April 26, 2017 at 14:21Employee Motivation: Office Diplomacy Rules
In his book, "Life Among the Elephants," the American anthropologist D.-G. Ian tells how he spent several years among the semi-wild African natives, immersed in their lifestyle. Among others, the author makes a very valuable conclusion: we, modern civilized people, ourselves burden ourselves with far-fetched needs that come from the notorious "acceptable social status." Although life in the jungle is extreme, it clearly shows the price we pay for what is sometimes called a “warm stall”.
The same story takes place in the field of motivation in office life: we have been imposed some patterns and rules that the company and the employee must comply with. Motivation loses its shape and goes to extremes: for example, at an interview they can talk not about the project, but about the luxurious office and the opportunity to sleep during working hours. Let's try to soberly evaluate each element of motivation and figure out how to stimulate an employee to work honestly and productively. Not that we would work like that ... But the motivation is just as good! We have been doing RegionSoft CRM for many years.
and other software solutions for business, we implement corporate software, implement cool integration projects, automate stores (and even hypermarkets), advise and train customers, write a lot about CRM and more. In general, we benefit the business - honestly and responsibly. And we have several ideas on how to be motivated so that employees turn out to be allies, not opponents, and do not live by the principle "yes, with such conditions, I should not just not work, but also do a little harm."
No matter what they say, we all have two motivators - wages and working conditions. If they converge at one point, then for some time any employee will work stably, and then it will become overgrown with the possibility of advancement, growth, intangible motives, and everything else. Moreover, with wages and with working conditions, everything is very ambiguous.
Let's start with the patient - namely, money. In the classic case, any employee wants to get more, and the manager wants to pay exactly according to work plus a bonus for processing or perfectly performed duties. But here the first incident happens - overheating of salaries. On the one hand, far from all specialists (and especially programmers) evaluate themselves adequately, on the other hand, employers fight for personnel and often attract overblown wages. The self-importance of the staff is growing, motivation is falling - the employer is lost, so what to do with such a miracle.
In today's market, a solution is difficult to find. Although for young professionals there is one secret - to bring down arrogance. For example, a boy comes to the IP-telephony testing project and proudly says that he owns all types of testing: functional, regression, automated, etc. Well, it’s just as if reading a Wikipedia article. He asks for good money - an engineer with three years of experience receives so much. The test for knowing the TCP / IP protocol stack fails, I didn’t see any bash commands in my face, we joke about -rm -rf - empty eyes. Digging deeper - no, not Wikipedia, just a very good theorist and not a gram of understanding that how it works. Agrees on a small salary plus three months training. Both his specialist will grow up, and the guy is taught a lesson in adequate self-esteem in the profession.
In general, theorists are a separate song. They know everything. No not like this. THEY KNOW EVERYTHING. You can write in a programming language for 15 years and not know what they are posting, but give them a task and ask them to write a class - everything, silence and the text of the lectures in the eyes, incomprehensible and unconscious. And if theoreticians in commerce are not so bad, especially marketers who are not trained on Boltology courses, but on Kotler’s books, then program theorists, engineers and testers are beyond good and evil. And do not tell that the institute was forced to solve problems and write code on pieces of paper. Programming is, of course, a little talent, but more practice and typing on the keyboard: any example from the textbook should be disassembled in such a way that then there is no breaking of heart from a meeting with the compiler and 164 errors. By the way, for those who don’t know, open source is a great base for training. This does not mean that you need to commit to Sugar CRM or large libraries, - to start a fairly small project.
By the way, we did not sit idly by and thought up in our CRM system a cool implementation of the KPI mechanism (a system of key indicators, who does not know), such as to motivate employees. All targets are displayed on the desktop of the program on the right in the form of progress bars for the day, week, month - and the employee clearly sees where he needs to be pulled up to get a bonus. This motivates and disciplines much more than the shouts of the leader.
VisionMobile and Intel conducted a joint study on the motivation of developers. The result was such a pyramid:
Source
As you can see, money is far from the first place, which means that salary doesn’t really solve everything.
