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Ask Slashdot: Best Incentives For IT Workers?
New submitter Guru Jim writes "Our company is currently looking at our incentives program and are wondering what is out there that helps motivate IT workers. We have engineers/sys admins as well as developers. With both teams, we have guns who are great and really engaged in looking after the customers, but some of the team struggle. Sometimes it is easy to say that there isn't too much work on and goof off and read Slashdot all day. This puts more pressure on some of the team. Management is being more proactive in making sure the work is shared equally, but we are wondering what can be out there that is more carrot than stick? We already have cake day, corporate massage day, bonuses for exams and profit share, but what is out there that is innovative and helps build a great workplace?" If you're reading this, the odds are good that you work in or around IT (or hope to); what would you most like to see your workplace implement?
That sounds like enough of an incentive to me.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Every day, each employee e-mails a short report of what s/he did that day. It doesn't take too long, and it encourages mutual accountability, even if only a few co-workers read them regularly.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
With both teams, we have guns
What better incentive than that?
Not the best for productivity but best incentive that works for Secret service agents, presidents, politicians and ceo's.
$ = Money
Fire 'certified jerk' managers - that'll do wonders.
assuming that pay is fair for the tasks in question. If you know who is "slacking off," is it worth talking to them, and find out why?
Or are they actually have some valuable downtime, breaking up their day and giving them a chance to think and refresh?
I will skip the obvious free drinks/food/social events and financial incentives.
When it comes to work, it is about this: Autonomy, mastery, purpose.
Give everyone meaningful, important and challenging work, so that their head is just above the water.
Let them be responsible for their work and reach the goal with their means and in their style as much as possible.
Let them improve themselves by doing so, send them on courses as well.
Automatise everything that can automated to get rid of repetitive, boring work.
Optimise anything, and challenge people to go back to the beginning.
Demand innovation, and allow time for it by doing "innovation time off" / "hack time" / 10 percent time.
rational and transparent decision making processes
merit based rewards structure
aggressive correction and eventual culling of counterproductive employees
pay me enough that I can get my own massages, keep your stupid toys out of my office, and
run an effective business
Good hardware, good monitors, good tools, allow them to pick some of their own (IDEs, OS, editors, etc). Keep up to date with technologies. Treat people like people, not "resources". After that, use some agile/XP principles like scrums to enable problems to be out in the open, and pair programming to get the weaker people improving. Give bonuses for outstanding quality and quantity of work. Listen to what people complain about and try to fix it.
First watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Then read this: http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=DeveloperBees
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-12-21
First thing you're gonna have to do is ask your employees...there is no step two...
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
it works for marriages, why not work?
Since no one has suggested it, I'll throw this out there:
What about rack space? Hey, if my shit goes down too or needs maintenance, I'm going to go out of my way to be there after hours, and perhaps catch up on a little work while waiting for my stuff to install/replicate.
If you've given people everything they could reasonably ask for, including profit share, and they still aren't performing, then chances are they're just lazy. Solution: 1. Make it clear (privately) that they are underperforming, 2. if they are still underperforming 3-6 months later, let them know that their job is at stake, and 3. if they're still underperforming 3-6 months after that, fire them.
There are some people who will want to contribute and provide useful effort with the appropriate carrot. But if that doesn't work, use the stick.
I am officially gone from
Give out bonuses based on performance, however measured. It works for the boss, so it's likely to work just as well for the employee.
You want to know why folks work their asses off to create shit for free and goof off at work when they're being paid for it?
1. The free shit they do is shit they find interesting. Whether the programming is interesting or challenging or they are wrting software that solves a problem that means something to them.
2. The work they are doing for your company is either unchallenging, does something meaningless in their opinion, or both.
All the high pay, pizzas, games, massages, or any other motivational tricks you got from a book (or worse from a know-nothing managment consultant) will not work - at least over the long term.
Here's what you do: start hiring entry level people to learn the system. The entry levels will find that work challenging and rewarding for a couple of years. You can pay them shit.
The current crop? Start letting some of them go. The best and brightest have already left.
That's all you can do.
>Management is being more proactive...
Ok, you're a marketing person. I'll forgive you. But never say proactive again.
>We already have cake day, corporate massage day
Your company obviously has too much turnover and you're trying desperately to reduce it. The problem is not going to be that you don't have enough cake days. The problem is going to be that it apparently sucks to work at your company. Cut down on the number of mandatory meetings, make sure everybody has a decent computer, get the damned boss to stop subverting the code check-in system, and... your programmers don't actually need to wear suits, do they? Stop that.
Give them flexible working hours.
There's nothing worse than coming to work in the morning and trying to "work" after your kid puked the entire night and you haven't had half an hour of solid sleep, or if you have a splitting headache that just refuses to go away on its own, but would likely go away if you could nap or walk for a couple of hours (depends on the person).
IT is a line of work where flexible hours are possible. Give them that, but still keep work clocked every week.
Although a lot of companies would like to invest in their people, and give them incentives and so forth, one big problem in the IT arena is:
How to should you invest in your workers? I.e., send them to training. Or even let them just educate themselves about Java/Hadoop/NoSQL/whatever without working on a project for a few months. That in itself is great incentive instead of focusing on billable hours all the time.
The desire of the company is that you're investing in the future of the developer. But the problem is once they're all well and trained, they can simply jump ship, and the company isn't able to recoup their investment.
So what ends up happening is companies don't provide training, leading to the phenomenon of IT people having to read 2 hours of material every night just to keep up.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I applaud the pro-active nature of the organization on this, and appreciate your efforts to have a strong preference of carrot over stick.
I have been managing IT Operations teams for ~10yrs now (with a rooted background in SysAdmin), and more often than not, in my own experience, it is the organizational culture that often strongly correlates to the work output of a collective team. I have worked on companies that paid absolutely ass and were not overly generous with there employees, yet people understood the purpose, the mission, and their role, and gave 110%. I have worked at companies that were more than generous with payroll and side benefits, and folks slacked off.
Without knowing you or your background (nor the respective company), I can say that folks are often cognizant of the extremes they can get away with at work. If you (or the company as a whole) conveys an easy-going atmosphere where even the slackers are well tolerated, well, water sinks to the lowest point. This can often be detrimental to others around them, as it results in "Well if they aren't going the extra mile, why should I?" I believe just about anyone who is reading this has had that very thought cross their mind at one point or another, and it can be a valid one. Giving someone free massages, or cupcakes, or even a hooker aren't exactly motivational items - actually, they work the other way, in that encouraging folks to "take a break" from things, these same folks who even when working you are suggesting aren't putting in a sound effort.
Solution? Again, without know you or the org, do away with the massages, and most other extraordinary benefits that cost the company money, and instead convert this to regular financial bonus incentive. Make a big point on how performance relates to money, and more times than not, I find folks will go above and beyond to earn the extra incentive. You may have a few bad apples you clearly need the stick, but between the two, I'd suggest you may be on the way to success.
Best of luck!
Best incentive of all:
Treat your employees like the human beings they are and appreciate what they do for you, and pay them accordingly. The golden rule as applied to the workforce.
It's not fucking rocket science.
It's just that "human resources management" these days, at its core, treats employees as overhead and cost centers instead of how a business earns its money.
--
BMO
If you have workers that aren’t doing their share of the work, fire them. I'm sure you've already warned them, more than once, right? If not, it's your fault they don't do their fair share. If so, follow though with it. Hollow threats are just that. Start firing them one by one, and the rest will start to get the hint.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Sounds like some old fashioned management and coaching is required, not incentives. Management needs to talk to the under performing staff and find out what the underlying issues are and if they can be fixed. Maybe something is happening in their personal life, maybe they need training, maybe they need more challenging work?
Anarchists never rule
Give your employees time to work on something company related that interests them personally.. !!!! I think alot of the google products that were built came out of that program, and it gives the employees a sense of belonging, the ability to really make a difference, the feeling of appreciation etc..
