One of our major current issues is that we try to offer low pay while expecting top-notch candidates to bite. Why would they? Contrary to popular opinion, there are still plenty of well-paying jobs to choose from for the best candidates. The thing is, by increasing our compensation, we could also reduce our workforce since sometimes we need two or three people to do the job one top-notch candidate could do or his/her own. Surprisingly, nobody realized this yet.
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News flash, the newer folks they are hiring with the fancy degrees and from the West Coast are getting better base pay, higher raises and higher bonuses than their MidWest counterparts. They apparently have "critical skills" while many of them have never D&R'ed a part, been on launch or have meaningful work experience in the industry. The ones getting the short end of the stick are the natives, we just don't know it
At VOGO skilled workers from he plants were promoted to positions within the general office so real world experience could be applied to processing ans tool design. This knowledge would also be transferred to the staff MEs. Then about 28 years ago management made the decision that to be a Manufacturing Engineer you needed a masters degree and I my mind that's one of the actions which started the decline. Nothing against new blood and ideas, but bringing higher cost employees in with no experience made little sense; in short you do not need a masters to process a vehicle program, it's not taught in college. It eliminated a path of promotion for some, added overhead and created opportunity cost.
And it's quite obvious by looking at our CEO like JF, you get promoted by kissing a-s and managing up, regardless of skills. Otherwise how could a mediocre marketer from Toyota, with no engineering background get to be our CEO?
"You can get top talent employees for lower pay when the candidates are in Mexico, Brazil, and/or India.
This goes for office, engineering, and plant personnel, union or otherwise.
Truth hurts."
And you can BUY the cars too, the NA market is going bye bye!
It’s interesting how Ford HR and People Leaders deny basic human knowledge
About 4% of humans have brains wired to be phenomenal engineers. These people can take in all the variables and come up with practical and elegant designs that stand the test of time. These people are worth a 1000 marginal/average engineers.
Anyone who comes across these phenoms knows they can’t compete on their level.
People know that not everyone can be an engineer but pretend otherwise, just like wishful thinking that your child will be a professional athlete.
The problem @ Ford is HR and People Leaders think all engineers are the same. They don’t reward excellence and in fact excellence is often penalized as People Leaders are jealous of the abilities and feel threatened.
Let’s face facts if in a perfect world Ford only hired and retained truly excellent engineers they would require 90% less engineers and 90% less management and 90% less HR and 90% less other supporting staff. So why does Ford revert to mediocrity? Because the people in charge paychecks depend on a having mass staff of mediocre employees.
Top notch talent won’t bite because they know they won’t be valued at Ford and that the Ford culture will penalize them and not allow them to succeed.
The US has always been importing talent. Laws require employers to pay the same wage and I can say in most companies they really do. Sometimes even more. As a matter of fact it is immigrants to the US that have been setting high wage standards for a long time.
The issue is not only with exporting jobs but our knowledge. US universities have been earning massive money by teaching students from all over the world (international student tuition is at least twice as high). And they now hold the same post-graduation knowledge as we do. It levels the field to our disadvantage. Same with many companies being sold to CN, our own leaders sold us out. And that's a hard pill to swallow. It was our own people who sold our future away. And there is nothing you will do about it either.
It is only innovation that brings in fresh money. But our leaders have forgotten that because fresh money was available on command thanks to zero-interest politics. Thankfully this will end now. And the time where a cleaning person could "afford" a luxury F150 will end likewise.
Ford has expectations? Get out of here
In my 30+ years experience as a software developer, the foreign design centers in China, India, Malaysia and Mexico were never as productive as the design centers in Europe or N. America (US and Canada). These design centers usually were given the lowest tier products and still required considerable support. The "best and the brightest" were often brought to N. America where they got the best pay and positions. Its not surprising really, from a pool of billions of people in all those countries combined, there will be many who fall into the superior talent category. If we're going to let companies bring them all here then that's where the myths come from about those countries having better engineers.
This is because the government always talks about STEM, women in STEM and man in STEM and color in STEM and more and more STEM but they taking no action no STEM jobs leaving in bulk.
Look at Stellantis, Ford and GM the R&D, Analysis, CAD, Design and many other areas will be gone by 2030....
I seen engineers even immigrants telling their kids "do not do STEM". is this how we going to get ahead by services and we make and build nothing ??????????
So we are in a big joke in US! Why do we found all these public universities if we will out source STEM.
US will loss it place in the world by 2035~2040 and you can thank the Republicans and Democrats that talk so so so so so so so so so much and do nothing!
@xiu+1lw2omcw. "You can get top talent employees for lower pay when the candidates are in Mexico, Brazil, and/or India."
You are such a mo--n, that you have to be a manager. Managers can also be replaced by candidates in another country, and sometimes I wish they would. Id--t!
No one can get top talent in other countries paying low wages. Even in those places, the top talent cost more money. We are getting the low end of the workforce, and it is noticeable by their lack of technical skills and the absence of understanding their roles inside the company. Besides, if things are that great for them at Ford, why do they quit so much?
In my experience, the foreign talent tends to be in NA already and with good jobs. They are the first that ask for a premium salary and to leave behind their countries, by regular immigration or H1B visas. So companies can outsource to pay less to their employees, but it tends to backfire big time, because you get what you pay for! ID--T!
"You can get top talent employees for lower pay when the candidates are in Mexico, Brazil, and/or India.
This goes for office, engineering, and plant personnel, union or otherwise.
Truth hurts."
Are you including yourself in this rant that promotes foreigners as being better than Americans? Are you willing to take a pay cut to receive the same wages as are paid in Bangalore, India meanwhile you must pay higher expenses in the U.S.? Tell your family they must go hungry so the stockholders can get a higher dividend? Yeah, right sure.
You can get top talent employees for lower pay when the candidates are in Mexico, Brazil, and/or India.
This goes for office, engineering, and plant personnel, union or otherwise.
Truth hurts.
Luxury prices for cr---y cars and low wages for top notch engineers. Right! I am sure no one thought of this approach before. SMH.
Yep. And ironically it was the top notch employees that got SIRP'd in August. One LL5 was the best of her peers. Yet lesser employees were kept and she was shown the door. Oh wait, that's right. She wasn't in the friends and family plan. Her LL4 looked out for his buddies. AND HE WAS THE ONE THAT PROMOTED HER OVER OTHERS THAT HE KEPT.
It's sickening the nepotism that goes on. I'll just sit back and wait for my turn, take my 9 months of severance, use all the unemployment, then retire.
No retirement party but I don't even think they do that anymore. If you retire from Ford they seem more upset that you stayed so long than appreciative for the years of service.
The other thing that's happening is that the younger people are seeing how the long term employees are being treated and they are leaving. So Ford is losing the employees that they want to keep because they treat the ones they don't value like cr-p.
Way to go, Bill. Nice culture you've built here. Just like Barry and Calvin with the Lions. Would rather retire than work for the Ford family.