But let us return now to the working conditions and to the mode of work. Here the parties again go too far. We all saw the offices of Google, Yandex and other companies - they like to talk about this, including on Habré. About meeting rooms, gyro scooters and sleep capsules, for example. But the main thing is the technical equipment of the office, which underlies the comfortable work and the health of staff.
Companies may have a different scale, office area, number of employees, but the equipment and conditions must be at a high level, especially in the IT field. For example, we have in RegionSoft Developer Studioseveral dedicated Internet channels, a dedicated server with a rack server and year-round microclimate maintenance in it, a modern expensive office interior, the office itself, a powerful multi-split air conditioning system, security at the reception, a modern business center, etc. Our employees get everything they need for comfortable work in the office and life support during the working day.
Our developers have been working in the company for 10-15 years, and they like everything - this is the case when the factors “interesting project + impact on the project + continuous development of skills” work comprehensively.
Someone considers the offices of large companies a pampering, someone takes pictures and is proud, but in fact it is often just a temptation that works with a bang. The guys in the companies work for 8-10 hours (someone else), they have no time to play table hockey or sleep in a capsule - this is really used by units in minutes of short rest. But applicants see an office in which they want to stay and almost settle down - and this is a motive for comfort. And to leave such a cozy office is more difficult. However, this is a matter of taste.
What is really important for the developer in working conditions is the workplace and work computer. The place should be convenient and the way the owner of this place wants to see it, but the computer must fully correspond to the activity - be powerful, equipped, with installed working software. And here the employer needs to forget about the show-off - for example, if your software is written in 90% of cases under Windows, you should not buy a Macbook and put Windows on it. There are much more suitable horses for such a development. The same story with monitors.
Another important thing is the mode of operation. Let's consider it in parts.
To state that a person is able to code 8 hours a day without a break, 7 days a week can either be a despot leader or an idiot. For effective work you need a productive vacation. Only he should have reasonable limits, because procrastination occurs quite quickly - these are the features of us, ordinary people.
We have such employees
... namely, what is asked at the interviews and what is offered on them.
There is such an motivation category “interesting project”. The wording sounds rather vague - to whom and how should this project be interesting? It is more correct to say that the project meets the current professional guidelines of the developer. For example, it is interesting for a novice programmer to apply the acquired knowledge in a combat environment, to see how the software works on production, to voluntarily or involuntarily get involved in relations with a client, a product manager, etc. A mature professional is interested in other things: a new stack of technologies, non-standard complex tasks, work on a prestigious project or, conversely, the creation of something completely new.
Again, declaring an interesting project at an interview is at least dishonest - almost no development manager will let a newbie plunge 100%, and he will be wary of an experienced specialist. Therefore, in order to avoid further demotivation, it is better to immediately clarify the terms and stages of entering the project, to voice the code rules and code style, if they exist.
And the project should be inspiring - employees need to see the benefits they bring. This does not mean that you need to continuously port software to new programming languages and change the DBMS, it means that the work should be useful and adequate in everything: from the content to the manual. If the work comes down to supporting the old code, digging into legacy and striving to make the installation file easier, the company can hardly count on the interest of the employees.
Well, about the benefits. Compare two CRM systems: the next “eternally pre-release” cloud that no one needs, but already got on the IT forum and was praised by a high official, and the system that is installed daily, which requires improvements in interesting implementations. From the point of view of work, the first one is for PR specialists, the second one is for developers and businessmen, they bring benefits and develop themselves. Everyone chooses for himself, we all chose the second.
Well, of course, nothing lasts forever. Employees who are not declarative, but really interested in the project and your software, may be interested in others. It is important to support such motivation with horizontal (and vertical) movements, periodic wage increases associated with employee success, and the ability to research and experiment.