I cannot think of a better incentive myself!
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/jobs/21pre.html?_r=0
I'm finding that money or other financial incentives are not as standard and competitive as most people like but in general people don't respond to more pay - they get more pay because they're performing already. Something that is harder to quantify is respect for the "chain of command" for lack of a better word. I find that with IT we're too often minimized into being reduced to the lowest common denominator of being a resource. What helps me personally break free from that type of depressing perspective is having leadership that provides a sincere vision and clear objectives and actually makes people accountable for them. There's nothing more demotivating to me personally than doing work for work's sake.
I'm aware that I'm something of an idealist bordering on delusional :)
stay away from poor metrics as that can trun out real bad.
As it can become all about stuff like call times that make it better to do quick fixes / tell use to reboot and hang up.
Number of tickers closed can lead to people banking up easy stuff to save for a slow day or having people who don't want to take on hard stuff as they are better off doing 3-4 easy tickets over say 1 hard one.
Also stuff like that can be gamed by having some call each week for a password reset just to make your numbers.
Seriously. "Salary" is one of the biggest screw-jobs in IT.
The current employer I work for saddles on a lot of bureaucracy and endless, tormenting meetings. Just get out of the way and let people get their work done.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
time off for working late / being on call and no makeing a deal about being late the next day if you had to work late the night before.
People need meaningful work. Not all your work is meaningful. Cycle people in and out of the shit jobs. By the way, some folks definition of a shit job doesn't match others. I'm perfectly happy to bring the shred bin out to the shred truck for $40/hr. Some of my guys, however, are absolutely offended when I ask them if they'd take the shred out.
Flex time is the other "thing". We're pretty generous. I don't really care when you work, as long as your work gets done. As long as it doesn't screw up the team, we'll give you a roughly arbitrary amount of unpaid time off, and going to the doctor's office or picking up a sick kid is not a problem. Still need to hit deadlines and what, but I really don't want you at work if you're angry or sick.
Short-term cashflow problems are much easier to take care of with the sabatical, too. Right now, work is hard to find, and people are scared. Given the option of staying on at 5 hours/week of telecommuting + health care, versus getting laid off, we do pretty well. It's also helped our unemployment insurance, since folks who see the writing on the wall can get a new job while still technically employed, and we don't have to deal with firing them.
With both teams, we have guns who are great and really engaged in looking after the customers, but some of the team struggle. Sometimes it is easy to say that there isn't too much work on and goof off and read Slashdot all day. This puts more pressure on some of the team.
This reads somewhat confusingly - You mean that sometimes one team has work and others don't? Or just that on both teams you have some stars and some slackers?
If the former - Simply break down your "team" boundaries! Most coders can handle admin/netops tasks; and although not everyone can code, everyone can help test, which (I say as a coder) often counts as half the work in getting any any large project.
If the latter - Trickier, because real life just works like that. You can of course fire the real slackers. The ones who do their job but have no desire to do more than it takes to get paid, however... Well, you can't really change that no matter what you offer them. At best, you can make sure they have "enough" to do to keep them busy. You might try matching management styles to each group - The superstars just need to hear someone say "go!", and they'll get it done; The 9-to-5'ers likely need more hands-on management (not micromanagement, but someone to semi-actively keep them engaged throughout the day and notice when they've had a bit too much downtime).
As for what motivates geeks in general - "Play" (by which I don't necessarily mean "competition"). Simple as that. Sometimes that means letting people find a cool new way to solve a mundane common task even though it might take a bit longer than necessary; sometimes it means letting them read Slashdot; and sometimes it literally means taking 15 minutes and having a Nerf finger-rocket war across the entire office.
There really are pointy haired bosses and ClickOnThis is one of them.
Nobody reads daily reports, they are useless. And if you need to read them, you are useless.
You see, in a real company and not in manager lala-land, people got their tasks and they are given them by other people. Only those people really need to know. If you need to know about an activity, you need to know in advance and if you don't need to know, you don't need to know. And nobody is going to spend hours after the office closed reading what other people did. And do it in the morning? Then you are one of those time wasters.
The only people that think daily reports are useful are clueless managers who have no idea what is going on but are re-assured that since they get a list each day, something must have happened. The trick is to just fill such reports with enough random activity to look busy without taking to much time to generate and then concentrate on whatever you are doing for real. In a big enough company, it don't even matter. It is better to be thought spending weeks on a dozen trivial tasks then a single day working on one important one. Daily reports are not valued by their accuracy, but by their length. And be sure to put ANY tasks you possibly might get any time in the future,is part of the TODO list, it makes you look on top of things.
I fear one day getting a competent manager, I wouldn't know what to do. Luckily the changes of that happening are zero.
Ten to one ClickOnThis will one day introduce the daily report at the end of the day and the breakfast standup.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's not that hard in a "team" setting if they are doing proper performance reviews and individual goal setting/growth plans. Too many companies (mine included) completely skim over this step of interaction with their employees. In the end it is in the companies own interest to know what is in your interests so that they can be aligned as much as possible, but that concept seems lost on current employers.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
If you haven't come across this already, this is a good place to start: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9137708/Opinion_The_unspoken_truth_about_managing_geeks?taxonomyName=Management&taxonomyId=14
As an IT worker myself, one of the most difficult things I struggle with is the frequent lack of acknowledgement and respect. I don't mean simple 'thanks for helping me' responses - although those do count, and workplaces where all employees belittle IT will experience a lot of IT turnover - but for the big things. When we break out all the stops to achieve some huge project, or put in extra unpaid time - we're often salaried, after all - to help someone, the reward is sometimes to have expectations raised, rather than to understand that was an exceptional effort. That discourages us from trying so hard next time.
It's difficult for management to understand what we do, and what they don't understand, they sometimes don't respect. Bonuses are nice, as is comp time. But I really just want to keep things working, and it is distinctly aggravating when I can't prevent a recurring problem because it requires changing the behavior of someone superior to me that doesn't care to make a change, as I'll always be there to clean up their mess. In some cases, it feels like not bothering to install toilets in a restroom because that's what the janitor is for.
All of that said, when it comes to weeding out those that aren't contributing anything... some sort of tracking system is essential, for techs to keep tabs on what they've done. They'll rightfully treat it with skepticism if such a system comes from On High, as the plausible reasoning is to find out how much they can shrink the department. But when brought in with the cooperation of the staff and their immediate management, it can be trusted more. It's also a tool to demonstrate to upper management just how much work we ARE doing, and to justify extra manpower. Simply saying that you need an extra hand often goes nowhere, since IT is frequently seen as a money pit.
And, of course, listen to the techs, the experienced ones in particular. They're the ones that can feel that a piece of software isn't working properly, or that a piece of infrastructure is not up to the task. You don't need to do what they're talking about, but consider their opinion. They're here to understand, fix, and instruct people in how to use technology. Knowing that they're being heard, and seeing visible changes in response to that feedback, does a lot to make a tech feel valued.
micro-managing what people are doing will ensure they won't produce. When you only worry about what people are getting done and not when exactly it is getting done in the day I have had so much better results. I know how much effort it takes to do certain tasks. If you want to screw off all day and program until 4am, fine with me.
There are two things that motivate me, and the one can't do without the other, both motivation condition must be met for me to thrive at work:
1) A good salary, so I can work and save towards my biggest dreams, I have to have something to chase.
2) An interesting assignment, an interesting project. This is what makes me WANT to go to work every day.
Here is what works, and what doesn't work:
What doesn't work:
Telling me that every job is interesting, and that I should be interested when I am not.
Faking interest.
Fake team spirit. (I'd like to work with MOTIVATED co-workers that actually take a great interest in their job, passion if you like!)
