Published on 12, July, 2020
So i've been thinking about an issue that I think is dificult for STEM employees and especially autistic ones in companies. And that is that there offten isn't a path to career progresion that doesn't involve transitioning, even if gradually, from a technical to a people manament role. The issue is a lot of stem personel don't want to do this. And for autistic personel it may not be within their capabilities. That isn't to say autistic people are bad at managing tasks, planing projects, just not nessiceraly good at handeling the people working on those tasks and projects. So my proposal in a nutshell is let the two aspects of managment be seperated. Let the task manager and the line manager be two seperat people. Let the people persons specialise in line mangment and the probblem solvers specialise in task managment. Lots of orgonisations already do matrix managment where one person may answer to multiplu project heads but generally only has one line manager (who is also a project head or who is line managed by one) So why not have line managers who are not project managers, they just look after people. Training, vacations, sicknesses, absences, complaints etc, all that stuff. but not actual bread and butter work which they leave to the project managers. That way people can bepromoted from technical roles into technical roles or even promoted in place as they get more expert so the orgonisation can keep that acumulated skill.
The way I see it as things stand autistic people get stuck in junior roles, leave for other companies or go into roles that don't realy suit them. Also if you get really great people persons as line managers they can mange more people. And freed of the red tape project managers can project manage more people. And do it better.
What do people think?
My family taught me to have no interest in going into management ,as they were proud Trade Unionists.
In the University of Manchester, with around 10,000 staff (half of which are academic) there are probably about 20 senior roles (equivalent to a senior lecturer) rewarding technical/scientific expertise. These are roles that do not involve the management of other people or teaching. In most biotechnology companies that I am aware of, representatives that sell stuff and managers (all requiring good interpersonal skills) are paid far more than the scientists who actually develop, test and ensure the quality of the products.
In academia and technology-based commerce the skills that typify autistic people are systematically undervalued.
For 25 years I worked as a 'bench scientist', focused on projects that I had control over, designing experiments, solving problems and contributing to writing papers for publication. I was very happy and fulfilled, if not conspicuously over-rewarded financially. For the last 9 years of my working life I ran scientific facilities in a research institute, some of the skills were transferable, but I tended to be solving other people's problems, had to process the finances that supported my facilities, dealt on a weekly basis with many more people than I had previously, was constantly switching attention between my scientifically unrelated facilities plus a health and safety role, and had management responsibility for a support technician. I was quite frazzled for much of the time.
I applaud you thinking about this. There is something in there. I agree with the others on the practicality, efficiency and harsh reality, but at least you are thinking about these things and you may come up with an even better idea that is embraced.
Peter said:The way I see it as things stand autistic people get stuck in junior roles, leave for other companies or go into roles that don't realy suit them.
The harsh reality is that autists are typically not suited to working in technical corporate environments beyond lower level roles (ie non management roles). We lack the people skills, the likeability and understanding of how the corporate world works to get on well with the challenges that it brings.
When you think that maybe only 2% of the population are autistic, probably less than 15% are in full time employment and even fewer are in the corporate world, this leaves you with something like 0.2% of the population to be catered for by these plans.
I think this is the definition of the tail wagging the dog.
I've worked for 32 years in this sort of environment and the vast majority of small to medium sized organisations (up to about 4,000 staff) don't have big enough technical teams to make this sort of consideration even viable. Managers often have to chip in with technical roles or there is suffiiently little work to justify the split anyway.
Large corporates (eg banks) may be large enough for this to work, but the politics at play in these organisations would flush out autists pretty quickly as we just don't fit in well enough.
I applaud the attempt to shape the corporate world to the needs of the autists but in reality we are so different to one another that it isn't really practical. A much better solution would be to teach autists the skills to survive in the environment as it stands so they can go for it is this is their plan.
I'm reminded of the hate-hate relationship between architects and engineers. The architect lays out the plan. The engineer says it can't be done. Egos collide.
So, a few thoughts. If you separate the typical manager position into two roles, divided roles means divided responsibility, and therefore divided pay. Right there you take a blow to the primary motivator for people to seek promotion.
Are the responsibilities of the line manager and the project manager enough to justify creating two separate roles? It sounds like if this system already existed, employers would probably want to roll the two positions into one anyway.
Now, say the system was implemented. If the project manager is responsible for the technical aspects of a project, and the line manager for the team that will work on said project, then you add more moving parts to the machine, hence more room for malfunction. If the two managers don't see eye to eye, you're probably going to end up with power struggles. The team is going to back the manager responsible for their vacation days.
I mean, who knows? The system could potentially work. But it seems to me like the best way you're going to find out, is if you start your own company to put it into effect.