Ask Slashdot: Best Incentives For IT Workers? 468
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?
Daily reports (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Its so easy . (Score:5, Insightful)
Fire 'certified jerk' managers - that'll do wonders.
Autonomy, mastery, purpose (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
easy (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Start with the basics (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Daily reports (Score:2, Insightful)
Throwing bureaucracy at it is an incentive? Sounds like a disincentive to do projects that are either researchy or slow. Who the hell wants to do the disassembly of the magic bootstrap code that can take weeks of stepping through Roms, when you can be quickly coding a brainless API implementation?
Re:Daily reports (Score:3, Insightful)
Throwing bureaucracy at it is an incentive? Sounds like a disincentive to do projects that are either researchy or slow. Who the hell wants to do the disassembly of the magic bootstrap code that can take weeks of stepping through Roms, when you can be quickly coding a brainless API implementation?
I'm not talking about writing a giant tome. It could be just a handful of bullet-points. Include, e.g., brief "brags" on micro-successes, or frustrations with using a particular tool. And you can personalize it by adding jokes, recipes, interesting haiku, whatever.
Also, there should be no judgement on the report contents, or punishment for not doing them. Instead, offer small rewards or incentives for actually completing them regularly.
Too much turnover? (Score:4, Insightful)
>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.
Flexible working hours (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Daily reports (Score:5, Insightful)
If you make writing daily reports someone's job, chances are that's exactly what it'll become. Meaning they concentrate on things that look good in the report, and little else. For an example, consider how the No Child Left Behind standardised follow-up system has made teaching/studying with only tests in mind common.
If mutual accountability is desired, I think communicating with (talking to!) other people is much better.
Ask Slashdot: Best Incentives For IT Workers? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Management, not incentives required (Score:4, Insightful)
Meaningful work (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
I keep forgetting, dilbert ain't fiction (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
A Good Place To Start (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Daily reports (Score:5, Insightful)
If I need a "brag" about my achievements then I need a new workplace. Let me manage my own time, provide me with the tools to effectively complete my work, randomly drop-by my cubicle once or twice a week to informally chat for a few minutes (2-5 minutes). If my co-workers are screw-up, fire them. if my co-workers are bullies, in any sense of the word, fire them. If you, as my manager, cannot meet this requirement, you should be fired. If I need two days to mentally attack a problem, leave me alone. If I need you, as my manager, to approve some out of office time, be available and do not require me to make-up the time. My mind works on your problems, consciously and subconsciously, 24 hours a day; respect me as a professional rather than as a cog in the machine. Weekly written status reports I can handle. Above all, if a co-worker is disrupting the cohesion of the team, fire the co-worker. Passive-aggressive co-workers kill an enjoyable workplace.
Re:Daily reports (Score:5, Insightful)
A status report is one of the most hated things tech people do. I know it's necessary sometimes, but I literally remember jobs much more fondly when I don't have to do them. And it's not because I don't get work done, it's because I hate the idea of having to think of something every day that I did which makes me look like I am doing my job.
I like the ability to be given goals, a deadline, and achieve things on time and well. And as an engineer, and as a manager, if I set reasonable goals and they are achieved, that is a big plus for me. It may well be a good idea to break those projects down into smaller milestones for greater accountability, as well as a greater sense of achievement for the engineer who can say they got something done. If a worker wants to spend all week long reading the web and still gets my task done within the time limit and within the acceptable level of quality, I don't care what they do. If they fail, of course, they know it and I do too.
Now, I would agree that on a personal level, it may be a good idea for engineers to write and record what they themselves did that day. That keeps them honest with themselves about what they actually did and did not do. I think reporting to others encourages people to be less honest with themselves about what they are really doing because they have to risk looking bad in front of their managers and colleagues. The people who are best at that will be those who have a certain style of work, or those who know how to bullshit on reports. Some people work better when facing deadlines and have some pressure on them, but are nearly idle when there's no pressure on them. Those people will look lazy when the reality is that they achieve as much as the people with the other habits, and sometimes more the the bullshitters.
In the end, give your people reasonable goals, keep them broken down into discrete tasks, and call them out if and when they fail to deliver on those tasks within reason. If they fail to deliver, then I could see some remedial measures being applied. At that point, you can instruct them to record what they did that day, and expect disclosure. Or you could suggest to them that they take some time to evaluate their own habits and if they fail again, they face mandatory improvement plans or they can find a new job.