Fake motivation. Don't even try, your employees can see through you like you're made of glass, the only reason they smile at your ideas are that you are directly responsible for their paychecks.
What DOES work:
Honesty, above all. Always be 100% honest towards your employees, fail at this, and we will be sure to look elsewhere, and one day you'll fail severely because your ego blinds your eyes. So keep honest, always share everything, don't fake, lie or hide. People are more forgiving than you may think.
Interesting projects. What's interesting to you may not be that interesting to me, sure - I am a professional, so I'll do the job regardless, but don't ask me to fake interest. Just trust me that I'll do a good job anyway, because I can and will...which brings us to the next level:
Trust me, trust your employees. The single best thing you can do for your employees are to really trust them. If they deliver, they deliver, nothing magical about that. We're all in this boat called YOUR Company anyway, and no one of us have ANY interest in letting it sink, so why should we perform worse if you don't constantly nag, create reports and call into personal meetings?
Don't believe that we'll sit there and surf the web because we really want to surf the web, this is something most of us can do at home, and if we do it at work, it is to relieve stress, and to keep up to date with an otherwise perhaps important network...yes...this could potentially be your next employee even. Many of us keep up to date with technology this way, we're paid professionals, just don't expect us to do that work at home too, we do it because it's our passion. Force is NOT the way.
Remember, a little understanding *and DO NOT TRY TO FAKE UNDERSTANDING* will go a really long way. Most IT workers are above average when it comes to intelligence (albeit, in some cases...one can really dispute and wonder about this). So when you try to explain to us why you have to cut back on bonuses, perks or whatever - tell the TRUTH, especially if you know the truth is going to sting a bit, if we discover that you lied, oh boy...mistake!
That's it really, some clean honesty.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Want motivation? Pay more money. Best incentive ever.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
If there's one thing that I've learned from my time in management positions after being in non-management positions, it's that incentives have to be personalized. I've given someone a 50 dollar bonus and saw no productivity increase, and given the same person a gift certificate for a pizza outing for her family, and she was overwhelmed with appreciation, as well as a major increase in productivity for the week following the gift certificate.
Reason being, she couldn't spend the 50 bucks on anything she wanted when she was a single mom who had to spend time with her kids every night and figure out dinner when she came home from work. When I didn't know she was a single mother, I didn't give her any incentive that she'd respond to. Knowing that she was a single mother, meant I could give her an incentive that she knew she'd be able to use and would make her life easier or better.
Until you can give your employees something that will help them out personally, they're just going to see that as a bonus, not a motivator. Give your management some leeway on what they give as an incentive, while you focus on the why . This forces your management to know their personnel somewhat personally, allows them to look good for giving the people something specifically useful to them, the company for giving management enough leeway, and the employee will want to earn incentives that (s)he knows is useful to them.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Free bacon as projects are finished. Crisp, hot and delicious. Of course, don't go for that el-cheapo CAFO factory farmed junk - serve premium pastured pork bacon to get the best motivation.
Sausage too...
And Boston Butt steaks...
I'm drooling.
Okay, so food!
I'm seeing lots of comments telling people to (dont) do daily reports, or similar tasks.
What my team has started doing is using the Trello web site for project management. Each task is added as a card, and then assigned people to work on it. Any notes are then added to the cards. This is by far the quickest system I've ever seen for day-to-day documentation. There is no more spread sheets or paragraphs of text to sort through. The cards themselves represent a summary of events, with more details after opening the cards.
https://trello.com/
and... money
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Generally, three things motivate people:
1. Autonomy - can they at least sometimes discover something on their own that needs doing/fixing and go ahead and do it without okaying it with management?
2. Mastery - can they devote enough time to new things (e.g. technology) to feel that they are learning something *and* spending enough time on it to lead to mastery?
3. Purpose - do they have a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves (as opposed to in name only: "there are six people in this group, therefore they are a team!")
These things drive most people and are completely lacking in my workplace. Search YouTube for "RSA Animate drive" for a better description than I gave.
I always equivocate. Well, almost always.
Are the best ones recognized as top guns?
Does the same one always deal with the same customer? Or are they revolvers?
Do they travel out to the customers' sites? I guess that makes them field guns.
et fucking cetera...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
From RSA Animate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Which supports your point, depending on the nature of the task.
There are also some other somewhat differing ideas like on this Wikipedia page, especially this section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_motivation_and_the_16_basic_desires_theory
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You get more with the carrot than with the stick, so unless you're employing a group of starving donkeys I suggest cold, hard cash.
This is obviously true. Unfortunately, giving pennies to lots of peons would mean fewer dollars for senior management to plunder^W uh, award themselves in well-deserved hard-earned bonuses. The stick is what you'll get, because carrots are reserved for management.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Your slackers probably get more massages and cake than the hard workers
What makes it even worse is increasing workplace friction. Admin's a reactive job so they've got little/no control over their schedule, so they cannot get a massage perhaps because they're comp timing it or went home early because they've got a 11pm rollout scheduled, devs a proactive job so they can stop at any moment and get a massage. So you've just strongly preferentially rewarded one business group over another, increasing bad feelings. Even worse the most stressed group isn't getting the stress reducer. That's just not gonna end well.
The only thing worse than preferential rewards is out of the office stuff. My life is overscheduled/stressful enough, mandatory bar night/movie night/team building night/WTF night is just going to piss me off.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I guess it depends on what the submitter means. I had read his post as meaning that some people were not working efficiently for a prolonged period of time, increasing the onus on others. Screwing off all day, and working from 23:00 until 04:00 may be fine some time — perhaps even most of the time — but when the deadline was 21:00, and everyone else is having to work harder to make up for the fact that one of the team members is screwing off, that's perhaps closer to my understanding of the submitter's dilemma. (And I say this as someone who very much values the ability to work flexibly, and under my own conditions, but I do recognise that there's a time to knuckle down in line with how others are working too.)
Paying someone to do something they like doesn't actually make them happier doing it.
For me the biggest things are getting a chance to work on interesting projects, working with good people, and flexibility in hours.
I don't mean flexible as my boss seems fit.
I don't mean flexible as in being on the job wherever I go or sleep.
I mean flexible like in "everything really important has been done for this week, I feel like taking a day off with the family."
Having this kind of flexibility guaranteed is the best incentive I could think of.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
Pay them more money.
Anything else is an insult to their intelligence. "Cake Day"? Jesus. Are you fucking kidding?
It sounds like it's a management/supervisory issue here. Start by looking at the workload and results of the "slackers". Are they being given as much work as everybody else, and managing to get it done and still have time to "slack off"? If so, let them. The reward for getting your work done well and quickly's that you get free time. If they're not being given as much work as others, take a look at the workloads with an eye towards shifting things around. And if they're being given work and not getting it done, well, that's nothing special and your managers should already know how to talk to the employees about that problem.
Sometimes you won't be able to even out the workloads. Different people have different specialties, and sometimes the current workload just puts more work in some areas than others. That's only a problem if it's a persistent thing, with some people overloaded all the time and others with not enough to do. In that case, you need to shift people around to learn different parts of the system so they can help where it's needed. That'll take time, just acknowledge that they're learning a new area and won't be nearly as productive right off the bat as they would be if they already knew it inside-out.
And finally, acknowledge that slack time isn't a bad thing. Emergencies happen, problems crop up unexpectedly, and it's not a bad thing to have people free who can jump in and take up a problem without diverting time from scheduled work. It only becomes a problem if it's unbalanced and it's always the same people with free time. Again, that's a standard management issue of making sure the workload isn't uneven.
