33 ms·

Employees: looking for “the great boss who cares about their development”

173 points by ioanarebeca 11y ago

rikkus 11y ago
If you get a great boss, stay where you are. There's not much more important, IME.
- endemic 11y ago
  I've also seen assertions that employees don't leave companies, they leave supervisors.
  - jevanish 11y ago
    And the data backs up that statement... https://getlighthouse.com/blog/gallup-employee-engagement-survey-managers/ https://getlighthouse.com/blog/gallup-employee-engagement-su...
danieltillett 11y ago
The problem is this is a hard problem. Developing staff takes effort, time and resources, while a ping-pong table just requires money. Personally I am of the belief that work is work. Pay for what you expect and expect what you pay for.
- suttree 11y ago
  Totally agree, the hard problem in all of this isn't people analytics or people ops, it's people. Dealing with them is hard because we're all so different.
js8 11y ago
I think employees want control of their own life, more share in decision-making. Essentially, they want democracy, even if they can't articulate it. But in capitalist society, where the ownership of capital decides, this cannot happen. There are attempts to tiptoe around this problem with holacracies and Agile methodologies and similar concepts, but the main problem still remains.
- toyg 11y ago
  > where the ownership of capital decides Well, "the ownership of capital", in a lot of public companies, is basically an absentee landlord. So it's not entirely about ownership, but rather about management. You can have cooperatives that are de-facto feudal/tyrannical structures, and private companies that are de-facto democracies.
  - js8 11y ago
    I was talking about democracy with respect to employees. Even then, an important aspect of democracy is one person one vote (equality of access to power), which is untrue in public companies.
    - distracted828 11y ago
      Having been part of a technical organization that was a democracy: no. I'll take a monarchy over 5-hour meetings where nothing is decided and the room hates each other any day.
      - jahaja 11y ago
        So you believe a dysfunctional, albeit democratic, company is the goal?
- danieltillett 11y ago
  In theory workers co-operatives are this, but they have a habit of not doing so well in the real world. It is a really interesting question why this is the case. Why should a business owned by a capitalist for their own benefit be able to outcompete a workers co-operative?
  - tehbeard 11y ago
    Too many cooks spoil the broth? A single /small group of owners is more likely to reach a consensus quicker (no guarentee it'll be a good one, just quicker) than a larger group whose ideas/goals will be more diverse between each member, and more likely to be a compromise.
mbrock 11y ago
On the other hand, I don't want to be condescended to by managers that invite me to meetings about improving me, assessing my personality, helping me "grow." I want to help improve the product, and the most fundamental way to engage me with that is to ask me for input and take my ideas & concerns seriously. Just coffee and a chat every now and then is a great setting for that. No need for made-up agendas and bullet point lists and awkward quizzes.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  You basically want to be treated as an adult and your expertise respected and used - everything after this is just window dressing.
- taneq 11y ago
  On the third hand, if you have some kind of career goals, then you probably want to be making some kind of progress towards them. While it's not always possible to discuss such goals with your employer (eg. if your goal is "become the CTO" and your immediate manager's goal is also "become the CTO" then discussing this with them is likely to end poorly), it's important to at least let them know which direction you want to go in. At my last job, I was the primary fire-putter-outer on a number of fronts, and it was very disheartening watching new projects (that I'd put my hand up for) get handed off to others while I was busy fixing up the previous efforts of said others.
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    > At my last job, I was the primary fire-putter-outer on a number of fronts, and it was very disheartening watching new projects (that I'd put my hand up for) get handed off to others while I was busy fixing up the previous efforts of said others. I've seen this happen at an even bigger scale. The site I was part of was very successful, and was therefore completely unable to get any time or capital to do independent (non-contract) projects. And some of the projects we wanted to do were to improve our IP holdings within the space we were working! Meanwhile, the entire site that lost two contracts to rebids all got put on cool, independent, green-field projects. Completely bananas, and a symptom of a much larger problem of not rewarding success that eventually caused me to leave.
crispycrucnchy 11y ago
2-way street
a_lifters_life 11y ago
Good article, thanks. Employees want to feel fulfilled, and engaged in their work. A huge part of that starts with leaders, NOT managers. The world doesn't need managers, they need leaders.
- Spearchucker 11y ago
  The world needs both. Consider an expedition making its way through a jungle. There are a bunch of people hacking out a path with machetes. The manager makes sure the machetes are sharp, that everybody has enough food and water, and generally ensures that hacking continues unimpeded. The leader climbs a tree and makes sure the hacking is taking place in the right place. Back to your point - yes, you're partly right, but at its root it's an agency issue - Shareholder (owner) cannot or doesn't want to run the company, and so employs someone (an agent) to do it on his/her behalf. These agents are leadership roles (typically CEO, CFO, COO and CTO roles). However, where these appointed leaders don't have a large-enough financial stake in the organisation, they will do things to better their own financial interests, rather than the interests of the shareholders. That disconnect is called agency cost. A side effect is that these leaders become managers because bettering your own interests requires finesse (aka management). Sh*t, of course, flows downwards, and needs more managers.
officemonkey 11y ago
I'd believe Gallup if they weren't hacks and crooks. Five to ten years ago they had a big program that they peddled to organizations about Employee Engagement. They ended up paying the Justice Department 10.5 million dollars for crimes associated with contracting irregularities (aka bribes.) Looks like they're going to turn their "survey experience" to another part of employee training. It's really sad about Gallup. They've been riding on their good name that they developed 60 years ago. They're bad pollsters (they predicted McCain would win in 2008) and they're pretty blatantly partisan. Oh, as as mentioned above, crooked. That being said, yes, I'm sure that employees want "a great boss who cares about their development." I knew that years ago. I also know that this "story" is a puff piece to sell Gallup consulting services.
- feld 11y ago
  I worked for them for a short time due to an acquisition. They're crazy. They think they're solving the world's problems with polling data and they force you to be psycho-analyzed and have a plaque at your desk displaying your traits. Nuttier than squirrel turds.
  - mfoy_ 11y ago
    Is your psycho-pass looking a bit cloudy today?
    - stuxnet79 11y ago
      Lovely. A Psycho-Pass reference. I was wondering how quickly it would turn up :) FWIW my Psycho-Pass is pretty clear today. Can't wait for the english version of the movie to finally get released by Funimation.
  - 27182818284 11y ago
    It spreads too with things like http://www.strengthsfinder.com/ http://www.strengthsfinder.com/ which are amazingly short-sighted. You mention you like solving some math-like problems and then surprise your strengths are analysis and math-related things!
blfr 11y ago
All I want is work organization that doesn't get in the way of doing things that actually make money. It's truly unbelievable how even small companies adopted systems that impede sales and engineering, or worse make customers jump through hoops, because it makes life easier for some bean counter. That other stuff sounds like completely optional nice-to-haves.
- benzofuran 11y ago
  Having been through a similar knee-jerk of late, the important thing to remember (not that it helps) is that a publicly-traded company is a machine to make money. Not to make sales, not to make designs / widgets, but make money for the investors / owners. Once I wrapped my head around that it helped somewhat.
