, I can "boil the ocean" with the best of them, but let's not live there. Analysis leads to paralysis. Dreaming of & waiting for perfection is the enemy of execution. Do something, get some quick wins and start building momentum.

I like to bring attention to Innovation, Smart Manufacturing, Global People Integration & Human Sustainability - I Blog, Vlog, Podcast, host a few Live Shows and love being involved in your revolutionary programs.

I love & thrive in working with some of the world's largest companies & most innovative organizations such as Airbus, Capgemini, Canoo, Dassault Systemes, Ericsson, JLR, TOTAL, Siemens, Sony, Subsea7 & Unilever, to name a few

I'm a big people-person & have spent my life meeting as many people & cultures as I can. At my last count, I am lucky enough to have visited & done business in over 55 countries

#engineering #culture #recruiting