As for motivation, two things. First, pay. The single best way to motivate professional employees is to pay them for their work. Make sure your pay rates are good for your area and the job. And take a look at your annual raise policies. Inflation runs around 2-3%. If your company's routinely handing out raises less than that, your employees are going to be unhappy because their standard of living's slowly eroding. Words and such are nice, but at the end of the day the bills have to be paid and pats on the back and free cake at work don't pay the electric bill or the rent. Second, respect. Upper management expects employees to respect them even if those employees don't understand what management's doing. So show the same respect in return. If you as a manager don't understand the tech, don't sit there and contradict your IT and software-development people when they tell you what they think the best way to approach something is. Even if you've heard something from some consultant, remember that your IT people know your business and your systems better than that consultant (and the consultant isn't going to be on the hook if things go badly, he's already got his money). If what they're saying isn't what you want to hear, give them the simple respect of assuming they aren't just being jerks, they have good reasons for saying what they're saying and they know what they're doing in their field. If you don't think they are, then start tracking it. When things come up, note down who had what opinions. Then, after everything's done and you can look back on the actual results, note who was right and who was wrong and how badly. And if your IT department has a track record of being right more often than anyone else and someone comes in and says "The IT department just don't understand the business needs.", ask yourself what your IT people are going to think if you agree.
In the IT sector, excellent employees are usually self-motivated and burn for their job with a passion... until they burn out due to persistently poor management. If you need external incentives for them, you're probably doing something wrong... as in: their work environment isn't adapted to their needs, hindering them to deploy their whole creative potential. In this case, you only have two options: throw in additional tasks that appeal to their internal intellectual drive and combine them with the mission critical stuff (i.e. make it more interesting for them); or fire them or let them go, and hire other people.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
40 hours a week with 5 hours of screw off time every friday, 35% more pay than industry average. Managers that are not retarted and understand reality.
Give them those 3 and you will get the best of the best beating a path to your door.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ensuring the workload is equally shared by all is the typical socialist short sighted view. The better answer is to fire the slackards. No amount of "incentives" is going to properly motivate. It wastes company time and resources. The unmotivated will get motivated when telling them to get their act together or take a hike.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
A girlfriend you can disassemble.
You need "incentives" to motivate people to do their jobs? I think it's called "pay".
If ordinary workers aren't pulling their share of the load, then the managers are pulling theirs. They need to get out there, talk to people, identify the slackers, and manage them. Talk, cajole, threaten, and (if necessary) fire.
This is Workplace 101. A manager's job is to manage. There are no fancy gimmicks that makes this role unnecessary,
No, the other kind...
Simple, straightforward, honest thanks for getting the job done, particularly in times of limited resources and increasing demands.
Of course this implies management that knows what's going on, who is doing it, and actually gives a sh*t. That may be a problem.
But even in that situation, you can help your cow-orkers by letting them know when they've done a good job; recognition by your peers can be a big help.
I bet you the answer will be among the following:
Stop paying for stupid employee massage day and let me purchase a second monitor
Fire that asshole Jim whose work I end up doing
Let me work a 4x 10hr week
Give me a bonus if i meet jobs/week target
Let me have an office with a door instead of this retarded open layout
Don't give me a crappy crystal 10yr award, instead give me a cash bonus or the promotion I deserve
Link productivity and pay
Limit my mandatory meetings to 2 hrs/week
What is the overall culture like? It seems like you are doing things pretty well already, and if there's a good culture, then perhaps you just have some deadwood. Start talking with them and give them a chance to up their game. Ultimately, if they don't want to work and you've tried to help them, then get rid of them.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
I've worked for a few companies that talked the talk about profit sharing, but after the upper management and shareholders took "their share", the so-called "share" for employees worked out to less than a day's work. The staff would have been happier to be paid overtime for night support, paid a rate for pager/cell duty, and so on.
"Cake Day"? Give me a break! Even in France they had a revolution when the queen said "Let them eat cake." Taking a break and eating some cake is nice, but it is not an incentive to work harder when the break is over.
Ditto massages. Look, I love a good massage -- but I follow it up with a nap after I'm all nice and relaxed. The last thing I'd want to do after a good massage is go back to hunching over the computer in my chair.
Make sure your employees are properly paid. Reward good productivity with more money -- at least annually. Warn those who aren't being productive that their performance raise is at risk early so they have time to correct the bad behaviour.
Minimize the paperwork. Techs hate paperwork, without exception. People who like paperwork are rarely skilled developers.
Flex hours are critical for happy employees. People like myself who suffer migraines can't work a fixed schedule, and "flex time" does not mean "You can work 8-4 or 9-5, your choice." It means real flexibility to deal with life's issues and work in the evening or on weekends sometimes. Flex time means you may be getting a call from me at 08h30 to let you know I can't come in this morning, not that I'll be in an hour late.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Carrot and stick problem.
However, all the "Incentives" he listed weren't incentives at all, they were just morale boosters.
Getting paid for work completed, that's an incentive to do more work.
Bonuses for completing projects that don't generate more work tickets?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I worked at a startup that grew to 200 people, was acquired, made everyone happy. Afterwards an employee survey said the #1 perk that everyone loved the most was stocking the kitchen area with cheap breakfast food: toasters, bagels, jams, fresh fruit.
Anything that is not money is not an incentive. For example; no money, no training, no promotion, no job mobility, are not in fact incentives. Also yearly or semi annual self appraisals where every single bullet item is handed to you by management and then you're supposed to write a book report on each one 'quantifying' even though that's impossible to do, on how strenuously you adhere to the corporate goals, that's not an incentive either. And of course when you're done with that massive effort and the manager gets everyone together for a team review and the bottom line is that there's no money and no one's getting an increase again, for the 12th year in a row, that's not an incentive either. And when you don't allow lateral movement in the company because you have no ability to fill that job vacancy because we're all such special snowflakes and unless you find your own replacement, who in turn has to find their own replacement and so on, you can't even apply for that job, that's not an incentive either.
But mostly it's about money. Don't let anyone con you. My former CEO was given a 41 million dollar bonus in his next to last year for sending 50,000 US jobs to Asia and his retirement agreement is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The VP level officers of this company are millionaires, on paper. But these losers can't even reimburse the staff for their home office expenses like a telephone. So it's just about the money. Get as much money as you can for as long as you can and don't pay attention to any stupid team building bullshit or internal conventions or seminars on feeling good about feeling good about it. And always remember; HR is your enemy. Their job is to hate you and treat you like shit so you leave and they can replace you with someone 10 cents cheaper if they even replace you at all. Because to them the perfect company is one with zero employees. You're nothing but an overpriced replaceable part to them.
Money. It's about the money. Real money - cash or stocks that can be sold that day. Options aren't money. Promises aren't money. Fake job titles aren't money. Deferred comp contingent on you growing a fucking unicorn horn on your head in the year 2031 aren't money. And to be brutally honest, not even pensions are money - not any more. More and more companies are wriggling their way out of paying those too. So fuck them and sweet sounding bullshit they blather. It's the money. Documented in writing put in your hand money.
Except no fucking substitutes.
Give the best workers promotions and raises so they become the bosses of the slackers. Fire the slackers and hire non-slackers.
I know that seems mean and insensitive to Americans today, but it works in my business. I'm running a business, not a group therapy hug-a-thon.
America is headed into an abyss of economic pain next year and there will be plenty of people getting laid off. There will be far more people than jobs, so the slackers better get their heads out of their asses, because they're going to be out on their asses soon.
If someone wants to treat people like people, contingency work arrangements go against that purpose(save for the very few people that can go with either). One can address this problem by converting people and positions to permanent/direct/FT while maintaining the same requirements. While some will opt to retain disposability, this measure establishes a base level of trust between employer and the person doing the work.
Trying to isolate someone due to "regulatory reasons" or "uncertainty" only serves to make most people not value their work since they're considered second-class citizens for the greater part. The rare birds that can defy that are few in number by definition.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This discussion should be mandatory reading for PHBs and HR drones.
Applying the Neutron Bomb only causes more problems than it solves. Its only known purpose was to set a precedent that workers were never to be treated with respect, but as line-item entries.