  - blfr 11y ago
    These aren't public companies and it's definitely costing owners money. But this isn't the point. The OP is about employees' satisfaction and inefficiencies like an inflexible invoicing, warehouse or order management system are incredibly frustrating and demotivating.
crimsonalucard 11y ago
This article is wrong. Why is it wrong? It talks about fulfilling work and a great boss as if it's the ONLY thing that employees look for. BY common sense what employees look for is a huge multitude of factors combined together part of which includes "Free lunches, more vacation time, latte machines --- and don't forget a ping pong table." It is stupid to discard all of these things as inconsequential when the employee himself states that these are things he wants. Engaging work is ONLY one factor out of many things that Employees declare that they want. What this article is trying and failing to address is the fact that most employees become dissatisfied with their work EVEN when employers try to satisfy all these needs and wants. It hints at the fact that there is something that the employee wants that he isn't fully aware of. What is this thing that he wants? Simple. The answer is: Career Growth. As humans our needs and wants are unlimited. It doesn't matter how many needs and wants are satisfied, the employee will eventually want more. Employees are looking for a continuous improvement in their well-being keyword being "continuous." The company that provides the employee with the fastest rate of unlimited growth is the company that retains the employee. The reality is, nothing can satisfy an employee if his wants and needs are unlimited. We all fight for this plateau of ultimate satisfaction that we will never reach. If you want to retain employees you must give employees the constant illusion that they are making progress towards this nonexistent plateau.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Not all jobs can offer growth. It's in everybody's best interests if you just move on from such jobs once you outgrow them. I spent two and a half years at my current job maintaining a legacy codebase. I looked for, and explored, growth opportunities at that job. In the end, I had to find them myself. Nobody at the company could really put in the effort it would have taken to keep me fulfilled, so I did it myself. I did lots of reading, experimenting, diving deep into fundamentals. I am a much, much better programmer than I was when I started the job. The company did not give that to me, it couldn't have given it to me. I eventually convinced the company to move off of the old legacy platform, that it was holding them back. I wanted to build them a new platform, but they decided to go with Magento. They're giving me a pretty sweet severance deal while I go out looking for a job. I firmly believe that anybody can grow at any job. It's nice when the company can help you do that, but your own growth is your responsibility, and nobody else's.
suttree 11y ago
My approach to this is giving companies a place to start these kinds of discussions with people - https://www.somewhere.com/for-companies https://www.somewhere.com/for-companies Not people analytics or people ops, but a way to talk about how you think about and approach work.
lhnz 11y ago
People want to be happy, it doesn't really matter how. Often they don't really know themselves. But they're quite sure it'll happen if only they were able to become more impressive. They will be happy once they are promoted, treated with respect, and given more money. A great boss feels like an ally, and often it's not the outcome that makes you happy but the hope of a better future. I think there are many people in an organisation that can alleviate this desire. It's not just managers offering personal development or leaders inspiring people to be bold, sometimes it is your friends that make you see a better perspective on how your life already is. I think it's important to think about how you can make others feel good, and not just how you feel about your own position.
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  People are also designed to never stay happy for long. We will always need more to be happy.
  - dozzie 11y ago
    This is where "professional growth" part turns out to be beneficial.
  - collyw 11y ago
    Where do you get that idea from? (There is more evidence for people evolving rather than being designed).
    - crimsonalucard 11y ago
      Designed by natural selection. People are naturally selected to never stay happy for long. To be satisfied and satiated means you no longer feel the drive to compete. There is no evolutionary advantage in a creature that does not want to compete.
      - collyw 11y ago
        "Design by natural selection" otherwise known as evolution. Design implies some kind of thought process before creation. There are plenty of counterintuitive examples of traits that have been selected by evolution. Dogs seems happy all the time and they have not been made extinct yet.
vfc1 11y ago
This is great stuff. Problem is there is the work the company needs you to do, and the work you want to do. Both of these change overtime, for example in software development when the lifecycle of the project advances. As the project reaches maintenance mode, you can no longer design the architecture and implement things from scratch, its already done. So the work the company needs you to do now is very different. Then there is your personal preferences that change over time. So the work you want to do and the one the company wants you to do will probably only overlap for a short period of time.
- dozzie 11y ago
  > So the work you want to do and the one the company wants you to do will probably only overlap for a short period of time. Similarly, there's only short period of overlapping of the work you want to do and the work doing which you would grow. I see too often programmers jumping around abandoning their half-written application or library once it is somewhat working, never learning what semantic versioning is about, what it takes to write good documentation, or how architecture works. I've seen people proud of having an opportunity to maintain (note: not to develop, just to maintain) big products. Such product was doing amazing things and was well-written, of course, but would you think you could take pride of maintaining somebody else's work?
  - philipov 11y ago
    I can easily imagine taking pride in maintaining a well-written project doing amazing things. I believe most people unhappy with maintaining someone else's work are dealing with neither, and are furthermore discouraged from doing anything to make it better. Just complete the tickets as quickly as possible, and keep your head low.
    - dozzie 11y ago
      Yes, but you wouldn't know in advance that this codebase you're going to be assigned to is well-written, or that it does amazing things (unless you're in its target users group or know the target industry already). If somebody offered you a job to merely maintain an old, gigantic codebase, I don't think your first thought would be "wow, I'm going to learn so much from this!", and there probably wouldn't be any way you could assess the codebase quality before accepting the offer so you could end up thinking that eventually. This is how things that you want and that could help you grow can be vastly different.
svendlarssen 11y ago
I currently work for a small company in Denmark. The moment I decided to sign a contract with the firm, all my friends look at me and wondered: why? The answer was simple: I chose a boss, not an employer.
andrew950 11y ago
Couldn't agree more. More and more people should focus on finding the right boss instead of employer.
greggarious 11y ago
I'd also throw in "and treats them with respect" Otherwise you end up with someone who has their entire identity wrapped up in their work, which can be stressful no matter how much they "care about professional development"
quaffapint 11y ago
I want to write and learn good coding for myself. While the boss would be just as happy with crappy code as good code, as long as he sees that project percentage increase, it just makes me happier to do it right as much as possible, even if I spend my own time on it.
- distracted828 11y ago
  Here is something I don't understand: How does one effectively deliver on a project while writing crappy code? Doesn't trying to do that result in the codebase becoming so confusing that you don't know how to add things to it without breaking other things?