Growth opportunity is a motivation to which the employer is rather careless. As a rule, a leader (if it’s not about a startup) always knows exactly where and after what period of time an employee grows, and most importantly, how high-quality. Therefore, you should not promise the impossible: discuss with the applicant why promotion is important to him. It happens that people get into the office “simpler”, get or beg for a job there, so that later they can start from that position in the company where they just lacked managerial experience. However, if your company has a promotion, the movement of employees is practiced, then this is an excellent motivation, which you need to remember and which is important to use one hundred percent.
Career- at first glance, the perfect motivator. But it’s not easy with him either. What is the most common career path? The manager looks, evaluates and decides to make the senior programmer a project manager. And it may happen that the employee is not happy with the appointment: he likes to write code, he wants to develop in this, and not have a grater with team leaders, all R&D and the commercial director in addition. By the way, such a situation is common in hospitals: often practicing doctors refuse more money in administrative posts - their calling is completely different. Yes, it is more difficult to ensure the competent growth of a technical specialist than to pile a bunch of managerial work on him, but with the right promotion you will get an almost always loyal (and most importantly - enthusiastic!) Professional.
A very enthusiastic professional
Intellectual motivation is a type of developer motivation in which he receives bonuses associated with his personal professional development.
Education and training materials are a great motivation for almost any employee. The older a person becomes, the more conscious he is about learning, because in my head to replace the trigger “take a couple, drink a beer” a new one is formed “I’ll go to study, I’ll improve my skills, I’ll earn more.” Training can be implemented in several forms:
This thesis is always met with violent opposition: “I have not yet trained an employee for competitors!” There is a universal and very honest joke: “- And if we train him and he leaves? “You, chief, fear that we will not train him, but he will remain.”
Conferences, hackathons, mitaps- Another controversial method of motivation. It is absolutely true that at such events, companies shamelessly hang out employees, and employees travel with a resume on a flash drive. Here it’s a matter of the leader’s mind: if the conference is really profile and you know that from the speakers you can learn advanced solutions to existing problems, send and promise to implement all suitable ideas based on the results of the conference. If a programmer is eager for a Swift mitap, and you have an enterprise development in Delphi, perhaps you should slow it down and draw attention to a new interest. Perhaps the employee should download new non-standard tasks.
Mentoring and internal coaching- An excellent method of motivation, combining both training, and the development of oratory skills, and a demonstration of the leadership qualities of an employee. If you often recruit staff or take students to practice, form a pool of mentors who a) will be proud of their duties b) prepare a training plan and thereby re-evaluate their skills c) hear questions from newcomers d) switch to another business.
Remember the cartoon? A great story about a trainer and motivation.
If there’s nobody special to mentor and you are a stable small company (this is just the story of our RegionSoft Developer Studio), then develop internal trainers. They can tell salespeople and PR managers about new products and functions - this way you will be able to bring new products to the market much faster, and salespeople will be tech-up and stop fainting with a request to tell why the desktop is better than the cloud and how the SIP background works.
The motivation for everyone is different: businessmen want one thing, developers - another, technical support - a third. If you focus on everyone, then you can go crazy, and it is useless - from experience, you will not please everyone. So, you need to seek a balance and proceed from some universal principles. Everything was invented before us: the principles of humanity and mutual respect.
Recognition and gratitude is perhaps the main thing in the moral motivation of employees. Do not forget to thank employees for their work, successes, achievements - do it personally, at meetings, on the corporate portal. Although we are opponents of gamification, it’s just a great base for a game management system: employees can give each other virtual bonuses and exchange them for something (for example, for days off or days off).
Do not be afraid to thank in advance, even if 3% of the project is done - this motivates you to work. If the person is adequate, he will always try to justify the trust. Calling on the carpet is never too late, but you need to proactively motivate on time.
And be sure to talk with the staff. Take time to chat with them in an informal meeting or one-on-one (especially in difficult situations). So you protect yourself from lies, rumors and omissions, and at the same time you can get complete information about the problem.