The major things that motivate engineers are going to be a sense that they did their job well, that they are making enough money to support their families and hobbies, and that there is a sense they can excel and move ahead in some way within your organization. If I was in charge of the whole organization and had budget authority at a high enough level, I'd probably schedule a quarterly bonus and review cycle based on achievement of assigned goals with a stated level of quality and also some monetary incentive for innovation. I'd also make sure that my workers did not spend more than 40 hours in the workplace, and I would send their asses home if they tried to stay longer, unless we truly did have a real emergency, and not an emergency caused by my inability to plan properly.
Managers can be just as shitty or as excellent as engineers can be, and they do have a very real job which is complementary, not antagonistic with a good engineer. Managers make sure that they understand the people and resources they have on hand, they plan well, and they find out how their people work their best. If a manager can make someone happier while getting the job done, they do that because your business invests a lot in retaining good workers. Good workers are also there for you when the shit hits the fan and you have no choice but to deliver no matter what. And when good engineers manage to pull your shit out of the fire, you let them know they were critical in saving everyone's ass.
Oh, and one other thing. The best way to motivate good workers is to (after a very clear process and opportunities to improve), fire those who are not delivering. Make it clear that you value the people you work with by rem
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The non-innovative answer: Use the stick (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone can count as one of the stars. Yes, he should ditch the outright slackers; but the guys who just come in to do a fair day's work to get paid and go home? Sorry, but in any organization, they will form the vast majority of the workforce. Unless your entire organization can live with a "team" of one superstar, you just don't have the option of having all stars.
As for reaching for the stick to try make people into something they can never become, it will just hurt morale for no real gain. Don't go that route. I've seen it tried several times, and it always backfires.
Do your best to keep people happy, keep them wanting to come to work every day, and just stoically accept the fact that over half the team really doesn't give a shit outside "get the job done, get paid".
Re:Daily reports (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the last thing you want to ask from IT Workers, MORE PAPER CRAP (to write and to read).
You're in IT but you can't automate paperwork.... A little bash script and I've got a daily report.
If you want to give incentivies to IT Workers, get some secretarys for them
Not secretary, apprentice aka intern. Not as crazy of an idea as you'd think. You don't want to pay an IT guy $50/hr to do the job of an $8/hr file clerk or intern anyway.
Drive (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Obligatory... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [dilbert.com]. 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.
Re:Need indivudual rewards (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
If nothing's getting done on days employees are working from home, that smacks of bad management. When I work from home, I have to give my manager a report on what I've done that day. He's happy because he knows I'm getting my work done, and I'm happy because I didn't have to commute that day.
If, at your company, "work from home" is a euphemism for "take a day off"... why pretend? The company should just state "if you're above your execution rate for an entire week, you can take a day off the following week".
Are you a fucking idiot? The answer is simple... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pay them more money.
Anything else is an insult to their intelligence. "Cake Day"? Jesus. Are you fucking kidding?
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course you're right. This isn't chinese algebra. It's a pretty simple equation. Reasonable compensation, reasonable working hours and being treated with a modicum of respect is all most people want out of a job.
The rest is bullshit.
One of the ways this country got into trouble is when companies started looking for innovative ways to screw employees: They thought they were clever when they gave workers "benefits" like health care and pensions instead of simply giving them pay raises, and oops, people started living longer. They sold workers on 401k plans and "matching" instead of fixed-income pensions and oops, we're going to have a generation of senior citizens in poverty.
There are tales of CEOs so insightful that they realized by paying workers a living wage it would create a prosperous middle class that would fuel the most robust consumer economy ever, but apparently those CEOs are long gone. Today, they believe that somehow they can continue to degrade workers' incomes and it will not ever effect their own bottom line, so we have corporations that are looking for income streams that have nothing to do with their core business and it fucks everything up.
I've lived through the most amazing social transformation: from a vibrant, prosperous middle class to a burgeoning class of working poor. And there's no sign of it turning around.
It's not a political problem, or a government problem. It's a problem of an economic elite that has been allowed to exempt themselves from all the social rules and expectations. It's not that corporations are people, but that people are becoming corporations, and in doing so are allowed to become completely amoral. They have obliterated the social contract that raised so much of the world out of backbreaking wage-slavery and are now on an express train toward neo-feudalism.
Oral gratification... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
"Guru" Jim is asking the wrong people.
If he really wants to know what incentive structure would be better for his IT staff, he should ask them to design one for him. Give them a budget limitation, as appropriate.