  - Mikerad1979 11y ago
    When writing crappy code you are either not thinking long term at all, or you are just "kicking the can down the road", in that you'll pay for it later when there isn't a time crunch. Not that I've ever done something like that...
    - distracted828 11y ago
      What I mean is, how do you keep it from catching up with you a week later?
  - scarmig 11y ago
    You write crappy code to meet unrealistic deadlines, you get promoted, hand off shitty code to someone else who is viewed as a low performer because they were too busy writing good code. It's not actually that clear cut (it's more like an average performers who write shitty code quickly will be rewarded over an average performer writing solid code less quickly), but code quality isn't legible to management and HR, who control resource allocation. Even a line manager knowledgeable about the code base has incentives to lead a team that produces shitty code now instead of good code later.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    Bah. That's later on. Right now, we're delivering at a speedy pace. The time we save now can be used later. Hell, I might not even be here later, so I won't have to care.
switch007 11y ago
I company I worked at contracted a company to do "scientific" questionnaires of staff, so management knew which kind of personalities people had, what they wanted out of a job etc. We had to sit through an hour presentation, being told what makes us happy. Everyone was forced to do the questionnaire and afterwards we had an opportunity to discuss the results with the company and our managers. All through the process, management stressed how much they were interested in how we can grow, how we can do better in the organisation and so on. I asked: why don't just sit down with people over a coffee and ask them? I got blank stares. You could tell they thought we were all too stupid to know what we wanted and that nothing valuable could come out of that process. Completely idiotic.
- kabdib 11y ago
  Heh. Beats having the company hire a psychologist to talk to each staff member. They wanted to know why morale was so low. I was polite and kept to topics involving work. I left about two months after that for a much better environment.
  - VikingCoder 11y ago
    What would ya say ya do here?
    - praveenster 11y ago
      Meet Bob and Bob.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Honestly, it is because they don't want to help. They want the appearance of helping without the effort involved. All I want is to work remotely permanently but they insist it isn't what i want and offer me more money.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    Wow. In the companies I've worked for, "more money" seems to be the only motivator they couldn't seem to come up with. Mind switching jobs?
rbanffy 11y ago
I think there may be some confusion between satisfaction through perks with satisfaction through doing great work. I require certain perks - sufficient time off with my family, time to educate myself further, a reasonably stocked cafeteria, quiet spaces - but I also need to feel satisfied by knowing the work I do is important - and what is "important" to me may not be important to anyone else and what is important to me now was not important ten years ago and will not be important ten years from now.
- ricksplat 11y ago
  > satisfaction through doing great work The org psych term for this is "engagement". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_engagement Operationally "satisfaction" is an all encompassing term, that doesn't really relate to specific factors. So while you might be "satisfied" with your bank manager, you may not want to marry her. Engagement speaks of something more: A satisfaction (if you will) derived specifically from doing your work. As an interesting aside, engagement is theoretically the other side of the coin of "burnout" and is physiologically thought to operate on the same mechanisms as "stress" (or "eustress" to distinguish it positively). A "satisfied" state relates more to a relaxed, unstressed, disengaged mentality. Favourite example from one of my textbooks was a lion chasing a gazelle: Both are physiologically experiencing the same thing, but the gazelle is "stressed" whereas the lion is "engaged".
  - ricksplat 11y ago
    Actually you could in fact take this a step further into behavioral theory, if you consider workplace satisfaction derived from doing work versus other sources (football tables etc). It could be said that too much satisfaction from the "other" sources "extinguishes" (or overrides) the satisfaction derived from doing the work. Kind of like that classic experiment of the rat who is given a regular dosage of cocaine and soon starts to neglect any other activities beyond the consumption of cocaine.
- jevanish 11y ago
  You hit on something that researchers discovered in the 60s. Turns out some things you need to be ok, but they don't make you happy. If you don't have them, they make you unhappy. They're called "Hygiene Factors". Then there's a whole set of things that if you have them, they make you happy, but the absence doesn't make you unhappy. These are called "Motivators". More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory
metasean 11y ago
... please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The original title is, "Employee Satisfaction Doesn't Matter".
- hepta 11y ago
  IMO the original title is linkbait, even if not intended as such. Once you define "satisfaction" it makes more sense.
- ioanarebeca 11y ago
  Well, I didn't use the original title because my belief is that it is misleading. Employee satisfaction does matter, but it depends how you define it - that was my take from the story. Imho quoting an actual fact resulting from their study was the objective solution compared to a debatable title meant to attract eyeballs.
ricksplat 11y ago
Employee satisfaction does matter to a point, as a "hygiene factor" - but yes the author is right, it's not to be confused with "engagement".
jonathanwallace 11y ago
Stated in another way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1UayuSXBcg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1UayuSXBcg.
TheAndruu 11y ago
I agree with the point, and appreciate the article stating in words what I've felt. If a recruiter tries to push the 'game room and free snacks' angle, I immediately grow concerned that the employer is out of touch with employees and thinks that this leads to happiness. Everyone really wants to feel their work is appreciated.
Mc_Big_G 11y ago
Giving employees a reasonable amount of vacation is bad? Fuck you
oniMaker 11y ago
I'd just like to note that this article has given us a fine new phrase to put on the shelf of useful business culture metaphors, right next to bike-shedding and dog-fooding. Bear-feeding!
ryandrake 11y ago
Funny thing missing from this thread: Money. Doesn't anyone work for money anymore? You know, that stuff that allows you to survive day to day? I guess it just sounds better to say that you go to work to "change the world" or "fulfill a lifelong passion" or "grow your career". Saying you're in it for money is crass. If I want personal fulfillment or engaging projects or ping pong, I can do that outside of work, AND I get to pick and choose what I want to do. Would you really do what you do for 1/3 of your life if you didn't receive compensation for that time?
- st3v3r 11y ago
  Because after a while, more money doesn't motivate. Most of us are making levels of money where an extra $10k or so isn't really going to make as much of a difference in your day to day life as some of these other things.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    "Most" of us? Maybe if most of us are execs and senior VPs. For the rest of us $10K is a big chunk of change--a significant percentage of compensation. $10K is about $500/mo after taxes, which could, for example, mean being able to afford to live in a much better neighborhood or send your kids to a better school.
    - jevanish 11y ago
      There's a lot of studies that show that money is a poor motivator long term once you pass the essentials for life (which admittedly in the Valley is higher than many other places). As important, some of those studies show that especially in roles requiring creativity (like engineering, design, etc) it actually negatively effects motivation and output. See Dan Pink's Drive for a good summary of many of this research, which has led to his Autonomy - Mastery - Purpose framework that is part of his more well-known TED Talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation Coincidentally, those 3 pieces of his framework hit on many of the aspects of this thread and especially the Gallup research on the desire for goals and growth.