While it makes sense if you only look at numbers all day, over-maximizing efficiency will scare off good talent.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I've been in the business 20 years on both sides of the desk and it's really not all that complicated.
1. Pay your employees well. Like more than they can easily find somewhere else. It's worth it if you don't have to lose 6+ months training a replacement up.
2. Crazy hours should be the exception not the rule and should not be the result of poor planning. I can't think of anything more demoralizing than losing all your weekends because your manager can't find his ass with both hands or because your employer is too cheap to hire enough people for the amount of work. People should have enough input into decisions they feel a sense of responsibility if things do go sideways. Extra hours need to be either paid for or used as banked time.
3. FIRE THE DEAD WEIGHT. Actually this should be point #1. If someone isn't pulling their weight or harassing and impeding others identify and get rid of them as quickly as possible. It's like a cancer... eventually the ones that are working hard will get fed up and slack off or switch jobs.
Birthday cakes and company movie days and nap time and milk and cookies or whatever are all well and fine but in most cases they are trying to put a band aid on one of the three issues above causing a lot of turnover.
I've been working full time since I was 15. I'm in my 50's now, and have been through down & up economies. I find, that a lot of times, in a down economy, most employers will treat their workers like crap, knowing that if they don't like it, they will probably stay, because it is harder to find a job, but, when the economy is up, some employers will "sweeten the pot" to keep good workers, knowing that they could go somewhere else. Depending on how rough they treat you in a down economy, should help make the decision to leave in an up economy.
There are only four motivators for human behavior including writing good software. They are:
Money
Sex
Power
Fear
Money: Figure out the minimum amount of money your programmer will NEED to continue to work for you writing your code. Start him at 50% higher than that number. IF version 1.0 works, then increase his salary to 100% more than the minimum amount that he needs.
Sex: Hire lots of cute young girls without husbands to work in your office. *Very sensitively* approach the subject to them that they can earn signifiant salary bonuses if they have inter-office affairs with the programmers. If you're not sure how to approach this subject sensitively then don't bring it up all, even as a joke. You don't need any sexual harassment lawsuit and the young ladies will probably figure your company policy out by themselves.
Power: Every dork programmer had some asshole in high school bully them. Tell your programming staff that if version 1.0 ships without major programming errors then you'll hire some local goons to track down the jerks who made their lives miserable and beat the fuck out them. All on high-definition video for their entertainment (or as supplemental erotic stimulation while they're boffing the administrative assistants)
Fear: Joseph Stalin told the nuclear physicists of the Soviet Union in 1946 that they would either deliver an atomic bomb in five years or spend the rest of their sweet short lives in the Arctic Salt Mine Gulag. He got his bomb. Then gave 'hero of the Soviet motherland' medals to all of them. He killed about 10000000 people and died peacefully in his sleep. He understood Fear.
Pay them more. It's the difference between a network admin needing to leave work by 4 PM to pick up his kids from soccer practice, because his family only has one car, and a slightly more flexible work routine (something which business can be blind to until a real crisis appears, then it becomes a choice of trying to put out the fire in the data center or having your kids hold this against you for the rest of your life). When the difference s $10,000 / year vs. $4,000,000 / hour, many of the people who manage to make it upstairs (and stay there) tend to choose the less expensive option.
You'd be amazed at the size of the Titanic-style crisis that has bankrupted many a mid-to-large corporation because they spent more time trying to make things lean in IT than paying attention to the screams of those in IT ("Why do we need all these blue cables? They're just laying around in boxes, all over the place. Tell IT that in the future, if they want any more of these blue cables, they need to submit paperwork to Accounting and setup a meeting with me." or "Why are we paying so much money for an internet connection? I have a cable / DSL connection at home, and it's more than fast enough. I'll get those Comcast guys out here next Tuesday to replace this 'T-3' we seem to be paying so much money for."). "What is it with IT, and their constant spending of money? They just keep spending, spending, and spending on toys and stuff. They need to learn how to budget things better, and only buy the things they really need."
Okay, I'm done for now.
I am John Hurt.
They make the point that after one's basic needs are met financial incentives and perks are no longer motivating. Instead people are motivated by Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.
For me and almost all the IT folks I know, money talks and all the other crap walks. Often, when people don't appear to be motivated by money, it's simply because it's not enough money for the effort being asked. Personal experience - many years ago I was told that I would get a $10K bonus for completing a particular project within six months. This sounds good on the surface until you understand that meeting this deadline would have required an additional 20 hours per week, every week of those six months. Giving up that much more of my life simply was not worth the incentive that was being offered. Had they offered $30K instead, it likely would have been a different story and the company would have recognized hundreds of thousands of dollars in income at least a full quarter earlier than they eventually did. If you "work to live" instead of "living to work", then you realize that "autonomy, mastery, and purpose" is great to have in the workplace, but it doesn't pay for your kids' schooling or that nice European vacation your wife has wanted for years.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Sigh. Stop treating them like "IT workers" and start treating them like "workers".
Next Step: Treat workers like *valued* workers.
Now -- if you value them, you pay them well, you respect them, and treat them like they're competent.
Most of IT burnout is caused by ...utterly incompetent management that thinks they can run a software or IT program the same way they can a used car dealership. You can't just sell and market competence, planning, design, requirements analysis, and engineering.
And while I have no clue what they hell they taught you in MBA school because I wouldn't be caught there dead, it's clear that the one thing MBA's don't know is...math, requirements analysis, fault analysis, or ..have the ability to believe in any reality but their own delusions.
When we ask you to help make us more productive, you need to pony up the cash for the extra monitor, the extra couple gigs of RAM... whatever. Or you need to ask what the problem is, and get rid of it. Alternately, you can cut back on the schedule--but a lifetime of experience tells me that never happens.
We aren't out to shaft you -- most of us want to do a good job, collect our check, and go home at 5. Whereas we build and maintain complex systems on a daily basis, we usually are planning for our own future --and thus yours.
When I tell you something needs refactoring in the next five months--I'm not looking for a paid vacation, I'm trying to avoid overtime and an inevitable accidental bug that might cause complex hard to debug failure and get me called in at midnight or 5 AM for some client who knows where.
When I maintain something like that for three or four years, it's not a sign I was lying --It's a sign I am a skilled professional building on the foundations of other skilled professionals.
And sooner or later, that house of cards comes falling down because you didn't want to maintain it. My goal is to be out of there at least six months prior.
And it's always management's fault.
Next--stop thinking you're as smart as the workers. You may be. You might have been. Yuo may be smarter. But you aren't in the same spot they are every day. And since management never listens...
When my boss comes to me and stays "write me instructions on how to reboot the server"... we have a serious problem.
1) That means the docs don't exist
2) This means you don't know where they are if they do
3) That means you can't understand the existing docs
4) If my doc says "kill process X", I guarantee I did not write the kill comand for a reason -- it's because if you have to be told whether ot use SIGTERM or SIGKILL, and which argument, you are by definition incompetent to touch the system.
Yes, I could write it, but you wouldn't know what to do. You'd type it in a hundred times without telling me you did it, you'd forget to record the error output, you'd typo a PID and not realize what went wrong when you killed your own terminal...who knows what.
Similarly, when I write a webapp, and the manual section to add a user begins with "log in to the administrative section". You can either hire a technical writer, or die if you need to be told how to log in.
If you want to motivate me, ask me what I want, and then *GET IT TO ME* or show me you're actually trying.
And it helps...to understand me. When I complain that I am spending 900 hours a year writing public manuals, and ask that I be given a technical writer or intern, the correct sollution is not to take one of the clerical assistants downstairs and throw them in my lap. That steals even more time.
If I wanted more time from the person I already work with, I would have asked for that. But because I'm not allowed to point out that they're too incompetent to know the difference between left and right click--doing anything with them takes 400% more time than it would to do it myself.
