From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
We are having a discussion about one of our engineers and who he should report to?  The engineering manager says that all engineers should report to him, that a non-engineer doesn’t know how to manage an engineer.  Our plant manager says he needs the engineer on his team full time without going through the engineering manager to get things done.

Response:
First, let’s shift the question to get to the answer.  Every employee reports to lots of people.  Team members work on a project, contribute to a report, complete a routine task and then, work on another project.  In all of these activities, they report to many different people.  That’s normal.

But each employee can only have one manager.

The first question for every new hire into the company is, “who should this person report to?”  Wrong question.  This new employee will report to lots of people.  But each employee can only have one manager.

The central question is, “which manager will be accountable for this team member’s output?”  By definition, a manager is that person in the organization accountable for the output of other people.  Which manager will be accountable for this team member’s output?

Back to the engineer.  Which manager should be accountable for this engineer’s output?  Let’s ask some questions about the plant manager.

• In the plant,does the plant manager know what tasks need to be completed, which will require engineering technical knowledge and skill?
• For those tasks, does the plant manager know the reasonable amount of time it should take to complete those tasks?
• In the plant, is the plant manager accountable for those delegated tasks being complete within the time frame?
• Does the plant manager have enough engineering work to require a full time engineering role on his team?

If the answer is yes, then the plant manager should be held accountable for the output of this engineering resource.  And yes, non-engineers can be held accountable for the output of engineers.