rocky1138 11y ago
This is a great opinion piece. Where's the sources for the data behind the rationale?
- __derek__ 11y ago
  There isn't really any. This is the Chairman and CEO wanting to opine, probably to encourage sales[1]: > What's more, companies should have all of their employees take the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment and make sure they build programs for each of those employees to get the most of their innate talents and strengths at work. [1] From "Millions of Bad Managers Are Killing America's Growth" (linked to from the OP's article): http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/169208/millions-bad-managers-killing-america-growth.aspx http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/169208/millions-bad-m...
kchoudhu 11y ago
I don't want my boss to look out for my development -- I want my boss to make sure that I have a clear political field to advance my technical agenda. Do that, and I'll take care of my personal development.
- deelowe 11y ago
  Those are one in the same. Development could be: - clearing roadblocks - training and coaching - assigning work - forcing a change
6stringmerc 11y ago
The term "Glass Ceiling" was created to help discuss the difficulties for advancement by women and minority / upwardly mobile individuals in the workplace. I'd venture a guess HN is likely stratified to a predominately middle-aged or younger demographic (US), albeit with a significant number of professionals with decades of longevity with technology. So, not the primary target of the concept, but a group that definitely has grown up with the concept being discussed as a social/professional issue. However, outside of technology fields, from personal experience and numerous discussions with peers (anecdotes), I think I finally hit the right term to describe a different 'advancement' conundrum: "The Grey Ceiling." To put the idea in blunt terms, there's no room for advancement and career development when the prior generation(s) are stuck in the workforce for whatever reason(s) - lack of retirement savings, dependent adult children or being part of the 'Sandwhich Generation' or significant debt accumulated over the years. The Grey Ceiling has no incentive to assist up and coming professionals to grow, to increase their income, or become peers in the corporate environment. The Gray Ceiling sees youth as a threat - insofar as if a younger worker gets a raise it's less monies available for themselves. The Gray Ceiling is not a 'guidebook' or 'conspiracy' to keep the younger professionals from advancing, but rather simply a result of self-interest amongst a cohort of people. Of course there are dozens of firms that take on mentorship and development type programs. Like becoming an i-Banking Analyst. Of course there's light at the end of the 80 hour work week tunnel!
- datr 11y ago
  The Hays Journal has a piece about this [1]. The article starts on page 34. [1] http://www.hays-journal.com/issue8/ http://www.hays-journal.com/issue8/
- jevanish 11y ago
  That's an interesting term, "Grey Ceiling." It makes a lot of sense though. In the "Great Recession" a similar effect happened when many who lost their jobs took new jobs that they were overqualified for. This blocked out entry level workers and recent graduates, especially when other companies also adopted hiring freezes. A related situation can also be if a company stops growing. If you're not growing then the company doesn't have new opportunities for people to take on. There's few promotions then and work can be "maintenance mode" (as an early thread above talks about with engineers) for everyone, thus creating boredom and career stagnation.
draw_down 11y ago
I don't disagree, who could. But this type of stuff is usually nothing more than a justification for taking away the free lunch, without actually doing anything about making sure people have meaningful and fulfilling work. You know, we're getting serious by taking away the free Cheez-Its... and making your boss ride your ass to work 12 hour days.
pasquinelli 11y ago
i totally agree that the work you do is the most important factor in your satisfaction with the work you do, and that free lunches and other perks are superficial. that said, there're some interesting thoughts formulated in this. "What they want most is a great boss who cares about their development, and a company that focuses on and develops their strengths." what people care about is their own development, the boss and the company are beside the point. the boss and the company are how the worker makes their money, the worker is how the boss and company make theirs. of course, if their interests align in other ways the situation will be more attractive. "A kind gesture by a camper ruins the natural instincts and therefore the lives of these cool bears." this metaphor... i'm not sure about this metaphor. i see that workers are bears and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are free lunches and vacations, but i'm not sure i see what the workers' natural instincts are. making their boss money? and if they no longer make their bosses money, their cool lives are ruined? wouldn't it be the bosses' nice situation that's been ruined then? "But what is the right culture? More importantly: What is a winning culture?" winning's more important that rightness. interesting. "Human beings are not looking for company-bought goodies -- they are looking for meaningful, fulfilling work." yes, this, completely. i agree with that, but i don't think what he thinks that means is what i would think that means.
st3v3r 11y ago
It's pretty simple: If they don't care about me, why should I care about their product? I'll still come in and do the job, but why should I put in extra effort?
- jotux 11y ago
  Related: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140508133157.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140508133157.h...
zenplatypus 11y ago
I think this touches the odd phenomenon of our hedonic preferences. In a given moment there are probably a majority of people in corporate, public ("money making machines" as I believe someone referred to them as) who would state that they desire the increased vacation, provided meals, ping pong table version of happiness at work and truly believe that would make them better off. And it likely would to some degree, but as has been shown in economics over and over, outside of basic needs we have a remarkable ability to normalize our happiness back to a baseline level despite increases in material access (but we still crave). Thus this may put an employer in an odd dilemma if deciding where to place their "happiness" efforts for their employees. Employees would support "perks" and "perks" are easy. But to sustainably become a motivating and development-focused employer you need a ton of buy-in from likely apathetic managers, you need a top-down level of emotional maturity and management skill that is rarely seen in companies of scale, and you need to have the ability to operate in a longer term horizon (because payoffs and results take time) which few companies and leaders do. I guess the 'so what' from this is that we should take it upon ourselves to move beyond visceral preferences to act in our (and others') real best self-interest.
jevanish 11y ago
It's kind of amazing how often this is getting talked about, but little seems to be changing. A few examples: 1) Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2015 -> http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/internet-trends-v1 http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/internet-trends-v1 2) Gallup, here and in some of their research -> http://www.gallup.com/services/182138/state-american-manager.aspx http://www.gallup.com/services/182138/state-american-manager... 3) Deloitte's latest study on Millennials -> https://getlighthouse.com/blog/deloitte-survey-millennials-2016-takeaways/ https://getlighthouse.com/blog/deloitte-survey-millennials-2... 4) Reid Hoffman's book, The Alliance -> http://www.slideshare.net/reidhoffman/the-alliance-a-visual-summary http://www.slideshare.net/reidhoffman/the-alliance-a-visual-... Companies don't reward managers for caring about people's development, so it won't change until companies start to.
GoodJokes 11y ago
If you are depending on anyone else except yourself for development than I have a thing or two to tell you about our current form of capitalism.

