American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – “Project Lead the Way”, a national program aimed at preparing students to become the most innovative leaders in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. In 2010 a middle school near Wichita, KS will be the pilot program for an aerospace engineering lesson plan Hopefully this program will increase students’ interest in engineering.
Next we wanted to learn more about special training needs engineers have……
Any holes in the engineering curriculum?
HR implications we took from these videos are: Ray mentioned communicating through crucial, candid conversations and having the ability to influence people to accept your work…this may not be something all engineers feel comfortable with, but it is necessary on the job….so HR just needs to be aware that this may not be a strong point for some people and could be addressed through some one on one coaching …… this could be something as simple as setting up a development plan when you bring new engineers on board….discuss with them their strengths and weaknesses and address the weaknesses through a training plan and setting individual goals … ..This could be through a rotational program or a cross-functional project….or even letting employees lead a focus group to address a problem the organization is facing … .This is something I think is very important because as we saw the first few weeks of class doing the SEEs, there is a LOT of technical jargon that business and HR employees don’t easily understand….this could maybe be addressed by offering a business writing for engineers course … .making sure students received this training in their undergrad would make the students’ transition into the workforce a lot smoother
Needs to be a 2-way street between engineering and HR trying to understand each other’s functions. HR needs to have a presence, needs to make an effort to understand what the engineering staff they support do This will be crucial in gaining respect and building an effective working relationship.