Teamwork- Another controversial tool for motivation. It is difficult to build a team of introverts, each of whom considers himself an ultra pro. But nevertheless, it is the team that is the most effective organization of labor of developers, even if they are removed geographically. But this should be a team without lazy people and snitches.
By the way, sometimes they talk about the process, which can be called "motivational resuscitation", and that is why they use it only in emergency cases. This is a game of ambition and professional show-offs: competition and feelings of pressure on everyone are provoked inside the team. As a rule, this leads to the most productive work of everyone. But it’s important to understand how you then release the brakes and do not let the conflict with layoffs flare up.
Hi, Vasya, the doctor said that you can hear me, despite the fact that you look like a vegetable. Actually, I came to tell you that you can recover as much as you like, because Petya did everything well. He even found a bottleneck in your code and said that now everything should work twice as fast.
It's impossible! Urgently to the office! Run!
Little things decide. Allow employees to fulfill their cute or everyday habits at work, not to the detriment of others. For example, let enthusiasts chew on the workplace, brew mate in calabash, take short stretching breaks, or even run along the promenade for half an hour. These rituals are absolutely not costly for you, but will create additional comfort for employees cleaner than a capsule of sleep or a jus bar with passion fruit juice. Because it is their way of life and you respect it. And yes, do not forget about the social package - in the end, meals, part of the subscription to sports and VHI are not so expensive, and the employee already has something to lose. Important! Never reproach the staff for precisely these moments, do not be petty.
Take an interest in hobbies of employees- sometimes it is very useful for the company and they themselves are ready to demonstrate and apply the skill. For example, if your engineer has a blog on Habré, ask him to write in a corporate blog, show how his skill is useful to the company. It great boosts self-esteem. This approach makes you almost friends. But, if you see that a person moves away and seeks to distinguish between work and hobby, in no case do not penetrate into the personal sphere.
By the way, there are employees to whom no motivation applies and they destroy the team from the inside. Everything is obvious here: to part the sooner, the better and without any regret. Such people like to whine and put pressure on pity - do not give in, it will be uncomfortable for both employees and you.
In general, it may seem that motivation is such a series of freedoms and concessions on the principle of "just to keep." No, do not turn the work into anarchy and blackmail, especially since it’s easy to move out before that. It is important to agree - including on strict formalities: coding standards, code style, processes, development according to the ToR, reporting, formats for intermediate and final control, use of tools, etc. And if your introvert engineers do not like meetings, they should not be canceled, it is important that all participants in the process are a team and accept what they personally think is something extraneous.
In general, the main guarantee of the success of the company is respect and real interest in this success. At both sides.
The same story takes place in the field of motivation in office life: we have been imposed some patterns and rules that the company and the employee must comply with. Motivation loses its shape and goes to extremes: for example, at an interview they can talk not about the project, but about the luxurious office and the opportunity to sleep during working hours. Let's try to soberly evaluate each element of motivation and figure out how to stimulate an employee to work honestly and productively. Not that we would work like that ... But the motivation is just as good! We have been doing RegionSoft CRM for many years.
and other software solutions for business, we implement corporate software, implement cool integration projects, automate stores (and even hypermarkets), advise and train customers, write a lot about CRM and more. In general, we benefit the business - honestly and responsibly. And we have several ideas on how to be motivated so that employees turn out to be allies, not opponents, and do not live by the principle "yes, with such conditions, I should not just not work, but also do a little harm."
Need work at work, pay with money
No matter what they say, we all have two motivators - wages and working conditions. If they converge at one point, then for some time any employee will work stably, and then it will become overgrown with the possibility of advancement, growth, intangible motives, and everything else. Moreover, with wages and with working conditions, everything is very ambiguous.
Salary
Let's start with the patient - namely, money. In the classic case, any employee wants to get more, and the manager wants to pay exactly according to work plus a bonus for processing or perfectly performed duties. But here the first incident happens - overheating of salaries. On the one hand, far from all specialists (and especially programmers) evaluate themselves adequately, on the other hand, employers fight for personnel and often attract overblown wages. The self-importance of the staff is growing, motivation is falling - the employer is lost, so what to do with such a miracle.