173 points by ioanarebeca 11y ago

rikkus 11y ago

If you get a great boss, stay where you are. There's not much more important, IME.

endemic 11y ago
I've also seen assertions that employees don't leave companies, they leave supervisors.
- jevanish 11y ago
  And the data backs up that statement... https://getlighthouse.com/blog/gallup-employee-engagement-survey-managers/ https://getlighthouse.com/blog/gallup-employee-engagement-su...

danieltillett 11y ago

The problem is this is a hard problem. Developing staff takes effort, time and resources, while a ping-pong table just requires money. Personally I am of the belief that work is work. Pay for what you expect and expect what you pay for.

suttree 11y ago
Totally agree, the hard problem in all of this isn't people analytics or people ops, it's people. Dealing with them is hard because we're all so different.

js8 11y ago

I think employees want control of their own life, more share in decision-making. Essentially, they want democracy, even if they can't articulate it. But in capitalist society, where the ownership of capital decides, this cannot happen. There are attempts to tiptoe around this problem with holacracies and Agile methodologies and similar concepts, but the main problem still remains.

toyg 11y ago
> where the ownership of capital decides Well, "the ownership of capital", in a lot of public companies, is basically an absentee landlord. So it's not entirely about ownership, but rather about management. You can have cooperatives that are de-facto feudal/tyrannical structures, and private companies that are de-facto democracies.
- js8 11y ago
  I was talking about democracy with respect to employees. Even then, an important aspect of democracy is one person one vote (equality of access to power), which is untrue in public companies.
  - distracted828 11y ago
    Having been part of a technical organization that was a democracy: no. I'll take a monarchy over 5-hour meetings where nothing is decided and the room hates each other any day.
    - jahaja 11y ago
      So you believe a dysfunctional, albeit democratic, company is the goal?
danieltillett 11y ago
In theory workers co-operatives are this, but they have a habit of not doing so well in the real world. It is a really interesting question why this is the case. Why should a business owned by a capitalist for their own benefit be able to outcompete a workers co-operative?
- tehbeard 11y ago
  Too many cooks spoil the broth? A single /small group of owners is more likely to reach a consensus quicker (no guarentee it'll be a good one, just quicker) than a larger group whose ideas/goals will be more diverse between each member, and more likely to be a compromise.

mbrock 11y ago

On the other hand, I don't want to be condescended to by managers that invite me to meetings about improving me, assessing my personality, helping me "grow." I want to help improve the product, and the most fundamental way to engage me with that is to ask me for input and take my ideas & concerns seriously. Just coffee and a chat every now and then is a great setting for that. No need for made-up agendas and bullet point lists and awkward quizzes.

danieltillett 11y ago
You basically want to be treated as an adult and your expertise respected and used - everything after this is just window dressing.
taneq 11y ago
On the third hand, if you have some kind of career goals, then you probably want to be making some kind of progress towards them. While it's not always possible to discuss such goals with your employer (eg. if your goal is "become the CTO" and your immediate manager's goal is also "become the CTO" then discussing this with them is likely to end poorly), it's important to at least let them know which direction you want to go in. At my last job, I was the primary fire-putter-outer on a number of fronts, and it was very disheartening watching new projects (that I'd put my hand up for) get handed off to others while I was busy fixing up the previous efforts of said others.
- jdmichal 11y ago
  > At my last job, I was the primary fire-putter-outer on a number of fronts, and it was very disheartening watching new projects (that I'd put my hand up for) get handed off to others while I was busy fixing up the previous efforts of said others. I've seen this happen at an even bigger scale. The site I was part of was very successful, and was therefore completely unable to get any time or capital to do independent (non-contract) projects. And some of the projects we wanted to do were to improve our IP holdings within the space we were working! Meanwhile, the entire site that lost two contracts to rebids all got put on cool, independent, green-field projects. Completely bananas, and a symptom of a much larger problem of not rewarding success that eventually caused me to leave.

crispycrucnchy 11y ago

2-way street

a_lifters_life 11y ago

Good article, thanks. Employees want to feel fulfilled, and engaged in their work. A huge part of that starts with leaders, NOT managers. The world doesn't need managers, they need leaders.

Spearchucker 11y ago
The world needs both. Consider an expedition making its way through a jungle. There are a bunch of people hacking out a path with machetes. The manager makes sure the machetes are sharp, that everybody has enough food and water, and generally ensures that hacking continues unimpeded. The leader climbs a tree and makes sure the hacking is taking place in the right place. Back to your point - yes, you're partly right, but at its root it's an agency issue - Shareholder (owner) cannot or doesn't want to run the company, and so employs someone (an agent) to do it on his/her behalf. These agents are leadership roles (typically CEO, CFO, COO and CTO roles). However, where these appointed leaders don't have a large-enough financial stake in the organisation, they will do things to better their own financial interests, rather than the interests of the shareholders. That disconnect is called agency cost. A side effect is that these leaders become managers because bettering your own interests requires finesse (aka management). Sh*t, of course, flows downwards, and needs more managers.

officemonkey 11y ago

I'd believe Gallup if they weren't hacks and crooks. Five to ten years ago they had a big program that they peddled to organizations about Employee Engagement. They ended up paying the Justice Department 10.5 million dollars for crimes associated with contracting irregularities (aka bribes.) Looks like they're going to turn their "survey experience" to another part of employee training. It's really sad about Gallup. They've been riding on their good name that they developed 60 years ago. They're bad pollsters (they predicted McCain would win in 2008) and they're pretty blatantly partisan. Oh, as as mentioned above, crooked. That being said, yes, I'm sure that employees want "a great boss who cares about their development." I knew that years ago. I also know that this "story" is a puff piece to sell Gallup consulting services.

feld 11y ago
I worked for them for a short time due to an acquisition. They're crazy. They think they're solving the world's problems with polling data and they force you to be psycho-analyzed and have a plaque at your desk displaying your traits. Nuttier than squirrel turds.
- mfoy_ 11y ago
  Is your psycho-pass looking a bit cloudy today?
  - stuxnet79 11y ago
    Lovely. A Psycho-Pass reference. I was wondering how quickly it would turn up :) FWIW my Psycho-Pass is pretty clear today. Can't wait for the english version of the movie to finally get released by Funimation.
- 27182818284 11y ago
  It spreads too with things like http://www.strengthsfinder.com/ http://www.strengthsfinder.com/ which are amazingly short-sighted. You mention you like solving some math-like problems and then surprise your strengths are analysis and math-related things!

blfr 11y ago

All I want is work organization that doesn't get in the way of doing things that actually make money. It's truly unbelievable how even small companies adopted systems that impede sales and engineering, or worse make customers jump through hoops, because it makes life easier for some bean counter. That other stuff sounds like completely optional nice-to-haves.

