OT. Hiring, keeping and being and emplyee.

kalabdel said:

Anyone has experience with women as control technicians?

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Yep. The good ones bring a lot to the field. Males tend to get the tools, and tear stuff up when something breaks. Females tend to discuss the details and formulate a plan, and execute it.

Generalities, of course, but observed more than once.

Females tend to be cool under fire, whereas males tend to the extreme - emotionally...which is contrary to what society says, of course.

I haven't come across a ton of females in the automation industry, definitely less than 10%. Never a controls tech, sometimes a controls engineer, although those terms can be a little fuzzy. If you see at female at a conference/industry event, it is more likely that she is someone's wife tagging along than a female controls professional (although the odds that she's in a marketing function are higher yet).

All that said, every female I've worked with who lasted for at least a few years in the industry has been at least solid. It takes drive and stick-with-it-ness to deal with the unprofessional behavior of the old boys club, on top of the skill required. I see plenty of guys in the industry that are just a warm body, coasting along for years, and their boss would replace them if they could. I've never seen a female get away with that.

I was was thinking of a work model that provides the most flexibility and freedom to technicians to do their work. I often used to walk into plants to do non-emergency work after normal work hours, weekends, or when the plant is shut down so I'm relaxed and can take my time and that also freed my daytime to run the business, meet with customers, etc. And to my surprise it turns out there actually is such a thing that has been implemented with great success. ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) is what the model I wanted to create.


Imagine going to the Gym when it's least busy or taking the children to school when the wife is busy or doing that popular hike that is always crowded on weekends.



Anyone has experience working in a similar environment and how much difference would it make to you in terms of job satisfactions and motivation?

kalabdel said:

And to my surprise it turns out there actually is such a thing that has been implemented with great success. ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) is what the model I wanted to create.

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I think the trick with those sorts of approaches is that employees often see it as the manager using it as a way to increase the workload without increasing pay. "Oh yeah, we totally don't track hours, just get the work done." "But I have to do 2x as much as before!" I'm sure if this actually happens, then it hasn't been implemented correctly, but I know it is what the employees fear. It's kind of the same thing that happens with "unlimited vacation" policies: you can take as much as you have time for, but we won't give you time to take any.