In today's market, a solution is difficult to find. Although for young professionals there is one secret - to bring down arrogance. For example, a boy comes to the IP-telephony testing project and proudly says that he owns all types of testing: functional, regression, automated, etc. Well, it’s just as if reading a Wikipedia article. He asks for good money - an engineer with three years of experience receives so much. The test for knowing the TCP / IP protocol stack fails, I didn’t see any bash commands in my face, we joke about -rm -rf - empty eyes. Digging deeper - no, not Wikipedia, just a very good theorist and not a gram of understanding that how it works. Agrees on a small salary plus three months training. Both his specialist will grow up, and the guy is taught a lesson in adequate self-esteem in the profession.
In general, theorists are a separate song. They know everything. No not like this. THEY KNOW EVERYTHING. You can write in a programming language for 15 years and not know what they are posting, but give them a task and ask them to write a class - everything, silence and the text of the lectures in the eyes, incomprehensible and unconscious. And if theoreticians in commerce are not so bad, especially marketers who are not trained on Boltology courses, but on Kotler’s books, then program theorists, engineers and testers are beyond good and evil. And do not tell that the institute was forced to solve problems and write code on pieces of paper. Programming is, of course, a little talent, but more practice and typing on the keyboard: any example from the textbook should be disassembled in such a way that then there is no breaking of heart from a meeting with the compiler and 164 errors. By the way, for those who don’t know, open source is a great base for training. This does not mean that you need to commit to Sugar CRM or large libraries, - to start a fairly small project.
By the way, we did not sit idly by and thought up in our CRM system a cool implementation of the KPI mechanism (a system of key indicators, who does not know), such as to motivate employees. All targets are displayed on the desktop of the program on the right in the form of progress bars for the day, week, month - and the employee clearly sees where he needs to be pulled up to get a bonus. This motivates and disciplines much more than the shouts of the leader.
VisionMobile and Intel conducted a joint study on the motivation of developers. The result was such a pyramid:
Source
As you can see, money is far from the first place, which means that salary doesn’t really solve everything.
Office and time
But let us return now to the working conditions and to the mode of work. Here the parties again go too far. We all saw the offices of Google, Yandex and other companies - they like to talk about this, including on Habré. About meeting rooms, gyro scooters and sleep capsules, for example. But the main thing is the technical equipment of the office, which underlies the comfortable work and the health of staff.
Companies may have a different scale, office area, number of employees, but the equipment and conditions must be at a high level, especially in the IT field. For example, we have in RegionSoft Developer Studioseveral dedicated Internet channels, a dedicated server with a rack server and year-round microclimate maintenance in it, a modern expensive office interior, the office itself, a powerful multi-split air conditioning system, security at the reception, a modern business center, etc. Our employees get everything they need for comfortable work in the office and life support during the working day.
Our developers have been working in the company for 10-15 years, and they like everything - this is the case when the factors “interesting project + impact on the project + continuous development of skills” work comprehensively.
Someone considers the offices of large companies a pampering, someone takes pictures and is proud, but in fact it is often just a temptation that works with a bang. The guys in the companies work for 8-10 hours (someone else), they have no time to play table hockey or sleep in a capsule - this is really used by units in minutes of short rest. But applicants see an office in which they want to stay and almost settle down - and this is a motive for comfort. And to leave such a cozy office is more difficult. However, this is a matter of taste.
What is really important for the developer in working conditions is the workplace and work computer. The place should be convenient and the way the owner of this place wants to see it, but the computer must fully correspond to the activity - be powerful, equipped, with installed working software. And here the employer needs to forget about the show-off - for example, if your software is written in 90% of cases under Windows, you should not buy a Macbook and put Windows on it. There are much more suitable horses for such a development. The same story with monitors.
Another important thing is the mode of operation. Let's consider it in parts.