Seriously, they'll be happy to do it and they'll do a much better job than either his management or someone answering generically who doesn't understand his employees and his business.
If he calls the people he considers his best workers "guns" and so on from the question, he doesn't understand IT well enough to create a good environment on his own anyway. However, I'm sure the experienced folks in his IT department know exactly who is worth their salary in the department and how to measure that for the managers to be able to figure it out also.
You've hired experts in the field, and you're asking on the web for how to manage them? They're supposed to be the experts on the IT needs of your company. Try asking them. Of course, I suppose that's a little too obvious and may produce too much information that reflects poorly on their management. So Caveat Emptor!
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite bizarrely I see the same results in my west European country that used to be rich but is becoming less so every day. You blame it on raw capitalism, but here the ever increasingly socialist policies are sucking a part of the middle class (the part that is still working in a productive sector) bone dry to the benefit of lazy bureaucrats and entitlements for public teat suckers.
It seems that in both environments disrespect for those who actually create value is the reason for the downturn.
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe in her not-so-subtle way she's trying to get you to rectify that oversight?
Money (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Daily reports (Score:5, Insightful)
I wanted to say something along these lines. Be a little careful in your metrics and incentives.
Part of the problem is, if you make people account for all of their time, you hurt morale. When morale is low, people are less productive. Attempts to keep track of everything and crack the whip on those who aren't performing might result in worse performance. Plus, as you point out, tracking time takes time. If someone spends an hour a day trying to keep track of how they're spending their time, that's 1 hour fewer open to being productive. And don't make the mistake thinking that tracking time only takes the 10 minutes of filling out the paperwork-- needing to track your time means there's one more thing vying for focus, one more thing to pay attention to.
Aside from that, it's important to note that if you hire someone for a 40 hour work week, you're not going to get 40 hours of productive work from them. You're just not. Believe it or not, getting 25 hours of real productive work in a 40 hour work week is pretty normal. People don't really work productively for 8 hours straight. To some extent, the time wasting can be beneficial. It can let people recharge a little and talk to each other. Sometimes when you're having a hard time figuring something out, it's helpful to take a break. Having a little chit-chat with your coworkers can lead to better teamwork and collaboration. Sometimes you get things like, Employee A and Employee B have been working on similar problems, and only when they have some down-time for a casual chat do they realize that they can help each other solve the problem.
I honestly think that many businesses focus too much on squeezing productivity out of people. They'd do better to focus on hiring good people, treating those people well, and letting those people motivate themselves.
Re:Autonomy, mastery, purpose (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, this made me sad. I'm sorry you haven't found a job that brings you personal joy and a feeling of accomplishment.
Personally, I have been doing what I love since I was a child and figured out a way to make that my living. I couldn't be happier, and I don't feel like I'm begrudgingly trading in one third of my life for something as banal as money.
I certainly understand your perspective and I'm sure that a majority of people in this world agree with you. It's just not a world view that sits well with me.
Re:Daily reports (Score:4, Insightful)
If his job is anything like the last job I had, there's no place to put a door that locks, because he's in an "open work area", which upper management has decreed because it "improves collaboration". Basically, the OP needs to stop complaining about his situation, and spin it to his bosses in a new way: that he's spending 4 hours a day "collaborating" with other teams about work to be done, and then spending 1 hour/day actually working. They'll probably give him a giant raise when they see this.
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Look again at who ends up with all the money. Sure the bureaucrats get more then most workers - they get a middle class salary. The workers who are supposed to get the same don't, since the executives and owners keep all the profit for themselves - and the laws support this - often the middle class will be in the highest tax bracket along with the people earning millions.
So there are two basic solutions: either lower the public employee salaries, then watch what demand there is left in the marketplace drop like a stone OR start taxing the rich at higher lvls again (I think France is about to do this).
Talking about how the rich are the people who create jobs is strange, since they don't seem to be investing much of their money at the moment. And why is that? Simply said, there is not enough buying power in the population to afford many (domestic) products or luxuries. When people are barely surviving they will of course opt for buying cheap Chinese crap instead of a slightly more expensive local product. And the rich simply can't replace the demand of a healthy middle class, no matter how much money you give them. No person can use more then a few thousand new dresses/suits/cars per year.
Blinkered thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Geez, I would not even do that to my cats. If I feed one and don't feed the other one, I am guaranteed a fullbore catfight, and I will probably lose one cat.
It is really insulting to see bonuses distributed among management for their skill of getting me to work for peanuts.