And it produces something that only they and you think is higher quality. Goo
Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories -- and maybe, a way forward.
Or, perhaps, the bar to work-from-home is so high, that once your employees cross it, they feel entitled to chill out? Mayhaps you should instead just /give/ them a day off?
I get my best, most-strategic work done when I'm not in the office and responding to the fire of the minute, and I earn 1:1 overtime, so if I need to chill out on a random friday, the door is open.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
how is giving them cake a proper reward for getting their job done, and picking up the slack from the flunkies down the hall who are eating the same cake?
1) Quarterly objectives that are only partially tied to company performance. If I meet my objectives but the company doesn't I still get 75% of my bonus, which is 3.75% of my salary per quarter (assuming the whole thing pays out). And the company portion of the bonus has been there for the last 6+ years running without interruption, so they set reasonable goals for themselves too.
2) If you work on something big, or accomplish something significant, additional other bonuses. I've been there since last July and have gotten two of these, ranging between 4% and 10% of my base salary. The 10% bonus takes 4 years to fully vest, but that is reasonable.
3) Workout facility onsite.
4) I have an office, not a cubicle. You have no idea what this means to me, especially since I am usually writing documents for 1/3rd of my time (I build solutions, test them, and write-up my test results and reference architectures) and like my privacy.
5) So long as I am not seeing customers, there is pretty much no dress code (within reason, I wore shorts and a t-shirt from ~April till just last week). This is wonderful because honestly, unless we have clients coming in to meet with my team (rare, since we aren't in sales) I don't need to be dressed up at all.
6) Solid benefits. This means reasonable deductibles that won't kill me if someone has ongoing health issues/medications that are outside of their control. This is huge as well because crappy benefits can cost my family $3K-5K/year, and I take that stuff into account when looking at the base salary of an offer.
7) My boss feels that if you have to work more than 40 hours a week on an ongoing basis, he is likely not doing his job correctly. He works with you to set reasonable quarterly objectives, which he of course fully expects you to meet.
8) Training. We work with unreleased/just released stuff all the time (and write about it), so this is critical.
Yes I am paid well, but items 3-8 on this list are enough to give me serious pause before even entertaining another job offer. I could care less about cake days, or massages. Workout facilities, an office, and a lax dress code help keep the stress down. Good pay and benefits means that I'm not worrying about money, which is important. I don't need to drive a Ferrari, but my family vacations and the occasional hobby are important to me.
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
What the f#ck does his manager do all day? Hang out on slashdot?
A manager should actually manage and talk about what his guys will do so he doesnt have too. If I found out that would change fast! I would email my boss and put in place a new policy. That manager needs to go
http://saveie6.com/
What's wrong with looking outside your own office to see what other people are doing?
Not one reference to W. Edwards Deming this entire thread!? You really, really need to investigate his work.
"Deming's teachings and philosophy are best illustrated by examining the results they produced after they were adopted by Japanese industry, as the following example shows: Ford Motor Company was simultaneously manufacturing a car model with transmissions made in Japan and the United States. Soon after the car model was on the market, Ford customers were requesting the model with Japanese transmission over the US-made transmission, and they were willing to wait for the Japanese model. As both transmissions were made to the same specifications, Ford engineers could not understand the customer preference for the model with Japanese transmission. Finally, Ford engineers decided to take apart the two different transmissions. The American-made car parts were all within specified tolerance levels. On the other hand, the Japanese car parts were virtually identical to each other, and much closer to the nominal values for the parts - e.g., if a part was supposed to be one foot long, plus or minus 1/8 of an inch - then the Japanese parts were all within 1/16 of an inch. This made the Japanese cars run more smoothly and customers experienced fewer problems. Engineers at Ford could not understand how this was done until they met Deming." -wikipedia
Read his books! You are asking the wrong questions!
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
And remember to keep your greasy fingers off the racks.
Pizza grease helps to remove cheetos stains on your fingers.
not really but I couldn't resist.
There are two things you can do which will matter
1) Don't disincentivize -- If an employee is willing to put in 55 hours, pay immediately for 55 hours of work. Don't make it "bounty pay" or "year end bonus" or some other form of unpaid overtime or delayed reward. This is rare and a great boon for a motivated developer.
2) Do a variant of what Google does -- allow people to work on prototypes and proofs of concept (of their own choosing, perhaps vetted by the company) either on company time or their own time. Provide a wide (and serious) audience for such demonstrations (a monthly "demo pitch" meeting for the whole company, perhaps). We would MUCH rather do something that might matter than read (or write on) Slashdot. It's the promise of achieving something larger than themselves which keeps the more interesting developers going. (The ones doing it solely for the paycheck are unlikely to be good. If they are, see #1). While the main purpose of this would be to keep your employees interested and focused on your company, you are bound to end up with several interesting and worthwhile projects in the end -- projects which you could NOT have bought with money alone.
(One of the most valuable experiences I've had in my career was such an opportunity given to us by a forward thinking company owner).
TED Talk: Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation.:
For me and almost all the IT folks I know, money talks and all the other crap walks.
Then why is it that that here on /. a universal complaint is when "the MBA's showed up and optimized everything for cashflow and the company went to pot"? It's because those "MBA's" took away whatever traces of things like autonomy, master and purpose were there and replaced them with purely financial considerations, and IT folks *HATE* that.
Exactly zero of the great engineers I've worked with showed up in the morning and said "today I'm going to earn 1/365 of my annual salary therefore today I'm going to kick ass and produce some serious good product." On the contrary, they showed up every morning and kicked ass and produced great product BECAUSE THEY COULD KICK ASS AND PRODUCE GREAT PRODUCT, because they company was a space where they could do that.
Honestly, all the posts on this thread saying "IT'S THE MONEY" are smoking dope. If you take blasé, disenchanted engineers pay them more, all you get is overpaid blasé, disenchanted engineers.
Seriously - don't hire assholes
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I'm with all of the people suggesting you ask them what motivates them. You can set up an anonymous survey (a la SurveyMonkey or using Google Docs) where they can provide their feedback if you want it en masse (and not to seam like an interrogation).
I would suggest asking questions, not just giving them the "what motivates you" question. Things like:
* What kind of office benefits are you most interested in (massages, breakfast/lunch/dinner, gym access, childcare, etc)
* What kind of workspace benefits are you most interested in (access to more closed-door offices for conferences/meetings/private conversations, 2+ monitors, etc)
* What kind of flexibility benefits are you most interested in (remote access, work from home days, flexible in-office hours, FedEx/20% time projects, etc)
* If offered, which of the following rewards would interest you the most (project-based bonuses, quarterly bonuses, time off, more office/workspace/flexibility benefits, etc)
* What type of review system are you most interested in (peer review, quarterly goals, management review, etc)
* How satisfied are you with the current review system, current benefits, etc
* What would you improve about the current review system, current benefits, etc
Most of those don't have one-off answers, they may be a ranking type thing where people are MOST motivated by something but would also be interested in something else.
As a manager of a team, it benefits you (or whoever their manager is) to motivate each team member individually, as their interests and motivators will NOT all be the same. The survey or data you gather will tell you how satisfied people are and give you an idea of some commonalities among your team members (like someone said, if the massages are totally useless, get rid of them).
good luck!
Money is a short term motivator. If the job sucks, a 25% raise will be great for a few months and then the same dissatisfaction comes back.
On the contrary, they showed up every morning and kicked ass and produced great product BECAUSE THEY COULD KICK ASS AND PRODUCE GREAT PRODUCT, because they company was a space where they could do that.
So why isn't the imaginary company in question already giving all of their workers that environment to begin with?