- Fulltime. Often this is a hopeless option - for example, in corporate development, when you need to work, and to dig deeper on the client side, and communicate with colleagues. In principle, this is a normal mode. Within the framework of it, the employer can motivate the employee, allowing them to shift working hours, take time off work and work off to study without working time.
- Part-time - the employee is busy on the project, the rest of the time he can perform interesting work (or do something else) in the office or at home. This mode motivates by itself, here the employer has problems - you need to correctly regulate the amount of work performed.
- Remote work - an employee works full time, but from home, coworking, from the beach in Thailand. A mode popular among developers, however, the employer is extremely at risk - it is never known for certain where exactly your employee is or what he is busy with. However, the result eloquently tells about everything. Can you do everything in three hours? Well done!
- A free schedule is a rather undisciplined option, because employees quickly learn to attribute lateness, absenteeism and personal files to it. A free schedule is a story of trust and responsibility. If your employees are ready to be responsible for the result, then this mode will give you many advantages.
To state that a person is able to code 8 hours a day without a break, 7 days a week can either be a despot leader or an idiot. For effective work you need a productive vacation. Only he should have reasonable limits, because procrastination occurs quite quickly - these are the features of us, ordinary people.
We have such employees
Now about cliché motives ...
... namely, what is asked at the interviews and what is offered on them.
Interesting project
There is such an motivation category “interesting project”. The wording sounds rather vague - to whom and how should this project be interesting? It is more correct to say that the project meets the current professional guidelines of the developer. For example, it is interesting for a novice programmer to apply the acquired knowledge in a combat environment, to see how the software works on production, to voluntarily or involuntarily get involved in relations with a client, a product manager, etc. A mature professional is interested in other things: a new stack of technologies, non-standard complex tasks, work on a prestigious project or, conversely, the creation of something completely new.
Again, declaring an interesting project at an interview is at least dishonest - almost no development manager will let a newbie plunge 100%, and he will be wary of an experienced specialist. Therefore, in order to avoid further demotivation, it is better to immediately clarify the terms and stages of entering the project, to voice the code rules and code style, if they exist.
And the project should be inspiring - employees need to see the benefits they bring. This does not mean that you need to continuously port software to new programming languages and change the DBMS, it means that the work should be useful and adequate in everything: from the content to the manual. If the work comes down to supporting the old code, digging into legacy and striving to make the installation file easier, the company can hardly count on the interest of the employees.
Well, about the benefits. Compare two CRM systems: the next “eternally pre-release” cloud that no one needs, but already got on the IT forum and was praised by a high official, and the system that is installed daily, which requires improvements in interesting implementations. From the point of view of work, the first one is for PR specialists, the second one is for developers and businessmen, they bring benefits and develop themselves. Everyone chooses for himself, we all chose the second.
Well, of course, nothing lasts forever. Employees who are not declarative, but really interested in the project and your software, may be interested in others. It is important to support such motivation with horizontal (and vertical) movements, periodic wage increases associated with employee success, and the ability to research and experiment.
Growth opportunity
Growth opportunity is a motivation to which the employer is rather careless. As a rule, a leader (if it’s not about a startup) always knows exactly where and after what period of time an employee grows, and most importantly, how high-quality. Therefore, you should not promise the impossible: discuss with the applicant why promotion is important to him. It happens that people get into the office “simpler”, get or beg for a job there, so that later they can start from that position in the company where they just lacked managerial experience. However, if your company has a promotion, the movement of employees is practiced, then this is an excellent motivation, which you need to remember and which is important to use one hundred percent.
Career- at first glance, the perfect motivator. But it’s not easy with him either. What is the most common career path? The manager looks, evaluates and decides to make the senior programmer a project manager. And it may happen that the employee is not happy with the appointment: he likes to write code, he wants to develop in this, and not have a grater with team leaders, all R&D and the commercial director in addition. By the way, such a situation is common in hospitals: often practicing doctors refuse more money in administrative posts - their calling is completely different. Yes, it is more difficult to ensure the competent growth of a technical specialist than to pile a bunch of managerial work on him, but with the right promotion you will get an almost always loyal (and most importantly - enthusiastic!) Professional.
