ABSTRACT
The requirements of an engineering department workforce change continuously due to, for example, company expansions or contractions, offshore operations, one-time projects, the need for technical knowledge that is beyond the department’s capabilities, or people jumping ship from the department. The department job openings are bounded by budget and by how upper management sees the department’s personnel needs. At least once a year, the engineering manager must present to upper management the department’s present and future technology base, personnel needs, and budgetary forecast. It is necessary to convince upper management that the personnel proposals are very real and required for the future of the company. In general, upper management tends to narrow down personnel requirements, asking managers to squeeze out as much work as possible from their expensive engineering personnel. In my engineering management career, I never had the luxury of an overstaffed department; I always worked with an understaffed group of engineers and technicians. On several occasions I had to deal with hiring freezes. It was easy to get an open position requisition approval for someone leaving the department, but expanding the department was another matter altogether.