It really makes me feel really stupid and taken advantage of to put in long hours, only to see someone else reap the benefit.
And to add insult to injury, the other guy got the benefit for the skill of talking me into the long hours. At that point I am finally so disgusted I can not keep my mind on my work - I just feel like a stupid patsy. I figure I am in the wrong place, unappreciated and unneeded, and ready to leave at the first opportunity, and let the suited and tied shakers of the hand make the damm thing work.
They seem to have gobs of money and authority - maybe they can go to the machine, wave their pens and threaten a bad review if the machine won't fix itself.
Re:Autonomy, mastery, purpose (Score:4, Insightful)
First off, the free drinks and snacks are a good idea, but make sure those food items are healthy. Cut down on the sugar, the carbs, the caffeine, and the junk food (thought, do not get rid of the coffee machine, you do not want a revolt on your hands). Stock up on fresh fruits everyday. And get rid of cake day. Also, if your developers/ITs time is worth a lot of money to the company, make sure they work with the best equipment possible. Do the math and minimize the time they need to go home. Hire them a free concierge service and a free laundry service. Give them free dinners if they stay until 7 PM. Bring in subsidized car repairs, dentistry, hair cuts, remote grocery shopping, on site, to minimize the time they have to leave the company. Don't think of luxury items. Think of the every day mundane necessary things that we all have to deal with anyway.
Also, be prepared to lead by example yourselves. If IT sees some of the top brass only showing up at 10 am and leaving at 4 pm (even if they have supposedly a good reason that others do not know about), don't expect any of them to put in 60 hours a week (I know not everyone does that, but the few that do can be a huge demoralizers to the rest of the company).
Then, read books like "Mythical Man Month" by Brooks and "Peoplesoft" by De Marco. Make sure the entire management reads those books. Also, read books by Edward Deming, who actually recommends not to pay people individual bonuses, but team/department bonuses instead. Paying bonuses for passing exams also sounds like a bad idea (since 90% of the technical exams out there have been gamed and the answers can easily be found on torrent sites, or can be purchased for $99)
Promote from within, not necessarily from outside. Rotate people's roles. Do not overdo the praise and the flattery when we do something that you don't understand. We're not magicians, rock stars, or wizards. Conversely, learn a little bit about the complexity of software production and IT, so that's where my recommended reading list comes in. Behavior comes from belief. Belief comes from understanding. First, it's your understanding that needs to change, before you can even hope to change the underlying understandings and behaviors of others.
Of course, not everyone will agree with my list of suggestions, nor will you be able to implement all of those ideas, and that's fine, hopefully, you'll be able to implement at least a few ideas from our different lists of suggestions.
Re:Daily reports (Score:4, Insightful)
TL:DR beyond first paragraph. I feel much the same way about time sheets. I really hate having to justify every minute of every day. Some days' are more productive than others, sometimes letting stuff percolate in my head is the most productive thing I can be doing, but it's hard to attribute to a specific project code.
I also get frustrated with companies that expect you to fill in time sheets at 100% utilization against billable work. When do they think admin and training gets done? I'm more effective if I can spend time planning out and prioritizing my workload, but it takes time.
Re:"we have guns" . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Socialism is not the problem. The most successful OECD country in the world over the last 15 years (economically) is perhaps Norway. They're running nearly $0.5 trillion budget surplus, yet have almost 100% coverage for subsidized housing, government healthcare, etc.
Greece or Italy on the other hand, is bogged down in crony politics, where vested interests control the purse strings and wealthy individuals, corporations and families dominate politics. They "buy" the electorate with elaborate schemes. That's not capitalism, nor socialism. It's a gross sort of plutocracy.
"Creating value" is a misnomer, at least in how you're framing it. The middle class "creates value" in a post-industrial society. This is painfully obvious when you look at the fact that the relative economic strength of post-industrial economies is almost exactly in line with the percentage of the population within the "middle class" as broadly defined as capable of sustaining modern living standards (owning a house, car, etc) within their means, while having a limited surplus of disposable income, given regional living standards and prices.
Norway has an especially large middle class. Places such as the US and Canada have an average sized one, and places such as Italy have a smaller sized one, when using similar standards.
Cities in Norway are almost 70% middle class, by the same standards, the middle class of the US has decreased from 65% in the 1970s to around 50% today.
Inter-generational mobility is also much higher in Europe than in the US and Britain, who have a more "market oriented" approach to this topic.
I think it's pretty hare to make conclusions about which policies cause the downturns and income inequality.
As a consultant... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.