A very enthusiastic professional
Intellectual motivation
Intellectual motivation is a type of developer motivation in which he receives bonuses associated with his personal professional development.
Education and training materials are a great motivation for almost any employee. The older a person becomes, the more conscious he is about learning, because in my head to replace the trigger “take a couple, drink a beer” a new one is formed “I’ll go to study, I’ll improve my skills, I’ll earn more.” Training can be implemented in several forms:
- pay for the student’s studies and thereby retain and grow a young specialist within the business;
- pay for the training of a specialist and conclude an agreement on compulsory training for N years;
- pay for specialist training without obligation, but strictly within the needs of the company;
- pay for books, magazines, subscriptions to paid professional resources or online courses;
- Allocate time for internal or online training during the working day;
- just let go to training without working out the missed time.
This thesis is always met with violent opposition: “I have not yet trained an employee for competitors!” There is a universal and very honest joke: “- And if we train him and he leaves? “You, chief, fear that we will not train him, but he will remain.”
Conferences, hackathons, mitaps- Another controversial method of motivation. It is absolutely true that at such events, companies shamelessly hang out employees, and employees travel with a resume on a flash drive. Here it’s a matter of the leader’s mind: if the conference is really profile and you know that from the speakers you can learn advanced solutions to existing problems, send and promise to implement all suitable ideas based on the results of the conference. If a programmer is eager for a Swift mitap, and you have an enterprise development in Delphi, perhaps you should slow it down and draw attention to a new interest. Perhaps the employee should download new non-standard tasks.
Mentoring and internal coaching- An excellent method of motivation, combining both training, and the development of oratory skills, and a demonstration of the leadership qualities of an employee. If you often recruit staff or take students to practice, form a pool of mentors who a) will be proud of their duties b) prepare a training plan and thereby re-evaluate their skills c) hear questions from newcomers d) switch to another business.
Remember the cartoon? A great story about a trainer and motivation.
If there’s nobody special to mentor and you are a stable small company (this is just the story of our RegionSoft Developer Studio), then develop internal trainers. They can tell salespeople and PR managers about new products and functions - this way you will be able to bring new products to the market much faster, and salespeople will be tech-up and stop fainting with a request to tell why the desktop is better than the cloud and how the SIP background works.
Motivation throughout
The motivation for everyone is different: businessmen want one thing, developers - another, technical support - a third. If you focus on everyone, then you can go crazy, and it is useless - from experience, you will not please everyone. So, you need to seek a balance and proceed from some universal principles. Everything was invented before us: the principles of humanity and mutual respect.
Recognition and gratitude is perhaps the main thing in the moral motivation of employees. Do not forget to thank employees for their work, successes, achievements - do it personally, at meetings, on the corporate portal. Although we are opponents of gamification, it’s just a great base for a game management system: employees can give each other virtual bonuses and exchange them for something (for example, for days off or days off).
Do not be afraid to thank in advance, even if 3% of the project is done - this motivates you to work. If the person is adequate, he will always try to justify the trust. Calling on the carpet is never too late, but you need to proactively motivate on time.
And be sure to talk with the staff. Take time to chat with them in an informal meeting or one-on-one (especially in difficult situations). So you protect yourself from lies, rumors and omissions, and at the same time you can get complete information about the problem.
Teamwork- Another controversial tool for motivation. It is difficult to build a team of introverts, each of whom considers himself an ultra pro. But nevertheless, it is the team that is the most effective organization of labor of developers, even if they are removed geographically. But this should be a team without lazy people and snitches.
By the way, sometimes they talk about the process, which can be called "motivational resuscitation", and that is why they use it only in emergency cases. This is a game of ambition and professional show-offs: competition and feelings of pressure on everyone are provoked inside the team. As a rule, this leads to the most productive work of everyone. But it’s important to understand how you then release the brakes and do not let the conflict with layoffs flare up.
