Do any of your firms have an unspoken or spoken up or out policy
Non Sequitur
Jun 27, 18 2:32 pm
Please clarify what an up or out policy is.
senjohnblutarsky
Jun 27, 18 2:47 pm
Not really. It's expected that if you have a licensure path, you should take it. People who show promise and potential for project management positions are encouraged to pursue such things, regardless of license path status. But there have been plenty of people who have pigeonholed themselves in a particular role and were never forced upward.
The problem with Up or Out is that (and excuse the term), there ends up being a "too many chiefs, not enough indians" situation. There needs to be a healthy balance. Otherwise profitability and production suffer.
geezertect
Jun 27, 18 7:26 pm
Nothing that a good stiff economic recession won't cure.
Fivescore
Jun 27, 18 3:03 pm
I've seen that in some firms where I've worked. It wasn't unspoken though - it was an overtly stated policy that you had four years to get licensed and move into a client-facing role or into some in-house specialty niche. The stated rationale: the firms did project types that involved very competitive bidding processes with specific credentials required for anybody who was identified in proposals. You could be a behind-the-scenes drafter/production person for a while, but invariably you were going to hit a ceiling with that where you wouldn't be satisfied with the salary or the role or both, and the firms didn't want a bunch of disgruntled drafters, but they also didn't want to promote them to project managers or lead designers or even to spec writer or sustainability person, because all of those were positions with face-time with clients and contractors and specific credentials that had to be identified in the proposals and marketing stuff. There was some leeway - some people lasted 5 or 6 years, especially if they had a baby or something during that time - but if they were still production people after 4 years they knew they were first on the layoff list.
This had its advantages - it did motivate those who just needed a little push, and made expectations clear, and weeded out the truly unmotivated and stagnating. But it also seems like it could be a system for legal age discrimination.
thisisnotmyname
Jun 27, 18 5:52 pm
I worked at a firm with a very similar set-up. Their problem was that they have an unstated desire to never expand past 50 people, and after a few rounds of promotions, have become very top heavy with titled people. The titled people are pretty lavishly paid and usually never leave. The lower rungs of the firm have become an ever-changing cast of people who hit the ceiling and leave when they cannot advance within the firm.
geezertect
Jun 28, 18 12:52 pm
Sounds like a government agency, or a Fortune 500 corporation. Eventually, they'll have a rendezvous with Darwin.
thisisnotmyname
Jun 29, 18 1:23 pm
Yup. The firm is poorly positioned for a downturn in the business cycle. They are also leasing a palatial spread of high-rent office space.
every firm has this idea of who has and who doesn't - people that don't progress with their A.R.Es, and don't advance to job captain and up, get culled as soon as things slow down - when you are no langer able to get on to project teams and can't get assignments, your'e done
curtkram
Jun 27, 18 8:15 pm
i believe in the peter principle. that seems to still hold true.
thatsthat
Jun 28, 18 12:42 pm
My firm does not have this policy. We have/had people at upper levels that are not licensed, and the bosses don't seem to care. It's more about your knowledge/expertise and ability to handle the client. They prefer if you are licensed, but as they see it, it's your business if you go that route or don't. They also don't provide financial incentive to become licensed - they only give you a half day off without docking PTO for each exam. (Even though most exams are longer than 4 hours.) They don't pay for any part of exams or IDP. Although, they are very supportive of IDP in terms of making sure you get the experience you need, moving you to projects that fit where you are in your IDP.
A PM I work for left a year or so ago. I checked in with her to see how she is liking her new position. She said one of the requirements of being hired was that she finish all exams within 6 months of starting there. (Pretty easy for her as she already has 15+ years experience; just needed to finish the exams.) I asked her why she never did it while at our office. She said 'no one ever told me I had to.' :-\
quizzical
Jun 28, 18 1:41 pm
I did an interesting exercise in Excel some years back.
Starting with our firm's existing staff size and position distribution, I looked at 1. reasonable estimates of how many people might leave the firm in any given year (voluntarily or otherwise); 2. reasonable estimates of when promotions to the next higher level could be / should be expected among the remaining staff; and 3. reasonable estimates of what hiring we might need to do to replace lost staff and fill in gaps at lower levels. I seem to remember that I looked at this over something like a 10-year planning horizon.
What I found was that in order to maintain our typical ratio among principals, project management staff, mid-level project staff, and lower-level project staff we would have to grow that firm at some unbelievably high rate - a growth rate we ultimately deemed both undesirable and impractical in our particular market.