benzofuran 11y ago
Having been through a similar knee-jerk of late, the important thing to remember (not that it helps) is that a publicly-traded company is a machine to make money. Not to make sales, not to make designs / widgets, but make money for the investors / owners. Once I wrapped my head around that it helped somewhat.
- blfr 11y ago
  These aren't public companies and it's definitely costing owners money. But this isn't the point. The OP is about employees' satisfaction and inefficiencies like an inflexible invoicing, warehouse or order management system are incredibly frustrating and demotivating.

crimsonalucard 11y ago

This article is wrong. Why is it wrong? It talks about fulfilling work and a great boss as if it's the ONLY thing that employees look for. BY common sense what employees look for is a huge multitude of factors combined together part of which includes "Free lunches, more vacation time, latte machines --- and don't forget a ping pong table." It is stupid to discard all of these things as inconsequential when the employee himself states that these are things he wants. Engaging work is ONLY one factor out of many things that Employees declare that they want. What this article is trying and failing to address is the fact that most employees become dissatisfied with their work EVEN when employers try to satisfy all these needs and wants. It hints at the fact that there is something that the employee wants that he isn't fully aware of. What is this thing that he wants? Simple. The answer is: Career Growth. As humans our needs and wants are unlimited. It doesn't matter how many needs and wants are satisfied, the employee will eventually want more. Employees are looking for a continuous improvement in their well-being keyword being "continuous." The company that provides the employee with the fastest rate of unlimited growth is the company that retains the employee. The reality is, nothing can satisfy an employee if his wants and needs are unlimited. We all fight for this plateau of ultimate satisfaction that we will never reach. If you want to retain employees you must give employees the constant illusion that they are making progress towards this nonexistent plateau.

vinceguidry 11y ago
Not all jobs can offer growth. It's in everybody's best interests if you just move on from such jobs once you outgrow them. I spent two and a half years at my current job maintaining a legacy codebase. I looked for, and explored, growth opportunities at that job. In the end, I had to find them myself. Nobody at the company could really put in the effort it would have taken to keep me fulfilled, so I did it myself. I did lots of reading, experimenting, diving deep into fundamentals. I am a much, much better programmer than I was when I started the job. The company did not give that to me, it couldn't have given it to me. I eventually convinced the company to move off of the old legacy platform, that it was holding them back. I wanted to build them a new platform, but they decided to go with Magento. They're giving me a pretty sweet severance deal while I go out looking for a job. I firmly believe that anybody can grow at any job. It's nice when the company can help you do that, but your own growth is your responsibility, and nobody else's.

suttree 11y ago

My approach to this is giving companies a place to start these kinds of discussions with people - https://www.somewhere.com/for-companies https://www.somewhere.com/for-companies Not people analytics or people ops, but a way to talk about how you think about and approach work.

lhnz 11y ago

People want to be happy, it doesn't really matter how. Often they don't really know themselves. But they're quite sure it'll happen if only they were able to become more impressive. They will be happy once they are promoted, treated with respect, and given more money. A great boss feels like an ally, and often it's not the outcome that makes you happy but the hope of a better future. I think there are many people in an organisation that can alleviate this desire. It's not just managers offering personal development or leaders inspiring people to be bold, sometimes it is your friends that make you see a better perspective on how your life already is. I think it's important to think about how you can make others feel good, and not just how you feel about your own position.

crimsonalucard 11y ago
People are also designed to never stay happy for long. We will always need more to be happy.
- dozzie 11y ago
  This is where "professional growth" part turns out to be beneficial.
- collyw 11y ago
  Where do you get that idea from? (There is more evidence for people evolving rather than being designed).
  - crimsonalucard 11y ago
    Designed by natural selection. People are naturally selected to never stay happy for long. To be satisfied and satiated means you no longer feel the drive to compete. There is no evolutionary advantage in a creature that does not want to compete.
    - collyw 11y ago
      "Design by natural selection" otherwise known as evolution. Design implies some kind of thought process before creation. There are plenty of counterintuitive examples of traits that have been selected by evolution. Dogs seems happy all the time and they have not been made extinct yet.

vfc1 11y ago

This is great stuff. Problem is there is the work the company needs you to do, and the work you want to do. Both of these change overtime, for example in software development when the lifecycle of the project advances. As the project reaches maintenance mode, you can no longer design the architecture and implement things from scratch, its already done. So the work the company needs you to do now is very different. Then there is your personal preferences that change over time. So the work you want to do and the one the company wants you to do will probably only overlap for a short period of time.

dozzie 11y ago
> So the work you want to do and the one the company wants you to do will probably only overlap for a short period of time. Similarly, there's only short period of overlapping of the work you want to do and the work doing which you would grow. I see too often programmers jumping around abandoning their half-written application or library once it is somewhat working, never learning what semantic versioning is about, what it takes to write good documentation, or how architecture works. I've seen people proud of having an opportunity to maintain (note: not to develop, just to maintain) big products. Such product was doing amazing things and was well-written, of course, but would you think you could take pride of maintaining somebody else's work?
- philipov 11y ago
  I can easily imagine taking pride in maintaining a well-written project doing amazing things. I believe most people unhappy with maintaining someone else's work are dealing with neither, and are furthermore discouraged from doing anything to make it better. Just complete the tickets as quickly as possible, and keep your head low.
  - dozzie 11y ago
    Yes, but you wouldn't know in advance that this codebase you're going to be assigned to is well-written, or that it does amazing things (unless you're in its target users group or know the target industry already). If somebody offered you a job to merely maintain an old, gigantic codebase, I don't think your first thought would be "wow, I'm going to learn so much from this!", and there probably wouldn't be any way you could assess the codebase quality before accepting the offer so you could end up thinking that eventually. This is how things that you want and that could help you grow can be vastly different.

svendlarssen 11y ago

I currently work for a small company in Denmark. The moment I decided to sign a contract with the firm, all my friends look at me and wondered: why? The answer was simple: I chose a boss, not an employer.

andrew950 11y ago

Couldn't agree more. More and more people should focus on finding the right boss instead of employer.

greggarious 11y ago

I'd also throw in "and treats them with respect" Otherwise you end up with someone who has their entire identity wrapped up in their work, which can be stressful no matter how much they "care about professional development"

quaffapint 11y ago

I want to write and learn good coding for myself. While the boss would be just as happy with crappy code as good code, as long as he sees that project percentage increase, it just makes me happier to do it right as much as possible, even if I spend my own time on it.