Hi, Vasya, the doctor said that you can hear me, despite the fact that you look like a vegetable. Actually, I came to tell you that you can recover as much as you like, because Petya did everything well. He even found a bottleneck in your code and said that now everything should work twice as fast.
It's impossible! Urgently to the office! Run!
Little things decide. Allow employees to fulfill their cute or everyday habits at work, not to the detriment of others. For example, let enthusiasts chew on the workplace, brew mate in calabash, take short stretching breaks, or even run along the promenade for half an hour. These rituals are absolutely not costly for you, but will create additional comfort for employees cleaner than a capsule of sleep or a jus bar with passion fruit juice. Because it is their way of life and you respect it. And yes, do not forget about the social package - in the end, meals, part of the subscription to sports and VHI are not so expensive, and the employee already has something to lose. Important! Never reproach the staff for precisely these moments, do not be petty.
Take an interest in hobbies of employees- sometimes it is very useful for the company and they themselves are ready to demonstrate and apply the skill. For example, if your engineer has a blog on Habré, ask him to write in a corporate blog, show how his skill is useful to the company. It great boosts self-esteem. This approach makes you almost friends. But, if you see that a person moves away and seeks to distinguish between work and hobby, in no case do not penetrate into the personal sphere.
By the way, there are employees to whom no motivation applies and they destroy the team from the inside. Everything is obvious here: to part the sooner, the better and without any regret. Such people like to whine and put pressure on pity - do not give in, it will be uncomfortable for both employees and you.
In general, it may seem that motivation is such a series of freedoms and concessions on the principle of "just to keep." No, do not turn the work into anarchy and blackmail, especially since it’s easy to move out before that. It is important to agree - including on strict formalities: coding standards, code style, processes, development according to the ToR, reporting, formats for intermediate and final control, use of tools, etc. And if your introvert engineers do not like meetings, they should not be canceled, it is important that all participants in the process are a team and accept what they personally think is something extraneous.
In general, the main guarantee of the success of the company is respect and real interest in this success. At both sides.
We have a job
We have vacancies in Nizhny Novgorod (development, office) and in the regions (sensible salespeople, remote)
In Nizhny Novgorod:
Delphi programmer - work in the software solutions development department, participation in the development of standard solutions and projects, integration solutions.
Web-developer - work on the creation and support of web-services, SAAS-technologies, web-sites, integration projects.
Consider all, including young developers, who want to develop in the most battlefield conditions and practice under the guidance of a very experienced engineer. You will learn not just development, but also learn to compare it with business tasks - in general, enterprise hardcore.
Write a letter, send a resume and portfolio to contact@regionsoft.ru
By the way, there is one such thing:
1C Programmer- Work in the department of implementation of projects based on 1C: Enterprise 8, integration solutions.
In Russia:
We are looking for reliable and quick-witted salespeople on a remote location in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Moscow and other cities. Train, explain and support. In fact, you will have an interesting and stable job right from home. If you have technical experience, we will tear it off with your hands.
Write to contact@regionsoft.ru
Delphi programmer - work in the software solutions development department, participation in the development of standard solutions and projects, integration solutions.
Web-developer - work on the creation and support of web-services, SAAS-technologies, web-sites, integration projects.
Consider all, including young developers, who want to develop in the most battlefield conditions and practice under the guidance of a very experienced engineer. You will learn not just development, but also learn to compare it with business tasks - in general, enterprise hardcore.
Write a letter, send a resume and portfolio to contact@regionsoft.ru
By the way, there is one such thing:
1C Programmer- Work in the department of implementation of projects based on 1C: Enterprise 8, integration solutions.
In Russia:
We are looking for reliable and quick-witted salespeople on a remote location in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Moscow and other cities. Train, explain and support. In fact, you will have an interesting and stable job right from home. If you have technical experience, we will tear it off with your hands.
Write to contact@regionsoft.ru