Autonomy, mastery, and purpose should always be part of a productive IT working environment, not used an incentive. Using that as a reward to recognize exceptional effort instead of making it an integral part of the workplace for *everyone* indicates a failure on management's part. If a manager comes to me and tells me that instead of raising my pay to recognize exceptional effort, they're going to give me a working environment that they should have been giving me and my co-workers all along, I'm not going to be impressed in the least. It's like giving a fast-food employee a longer spatula as a reward for his effort so he can flip two burgers at once instead of just one, when they could have increased productivity all along by giving everyone the bigger spatulas.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
That's not good when you leave and have to collect your stuff, and the original manager that approved it all is not around any more (been there, done that and had to spend a lot of time proving I was not a thief), or if you have something on there that is related to some hobby considered frivolous or weird that the least tolerant person in the org thinks shouldn't be linked to the company name. I have a good manager now but I still keep my stuff off the webservers I run and out on an ad supported wiki site that has no connection to my workplace. Put something of your own in a work rack and if there's a problem some lazy bastard is bound to blame it, or it's likely to go for a walk when a section is looking for extra resources and can't find the part of a company that owns it.
The devs often drag the admins into the deathmarch and the admins usually have to clean up poor dev decisions made in that situation under extreme time pressure when it comes to implementation. It's not just the devs that suffer more in that situation.
I've worked in plenty of places where people did not do what should be their share of the work because the work was assigned poorly and there were no secondary tasks assigned to fill in quiet times.
If they are slacking off instead of doing tasks that they could be working on that's a different story.
You get more with the carrot than with the stick, so unless you're employing a group of starving donkeys I suggest cold, hard cash.
While I agree with this sentiment up to a point, it goes far beyond just cold hard cash. I worked in IT for 15 years until I was black-balled by the Powers That Be for public criticism of the Bush regime post-9/11 (don't ask). Cash may be king, but it hardly begins to cover what makes for a productive, energetic IT work-force. I know, because I have been there. Let me elucidate:
Respect: Respect is a 2-way street. Bosses that treat their employees with a modicum of respect for their prior knowledge and insights to problem resolution will get more effort out of their workers.
Variety: Variety of job assignments, particularly time-sharing between multiple assignments, keep workers alert and fresh.
Mentoring: Provide employees with at least quasi-confidential mentoring by more senior staff. Every job is a learning experience to some extent, and public ridicule for minor gaffes can ruin a career.
Education: Employers that offer discounted or free courseware for continuing education will benefit both the employee and the company long-term. HR should invest the time to help employees keep their CVs up-to-date.
Flex-Time: Unless you are running a Chinese Foxconn facility, flex-time provides for accommodating the individual needs of employees who might actually have a life outside the job.
Vacations: Vacations should begin with a 2 week minimum, and increase with the time vested with the company. Not only does it help employees let off steam and recuperate away from the company, but it will also help the company to discover weaknesses in the overlap in employee skills. It will also serve to remind employees that they are not irreplaceable. No one in a corporation, from janitor to CEO is irreplaceable.
Bonuses/Awards: Bonuses should be generous and tied to specific projects and project milestones. Awards, even tacky awards, that acknowledge the efforts of workers are appreciated.
Profit-sharing: If your company isn't offering profit-sharing awarded quarterly, then you are insulating management rewards from those of your employees, which will create unnecessary divisions in team-based corporate goals.
Activities: Outside activities that bring employees and families of employees together build corporate identity and unity. Even a semi-annual catered barbeque held in the corporate parking lot would do -- reservations at a theme park would be even better.
Benefits: Companies that are not stingy with health, family health, and term life insurance will have happier, healthier employees. Companies that subscribe to quality daycare facilities for the young children of employees demonstrate an interest in the well-being of the employees families, and helps build loyalty.
401Ks: Companies must offer employees a decent selection of retirement investments, preferably with vested corporate contributions. A 401K that only invests in company stock isn't a retirement plan -- it's a scam.
Not every company can offer all of the things that I have listed above, particularly smaller companies. But those that do manage to offer many of these items will have a happy, loyal, and energetic workforce that will willingly go above and beyond to help the company when needed. Merely offering top dollar in wages to employees does not build loyalty, only a mercenary attitude that will hurt the company most when the company is vulnerable.
Anyway, that's my $00.02 worth.
The best motivation for a hacker is the respect of more experienced/legendary hackers in the company. When some IT God stops by my cube, looks at my work and says, "Holy sh*t, that's amazing: how did you do it?" that feeling beats 1000 "cake days."
Get rid of management. Cut the red tape. Increase salaries. Hire the right people.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
If you really want to motivate people then pay them a good wage. When they work overtime pay them for it. I've seen too many places that hire people on straight salary and then expect you to work long hours and weekends without any additional compensation. When I say compensation I don't mean buying the team a pizza or mentioning them in some "at-a-boy" email that comes out afterwards. Or some vague mention of a "bonus" down the road that never arrives because of one of several built in excuses that management conveniently plays at the end of the quarter. I'm talking cash...cold, hard cash. Not next quarter or at the end of the year...next paycheck.
These days my default position when it comes to management is that they are full of shit until they prove to me otherwise. That's why I switched to contracting. You want me to work overtime? No problem...my hourly rate is 'X'. If you don't want to pay me then get one of your 'salary slaves' to do it. Funny how often something that was a crisis 5 minutes ago ceases to be one when management finds out that they're going to have to pay me to stay late and fix it.
Let's see...what are the benefits of being a full time employee?
1) 2 weeks vacation a year
2) A handful of Stat Holidays
3) $3000 a year towards your 401-K (as if I'm supposed to fund my retirement on that)
4) No training
5) No job security
6) Forced overtime with little or no compensation for it
Fuck that. I'll stick with contracting.
Or is that just the last few seconds of massage day?
Except for the outside activities part, those are things that can legitimately motivate employees, but the reference to cake day and corporate massage day in the original post make it sound more like it's the kind of management who would give employees as few benefits as possible. Engineers aren't stupid and can figure out that you can buy an awful lot of cake with even a slight raise.
"cake day"
No.
"bonuses for exams and profit share"
Okay.
"corporate massage day"
Christ, no.
Look, it's simple. A good engineer is a professional. They don't need you to give them stuff. With the amount of money you ought to be paying a good engineer they can buy all the damn cake and massages they might need. Every engineer I know, without exception, most wants to have a useful job to do, and the latitude to do it properly. The single biggest de-motivator for an engineer is to know the work they're doing isn't valued and they're getting squeezed by management. If they have a job to do which is actually productive, and the company respects their expertise in doing that job, and they're paid reasonably well, then they're happy. Simple as that. There is nothing more to it.
Either you work in the industry and know or you don't and shouldn't be. I work at a lower level than what you appear to be managing but if you're trying to find incentives for your employees then you already have a problem. My job gives me enough incentives through money, benefits and my work environment to keep me motivated. If you treat your employees as important and give them general reasons to make themselves and the company better then they will respond. If you don't, they won't. This isn't rocket science, its basic psych 101. I can take breaks when I need to. I get paid for what I think I am worth. I get benes equal to what I think I do for my company. I get praise from my managers when I do well and I get constructive criticism that helps me build my performance and work skills when I don't do well. If I want to expand my knowledge base and take classes or go for a relevant certificate to my job, my boss pays for it, and if I do well, I get paid for it. End of story.
der
Those that like to get things done.
Those that want to stay employed.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Personal project time is something I've used in the past and it works very well. Usually Friday afternoons, the majority of Geeks have these on the go anyway.
You do not need make it compulsory they are directly related to current job or role, most will be anyway. Often at the edges of existing project but of scope they often results in new products, services for the business.
Um, I didn't see the name?
Money. People work in exchange for pay. Want more work? Provide more pay. FFS. "Hi, I have a bunch of programs that all scale to processor speed. How can I make them run better? More ram? Better sound card? Awesome lights on the computer chassis? Let them set the desktop wallpaper?"