distracted828 11y ago
Here is something I don't understand: How does one effectively deliver on a project while writing crappy code? Doesn't trying to do that result in the codebase becoming so confusing that you don't know how to add things to it without breaking other things?
- Mikerad1979 11y ago
  When writing crappy code you are either not thinking long term at all, or you are just "kicking the can down the road", in that you'll pay for it later when there isn't a time crunch. Not that I've ever done something like that...
  - distracted828 11y ago
    What I mean is, how do you keep it from catching up with you a week later?
- scarmig 11y ago
  You write crappy code to meet unrealistic deadlines, you get promoted, hand off shitty code to someone else who is viewed as a low performer because they were too busy writing good code. It's not actually that clear cut (it's more like an average performers who write shitty code quickly will be rewarded over an average performer writing solid code less quickly), but code quality isn't legible to management and HR, who control resource allocation. Even a line manager knowledgeable about the code base has incentives to lead a team that produces shitty code now instead of good code later.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  Bah. That's later on. Right now, we're delivering at a speedy pace. The time we save now can be used later. Hell, I might not even be here later, so I won't have to care.

switch007 11y ago

I company I worked at contracted a company to do "scientific" questionnaires of staff, so management knew which kind of personalities people had, what they wanted out of a job etc. We had to sit through an hour presentation, being told what makes us happy. Everyone was forced to do the questionnaire and afterwards we had an opportunity to discuss the results with the company and our managers. All through the process, management stressed how much they were interested in how we can grow, how we can do better in the organisation and so on. I asked: why don't just sit down with people over a coffee and ask them? I got blank stares. You could tell they thought we were all too stupid to know what we wanted and that nothing valuable could come out of that process. Completely idiotic.

kabdib 11y ago
Heh. Beats having the company hire a psychologist to talk to each staff member. They wanted to know why morale was so low. I was polite and kept to topics involving work. I left about two months after that for a much better environment.
- VikingCoder 11y ago
  What would ya say ya do here?
  - praveenster 11y ago
    Meet Bob and Bob.
fweespeech 11y ago
Honestly, it is because they don't want to help. They want the appearance of helping without the effort involved. All I want is to work remotely permanently but they insist it isn't what i want and offer me more money.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  Wow. In the companies I've worked for, "more money" seems to be the only motivator they couldn't seem to come up with. Mind switching jobs?

rbanffy 11y ago

I think there may be some confusion between satisfaction through perks with satisfaction through doing great work. I require certain perks - sufficient time off with my family, time to educate myself further, a reasonably stocked cafeteria, quiet spaces - but I also need to feel satisfied by knowing the work I do is important - and what is "important" to me may not be important to anyone else and what is important to me now was not important ten years ago and will not be important ten years from now.

ricksplat 11y ago
> satisfaction through doing great work The org psych term for this is "engagement". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_engagement Operationally "satisfaction" is an all encompassing term, that doesn't really relate to specific factors. So while you might be "satisfied" with your bank manager, you may not want to marry her. Engagement speaks of something more: A satisfaction (if you will) derived specifically from doing your work. As an interesting aside, engagement is theoretically the other side of the coin of "burnout" and is physiologically thought to operate on the same mechanisms as "stress" (or "eustress" to distinguish it positively). A "satisfied" state relates more to a relaxed, unstressed, disengaged mentality. Favourite example from one of my textbooks was a lion chasing a gazelle: Both are physiologically experiencing the same thing, but the gazelle is "stressed" whereas the lion is "engaged".
- ricksplat 11y ago
  Actually you could in fact take this a step further into behavioral theory, if you consider workplace satisfaction derived from doing work versus other sources (football tables etc). It could be said that too much satisfaction from the "other" sources "extinguishes" (or overrides) the satisfaction derived from doing the work. Kind of like that classic experiment of the rat who is given a regular dosage of cocaine and soon starts to neglect any other activities beyond the consumption of cocaine.
jevanish 11y ago
You hit on something that researchers discovered in the 60s. Turns out some things you need to be ok, but they don't make you happy. If you don't have them, they make you unhappy. They're called "Hygiene Factors". Then there's a whole set of things that if you have them, they make you happy, but the absence doesn't make you unhappy. These are called "Motivators". More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory

metasean 11y ago

... please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The original title is, "Employee Satisfaction Doesn't Matter".

hepta 11y ago
IMO the original title is linkbait, even if not intended as such. Once you define "satisfaction" it makes more sense.
ioanarebeca 11y ago
Well, I didn't use the original title because my belief is that it is misleading. Employee satisfaction does matter, but it depends how you define it - that was my take from the story. Imho quoting an actual fact resulting from their study was the objective solution compared to a debatable title meant to attract eyeballs.

ricksplat 11y ago

Employee satisfaction does matter to a point, as a "hygiene factor" - but yes the author is right, it's not to be confused with "engagement".

jonathanwallace 11y ago

Stated in another way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1UayuSXBcg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1UayuSXBcg.

TheAndruu 11y ago

I agree with the point, and appreciate the article stating in words what I've felt. If a recruiter tries to push the 'game room and free snacks' angle, I immediately grow concerned that the employer is out of touch with employees and thinks that this leads to happiness. Everyone really wants to feel their work is appreciated.

Mc_Big_G 11y ago

Giving employees a reasonable amount of vacation is bad? Fuck you

oniMaker 11y ago

I'd just like to note that this article has given us a fine new phrase to put on the shelf of useful business culture metaphors, right next to bike-shedding and dog-fooding. Bear-feeding!

ryandrake 11y ago

Funny thing missing from this thread: Money. Doesn't anyone work for money anymore? You know, that stuff that allows you to survive day to day? I guess it just sounds better to say that you go to work to "change the world" or "fulfill a lifelong passion" or "grow your career". Saying you're in it for money is crass. If I want personal fulfillment or engaging projects or ping pong, I can do that outside of work, AND I get to pick and choose what I want to do. Would you really do what you do for 1/3 of your life if you didn't receive compensation for that time?

st3v3r 11y ago
Because after a while, more money doesn't motivate. Most of us are making levels of money where an extra $10k or so isn't really going to make as much of a difference in your day to day life as some of these other things.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  "Most" of us? Maybe if most of us are execs and senior VPs. For the rest of us $10K is a big chunk of change--a significant percentage of compensation. $10K is about $500/mo after taxes, which could, for example, mean being able to afford to live in a much better neighborhood or send your kids to a better school.
  - jevanish 11y ago
    There's a lot of studies that show that money is a poor motivator long term once you pass the essentials for life (which admittedly in the Valley is higher than many other places). As important, some of those studies show that especially in roles requiring creativity (like engineering, design, etc) it actually negatively effects motivation and output. See Dan Pink's Drive for a good summary of many of this research, which has led to his Autonomy - Mastery - Purpose framework that is part of his more well-known TED Talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation Coincidentally, those 3 pieces of his framework hit on many of the aspects of this thread and especially the Gallup research on the desire for goals and growth.

rocky1138 11y ago

This is a great opinion piece. Where's the sources for the data behind the rationale?

