Managing the President's Son (An Engineer)

If you're stuck with the kid, make the best of it.

Reach out to him, let him know that you want to help him develop his skills and learn about dad's company. And how the department operates. Then when he takes over, he will know how to make it a smoother operation.

And remember your help.

I want the son's experience to be genuinely fulfilling, a positive event for customers and coworkers, and for me personally.

Of course, but this relates to any new employee, right?

My department is hands-on and so far the son's education emphasis has been more theoretical

Again no surprises here as this is commonly the case.

Any advice?

Do what you normally would do for new engineers fresh out of University with no practical industrial experience - meet him, get a feel for him (as in have a talk and gauge how he responds and acts, is he independent or does he want plenty of guidance, etc), give him some training and tasks and see how he responds to putting theoretical concepts into practice, how he responds to learning and new concepts and how he responds to failure.

Don't treat him like the bosses son or your future boss, but do help him as you would any other fresh Engineer (while giving him the room to develop and grow as an Engineer).

Of course a little favoritism is ok in this case, but not too much least you make it worse for him and ultimately yourself by upsetting your departments coworkers or doing too much for him ruining the learning experience (and potentially inflating his sense of importance).

This can go either way, depends on the kid..... I've been in this position and had it not go well...Good luck

i would treat him as any other newcomer to the team. only give him credit when credits due. bring him up through the ranks like anyone else. forget about who his father is.

i think that's what his father would want.

it is a compliment that he has enough confidence in you to teach him everything you know and in the same way you learnt it. from the bottom up.

'When helping someone up the career ladder, remember not to be one of the rungs.' - Anon

I used to work with co-op electrical engineering students from my alma mater. I was frequently dismayed to realize how little some of the Juniors and Seniors knew putting together a circuit. Mostly I had to make sure they didn't kill themselves accidental.

Be sure you are clear on the "rules" and safety practices first. He will want to be independent but keep an eye on him. Before you give him tasks to do, let him see a sample of what you expect if you can. Better yet, if you can have him work with someone doing the kind of work he is training in, it will allow him to pick up some skills. What is especially important is getting to know the people where his talents will someday be very helpful. Don't turn him loose on a lathe or a milling machine unless he has taken tooling classes and shown you his final project...

While he may be your future boss, you still have to treat him like the kid he is. He may know just enough to get into real trouble.

If you don't have safety classes in place already, this may be a good time to start them. Let him do some of those too! It is all part of the job.

I say take him out to the local pub and get him loaded......

JUST KIDDING!!!!!

Mentor the tike, but don't coddle him either.

Thanks, all. President originally came thru this same department and this same job. Of course HE wasn't the president's son.

I've been in this situation before, but the son was a union hourly worker in my department, which was entirely different (and did not go so well because the union rules prevented me from giving favoritism, which he demanded).