Unless a firm continues to grow in size year after year, it's really difficult to provide upward mobility (i.e. greater responsibility and pay) to competent staff without becoming top heavy.
shellarchitect
Jul 1, 18 8:28 pm
I like the concept. We had a new org chart presented about a week ago: we have 5 principals, 6 project managers and 8 project architects, a couple interiors, 3 engineers, plus a couple interns and support staff.
I have no idea what all the chiefs are doing all day.
Do any of your firms have an unspoken or spoken up or out policy
Please clarify what an up or out policy is.
Not really. It's expected that if you have a licensure path, you should take it. People who show promise and potential for project management positions are encouraged to pursue such things, regardless of license path status. But there have been plenty of people who have pigeonholed themselves in a particular role and were never forced upward.
The problem with Up or Out is that (and excuse the term), there ends up being a "too many chiefs, not enough indians" situation. There needs to be a healthy balance. Otherwise profitability and production suffer.
Nothing that a good stiff economic recession won't cure.
I've seen that in some firms where I've worked. It wasn't unspoken though - it was an overtly stated policy that you had four years to get licensed and move into a client-facing role or into some in-house specialty niche. The stated rationale: the firms did project types that involved very competitive bidding processes with specific credentials required for anybody who was identified in proposals. You could be a behind-the-scenes drafter/production person for a while, but invariably you were going to hit a ceiling with that where you wouldn't be satisfied with the salary or the role or both, and the firms didn't want a bunch of disgruntled drafters, but they also didn't want to promote them to project managers or lead designers or even to spec writer or sustainability person, because all of those were positions with face-time with clients and contractors and specific credentials that had to be identified in the proposals and marketing stuff. There was some leeway - some people lasted 5 or 6 years, especially if they had a baby or something during that time - but if they were still production people after 4 years they knew they were first on the layoff list.
This had its advantages - it did motivate those who just needed a little push, and made expectations clear, and weeded out the truly unmotivated and stagnating. But it also seems like it could be a system for legal age discrimination.
I worked at a firm with a very similar set-up. Their problem was that they have an unstated desire to never expand past 50 people, and after a few rounds of promotions, have become very top heavy with titled people. The titled people are pretty lavishly paid and usually never leave. The lower rungs of the firm have become an ever-changing cast of people who hit the ceiling and leave when they cannot advance within the firm.
Sounds like a government agency, or a Fortune 500 corporation. Eventually, they'll have a rendezvous with Darwin.
Yup. The firm is poorly positioned for a downturn in the business cycle. They are also leasing a palatial spread of high-rent office space.
You mean come "up" to my place, or your out?
every firm has this idea of who has and who doesn't - people that don't progress with their A.R.Es, and don't advance to job captain and up, get culled as soon as things slow down - when you are no langer able to get on to project teams and can't get assignments, your'e done
i believe in the peter principle. that seems to still hold true.
My firm does not have this policy. We have/had people at upper levels that are not licensed, and the bosses don't seem to care. It's more about your knowledge/expertise and ability to handle the client. They prefer if you are licensed, but as they see it, it's your business if you go that route or don't. They also don't provide financial incentive to become licensed - they only give you a half day off without docking PTO for each exam. (Even though most exams are longer than 4 hours.) They don't pay for any part of exams or IDP. Although, they are very supportive of IDP in terms of making sure you get the experience you need, moving you to projects that fit where you are in your IDP.
A PM I work for left a year or so ago. I checked in with her to see how she is liking her new position. She said one of the requirements of being hired was that she finish all exams within 6 months of starting there. (Pretty easy for her as she already has 15+ years experience; just needed to finish the exams.) I asked her why she never did it while at our office. She said 'no one ever told me I had to.' :-\
I did an interesting exercise in Excel some years back.
Starting with our firm's existing staff size and position distribution, I looked at 1. reasonable estimates of how many people might leave the firm in any given year (voluntarily or otherwise); 2. reasonable estimates of when promotions to the next higher level could be / should be expected among the remaining staff; and 3. reasonable estimates of what hiring we might need to do to replace lost staff and fill in gaps at lower levels. I seem to remember that I looked at this over something like a 10-year planning horizon.
What I found was that in order to maintain our typical ratio among principals, project management staff, mid-level project staff, and lower-level project staff we would have to grow that firm at some unbelievably high rate - a growth rate we ultimately deemed both undesirable and impractical in our particular market.
Unless a firm continues to grow in size year after year, it's really difficult to provide upward mobility (i.e. greater responsibility and pay) to competent staff without becoming top heavy.
I like the concept. We had a new org chart presented about a week ago: we have 5 principals, 6 project managers and 8 project architects, a couple interiors, 3 engineers, plus a couple interns and support staff.
I have no idea what all the chiefs are doing all day.