__derek__ 11y ago
There isn't really any. This is the Chairman and CEO wanting to opine, probably to encourage sales[1]: > What's more, companies should have all of their employees take the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment and make sure they build programs for each of those employees to get the most of their innate talents and strengths at work. [1] From "Millions of Bad Managers Are Killing America's Growth" (linked to from the OP's article): http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/169208/millions-bad-managers-killing-america-growth.aspx http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/169208/millions-bad-m...

kchoudhu 11y ago

I don't want my boss to look out for my development -- I want my boss to make sure that I have a clear political field to advance my technical agenda. Do that, and I'll take care of my personal development.

deelowe 11y ago
Those are one in the same. Development could be: - clearing roadblocks - training and coaching - assigning work - forcing a change

6stringmerc 11y ago

The term "Glass Ceiling" was created to help discuss the difficulties for advancement by women and minority / upwardly mobile individuals in the workplace. I'd venture a guess HN is likely stratified to a predominately middle-aged or younger demographic (US), albeit with a significant number of professionals with decades of longevity with technology. So, not the primary target of the concept, but a group that definitely has grown up with the concept being discussed as a social/professional issue. However, outside of technology fields, from personal experience and numerous discussions with peers (anecdotes), I think I finally hit the right term to describe a different 'advancement' conundrum: "The Grey Ceiling." To put the idea in blunt terms, there's no room for advancement and career development when the prior generation(s) are stuck in the workforce for whatever reason(s) - lack of retirement savings, dependent adult children or being part of the 'Sandwhich Generation' or significant debt accumulated over the years. The Grey Ceiling has no incentive to assist up and coming professionals to grow, to increase their income, or become peers in the corporate environment. The Gray Ceiling sees youth as a threat - insofar as if a younger worker gets a raise it's less monies available for themselves. The Gray Ceiling is not a 'guidebook' or 'conspiracy' to keep the younger professionals from advancing, but rather simply a result of self-interest amongst a cohort of people. Of course there are dozens of firms that take on mentorship and development type programs. Like becoming an i-Banking Analyst. Of course there's light at the end of the 80 hour work week tunnel!

datr 11y ago
The Hays Journal has a piece about this [1]. The article starts on page 34. [1] http://www.hays-journal.com/issue8/ http://www.hays-journal.com/issue8/
jevanish 11y ago
That's an interesting term, "Grey Ceiling." It makes a lot of sense though. In the "Great Recession" a similar effect happened when many who lost their jobs took new jobs that they were overqualified for. This blocked out entry level workers and recent graduates, especially when other companies also adopted hiring freezes. A related situation can also be if a company stops growing. If you're not growing then the company doesn't have new opportunities for people to take on. There's few promotions then and work can be "maintenance mode" (as an early thread above talks about with engineers) for everyone, thus creating boredom and career stagnation.

draw_down 11y ago

I don't disagree, who could. But this type of stuff is usually nothing more than a justification for taking away the free lunch, without actually doing anything about making sure people have meaningful and fulfilling work. You know, we're getting serious by taking away the free Cheez-Its... and making your boss ride your ass to work 12 hour days.

pasquinelli 11y ago

i totally agree that the work you do is the most important factor in your satisfaction with the work you do, and that free lunches and other perks are superficial. that said, there're some interesting thoughts formulated in this. "What they want most is a great boss who cares about their development, and a company that focuses on and develops their strengths." what people care about is their own development, the boss and the company are beside the point. the boss and the company are how the worker makes their money, the worker is how the boss and company make theirs. of course, if their interests align in other ways the situation will be more attractive. "A kind gesture by a camper ruins the natural instincts and therefore the lives of these cool bears." this metaphor... i'm not sure about this metaphor. i see that workers are bears and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are free lunches and vacations, but i'm not sure i see what the workers' natural instincts are. making their boss money? and if they no longer make their bosses money, their cool lives are ruined? wouldn't it be the bosses' nice situation that's been ruined then? "But what is the right culture? More importantly: What is a winning culture?" winning's more important that rightness. interesting. "Human beings are not looking for company-bought goodies -- they are looking for meaningful, fulfilling work." yes, this, completely. i agree with that, but i don't think what he thinks that means is what i would think that means.

st3v3r 11y ago

It's pretty simple: If they don't care about me, why should I care about their product? I'll still come in and do the job, but why should I put in extra effort?

jotux 11y ago
Related: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140508133157.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140508133157.h...

zenplatypus 11y ago

I think this touches the odd phenomenon of our hedonic preferences. In a given moment there are probably a majority of people in corporate, public ("money making machines" as I believe someone referred to them as) who would state that they desire the increased vacation, provided meals, ping pong table version of happiness at work and truly believe that would make them better off. And it likely would to some degree, but as has been shown in economics over and over, outside of basic needs we have a remarkable ability to normalize our happiness back to a baseline level despite increases in material access (but we still crave). Thus this may put an employer in an odd dilemma if deciding where to place their "happiness" efforts for their employees. Employees would support "perks" and "perks" are easy. But to sustainably become a motivating and development-focused employer you need a ton of buy-in from likely apathetic managers, you need a top-down level of emotional maturity and management skill that is rarely seen in companies of scale, and you need to have the ability to operate in a longer term horizon (because payoffs and results take time) which few companies and leaders do. I guess the 'so what' from this is that we should take it upon ourselves to move beyond visceral preferences to act in our (and others') real best self-interest.

jevanish 11y ago

It's kind of amazing how often this is getting talked about, but little seems to be changing. A few examples: 1) Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2015 -> http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/internet-trends-v1 http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/internet-trends-v1 2) Gallup, here and in some of their research -> http://www.gallup.com/services/182138/state-american-manager.aspx http://www.gallup.com/services/182138/state-american-manager... 3) Deloitte's latest study on Millennials -> https://getlighthouse.com/blog/deloitte-survey-millennials-2016-takeaways/ https://getlighthouse.com/blog/deloitte-survey-millennials-2... 4) Reid Hoffman's book, The Alliance -> http://www.slideshare.net/reidhoffman/the-alliance-a-visual-summary http://www.slideshare.net/reidhoffman/the-alliance-a-visual-... Companies don't reward managers for caring about people's development, so it won't change until companies start to.

GoodJokes 11y ago

If you are depending on anyone else except yourself for development than I have a thing or two to tell you about our current form of capitalism.