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Woah! I'd love a cake and massage day at my work! Sounds like they've got it lucky
There is plenty of good advice here, and well worth using. Whatever you decide to do, don't EVER ask for the TPS reports.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Too bad there isn't a "poster can't read" mod option.
The summary said "corporate massage day" not "corporate message day".
As someone who works at a place where they do have someone come in to do massage once a month, I think this is a great perk.
That said, if the place is small enough that folks will feel their individual contributions make a difference for the company then options are a good long term incentive.
Identifying slackers properly only works if that is what actually happens. But most layoffs seem to do things in the wrong order- you have to start with thinning management layers down which is very very hard to do right, since the very people you need to get rid of are usually the ones with the skills to do office politics well without contributing to company success. There are two reasons to start with management- first, it's much better for employee morale. Secondly, the folks you need to get rid of in management will tend to keep the wrong employees.
Next article.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Oh, was that SEXIST of me?
Seastead this.
People care more, work harder and longer hours when they know they are being paid more than they can get elsewhere. It's really just that simple.
Vacations: Vacations should begin with a 2 week minimum, and increase with the time vested with the company. Not only does it help employees let off steam and recuperate away from the company, but it will also help the company to discover weaknesses in the overlap in employee skills. It will also serve to remind employees that they are not irreplaceable. No one in a corporation, from janitor to CEO is irreplaceable. (Emphasis mine)
And force employees to TAKE IT. I had 3+ weeks of vacation, but really didn't have much of a change to take it until towards the end of my career at my previous job. I'm now one week into my new job, and about to take a week off, and the managing partner is insisting I take it. That is awesome.
. Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
1. Make sure your pay is 'good'. Once that is taken care of, move on to the ones below as they are typically under used in most companies
2. Working under 'great' people and doing things properly is something most of tech workers, like all professionals, like to do. So provide a professional incentive. Have mentor programs. Have your 'top-guns' take take someone under their wing. Now for this to work, it is important not to then layoff people once someone else is trained or view it as people not doing work. Most of tech work is simply paying for the knowledge of people. If they know how to do it and do it right, things will run very smoothly and efficiently.
Cake day, massage day, pizza day, picnic day... are all largely ignored by most people. Many of us view it very cynically too.
Engineers/sysadmin people are typically not treated as professionals and so they typically don't act as professionals. I'm don't know, nor do I care which came first. It's just the way it is.
That is the main change you need to install to truly have them be great to customers and great for the company.
You're assuming that all "companies" are for-profit and are making money. What about non-profit organizations or those companies that are underwater financially?
As a consultant, I've had the opportunity to see a lot of different environments over the past 10 year or so. Here are the things that stand out to me the most:
First and foremost, get your shit together. No amount of workplace benefits will make up for a dysfunctional working environment. You can offer the worlds best benefits, but if people are stressed out at work, and constantly beating their heads against the wall to get things done, they aren't going to want to work there.
That will tend to attract people:
1. Competitive salary, and benefits. This is basic. You may have a fully stocked snack bar, but ultimately, people want work to support the rest of their lives. Fun environment, cheap wages works great for the people who are new to the industry. Vets are probably more interested in a competitive employment package.
2. Growth opportunities. Promoting from within, offering opportunities to people who have the passion and talent, but perhaps not every bullet point on the job listing, is a good way to get up and coming talent in the door. If someone thinks that your company will take their career the way they want it to go, they are much more likely to want to work with you.
3. Training opportunities. Certifications, etc. can be time consuming and expensive. A good educational program is a great way to keep people at the company, and also to upskill your employees. This is a great selling point.
4. Opportunities to pursue ideas. Having a lab, or equipment dedicated to trying new stuff is also a good way to attract and maintain talent. Anyone who has passion has a technology they want to get their hands on. Virtualization makes offering this easy. Giving people the opportunity to sell and prove their ideas is huge.
They are too costly, cause too much stress and contribute close to nothing.
You mix them in with the interesting stuff, or - if you have enough variety of employees - assign them to somebody who finds them interesting.
If they're repetitive and redundant, make a project out of automating them!
I believe Halle Berry gave Hugh Jackman some "incentive" during the movie Swordfish...
Plain 'ol money, honey.
Republicans suck.
I worked for a startup, where the CEO was big on "play", and so tried every incentive in the book... We had pool tables, game consoles with a large assortment of game, and more, and out of hundreds of people, and several years' time, NOBODY EVER TOUCHED ANY OF IT.
When your workplace is a death march of always too much to do, and never enough time to do it, despite everyone putting in plenty of overtime, then expect your employees to be miserable. If you pay them enough money, they'll stay around for a while despite the horrible conditions, but anyone who can make a decent salary elsewhere will leave pretty quickly.
To be fair, the free food and sodas, and rather frequent BBQ lunches and food trucks were utilized quite a bit, but these things are all bandages on a gaping wound, if the company is an unpleasant place to work.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I like this, I believe they are the only two items that are relevant: pay for effort, and allow creativity. Anything more complex than this is misguided fluff.
I'm a strong proponent of hourly pay.. go ahead and roll up all the "benefits" that a normal employee would get (401k, vacation, insurance, bonuses) and give it to me in an hourly rate. Accounting becomes very simple. The incentive to an employee is more hours or a higher hourly rate, no more complaints for working overtime, and if the rate is good, the employee won't be looking around like a transient contractor.
It's no secret that companies maximize profits by paying labor rates as low as they can, so bonus money implies companies purposely hold back a portion of salary to hold over the employee's head on a regular basis to get them to work extra hours. If it is truly corporate profit sharing, it's always a small fraction of the actual profits, so let's not kid ourselves and pretend owners actually distribute all their profits, because, frankly, they don't have to. What they do need are dedicated employees that are happy to stick around and work for their pay, it's more efficient to retain people, so it's worth paying better than market rate for good employees.
In contrast to owners, IT workers are in it because they are technology professionals--they like the work; they like to problem solve. The other important aspect is to keep the work interesting. Any employee stuck in a maintenance job is going to be a clock watcher. Any employee that has truly interesting and creative work they enjoy will put in extra effort because they enjoy it. Many companies simply do not have this available, nor can they make it available, so that puts even greater empasis on the hourly pay.
Autonomy ...
1) Give me a problem statement
2) Give me the freedom to determine approaches to solving the problem
3) Freedom to design a solution with minimum constraints
4) Freedom to gain access to valuable resources of personnel and technologies to construct the solution with minimal restrictions
5) Freedom to build the team to provide the solution
6) Ensure minimal interference in pursuing the developing of the solution
7) Accountability based on results
8) Support with minimal restrictions
Tops on the list has to be the hot chicks room.
And that's actually a pretty good answer for the following question, "What Would You Include In a New Building?"
How about promising to let people have time off and also promise that they won't return from their time off to find that their desk is gone along with their job?
How about that?
I mean, it's JUST a promise so it can be as totally worthless as any other benefits promise made by an HR flunky so really, they should have no trouble making a promise like this. It means jack shit.
This scenario has not happened to me, yet. I went on a quite expensive trip one year and found out the company had been sold about an hour after my plane landed in paradise. Cryptic phone messages that I'd better call the office. All I got was a totally ruined vacation due to wondering if I would be able to pay for any of it. hahaha.
But a lot of people got canned and a pattern developed where you'd see someone take a week off and his/her team would be tasked to produce the same results down a man or woman, and when they did (because they were scared for their jobs) the person on vacation was made redundant. Happened quite often.
The result is that the remaining workers are terrified to take time off. I myself blew away three weeks of time last year because I was already at vacation max due to tenure and could not carry over any more time off. Sucks. And they won't cash out time off, either. Your choice is to use it and risk your job, or lose it.
And they complain about people not taking time off and have now decided to give us one more paid holiday off and a mandatory unpaid volunteer day off. Any resemblance to community service time due to penalty of law is purely in the imagination of the employees.
Sig for hire.