6 ms·

Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation

102 points by vijaydev 17y ago

kowen 17y ago
For those interested in this subject, I would suggest looking into ROWE - Results-Only Work Environment. http://gorowe.com/ http://gorowe.com/ The basic tenet of ROWE is to stop doing busy-work, and start doing only what matters. Stop wasting everyone's time. All meetings are optional. You work when and where and how you like, as long as the job gets done. That's key, by the way... as long as the job gets done. The most common objection in the corporate world seems to be "but how will we know if people are doing their job if they aren't in the office from 9 - 5?" and the answer, of course is "how do you know now?" (hint: for the most part, you don't, unless you have clear goals and are judging people solely on output rather than on face-time etc.) In a start-up this is hardly an issue!
- robryan 17y ago
  A problem I see in a big company with judging people on their output rather than closely monitoring their hours is that if you do have an employee that is only doing say 2 hours work a day but is getting as much done as some of the people putting in 8 you want to identify them and give them adequate compensation so that you get the full time out of them and as a consequence get more done. I think flexible work hours are great in a motivated group with clear goals but they could be costly if you have an unmotivated group doing it for the paycheck.
  - kowen 17y ago
    > only doing say 2 hours work a day Right! However the employee actually has a couple of choices at this point... either they can have a lot of free time, start a startup, go snowboarding, etc, or they can go to their manager and negotiate. From what I've heard, both of these actually occur. Another interesting trend is that employees tweak what they're doing and start working more efficiently, increasing a teams output by as much as 35% without working "more". > [it] could be costly if you have an unmotivated group doing it for the paycheck It would appear that lack of motivation shows up in lack of results and the unmotivated group quickly has to find another job. In one case, a company fired nearly 90% of a particular department, but the retention rate sky rocketed, so their costs went way down, even when you include the cost of having to look for and hire new people.
illumin8 17y ago
Good tips. I love my job right now, salary is good, work is not too hard, I have time to learn new skills. However, one thing that is frustrating is that there are those on my team that refuse to work and management never disciplines them for any reason. They are allowed to just collect a paycheck, while only putting in about 2 hours of actual work every week. This is mentioned in the article. Any tips for me? Just suck it up and try to do good at my job is what I've been doing for the last 3 years, but sometimes it gets frustrating.
- jswinghammer 17y ago
  That's been every job I've ever been at. I think employers are just too nice sometimes. It works in your favor when something comes up and you need them to be understanding but it's hard to stay motivated sometimes when you either need to clean up after someone's mess or know that someone just isn't doing anything. With some people I'd rather them stay out of the way than have to fix the build every day or redo pages they did because they did something crazy.
  - illumin8 17y ago
    Good point... sometimes it's better not to get much work from some people. They do more harm than good.
- exit 17y ago
  what kind of work do you do?
  - illumin8 17y ago
    Enterprise system architect - basically I design Oracle RAC database clusters, SAN storage, and VMware systems. I also do SAN administration and Linux administration. Like I said, I love my job, but it can be frustrating sometimes when everyone just expects "he'll do it for me."
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  As an occasional employer, I can tell you people who like to work are appreciated way beyond their actual ability. If you're one of them, it's too good an advantage to give up. Now, there are several problems with this. First is that it's simply not as easy - what the others do has a real effect on your motivation. Your manager may not be also your employer, so he may not have good enough reason to appreciate you. Being too conscientious and good for a job may keep you in that job forever. Etcetera. In the end, if you feel staying at this job prevents you from working as hard as you'd like, it's a valid reason to switch.
abstractbill 17y ago
A critical condition for employee enthusiasm is a clear, credible, and inspiring organizational purpose: in effect, a "reason for being" that translates for workers into a "reason for being there" that goes above and beyond money. Every manager should be able to expressly state a strong purpose for his unit. Out of all of these points, I'd say this is the most important. If you can't tell people why they're doing what they're doing, and convince them that it's important, then you've lost already.
- abyssknight 17y ago
  I wanted to post a long comment about my current journey in corporate life, but really, this is all that needs to be said. If you feel like you have no purpose, you will have no purpose, and you will get used to it. Don't.
  - smwhreyebelong 17y ago
    Can you elaborate ? I have been in similar situations before where the organization didn't have a purpose and the strictly top-down management didn't have that much experience to know that they were headed down the wrong path (even when the employees told them so) It was pretty hard to motivate oneself in that environment. Even when you tell yourself that you have a purpose and try to do your best, you always know what the reality is.
    - abyssknight 17y ago
      Sure, glad to. You can also ping me off HN if you want. For me, the realization started at my last job. We were a really small, but matured startup from the dot com boom. I joined, and stayed a single year. I left because we had no purpose, or rather I didn't know where we were going or why. The CTO made goals for me, and basically they equated to building new products and features into our existing offerings. The only problem was, no one knew what those should be. So I spent the better part of a year just building things, throwing them away, and building them again. We went to a company meeting, a once a year affair, and I finally met our CEO. He told all of IT to stop building new things. I figured, okay, we're going to stop and do some bug fixes. I got back to the office, and absolutely nothing changed. One layoff, a few server outages, and countless prototypes being thrown out I'd had enough. So I did what I thought would be my out, I applied for a new position at a huge company. One that would have to have a forward vision to survive, and a budget to keep me up to date and well paid. I ended up where I am now, and at first everything was clear. Our objectives were laid out in requirements, the requirements made sense (mostly), and when we met them everyone was happy. Until the customer got ahold of it. Which was fine, until the customer completely changed their mind. Everything started to sound familiar at that point. We would promise the impossible, deliver what we could, and almost never push back. We started to develop things before they were fully spec'd even while keeping a waterfall development model. It was just... messy. The only difference between this and my first position was that the goal was clear, but the true question of "Why are we building this?" was still not answered. I've built or helped build about 4-5 systems for the Fortune 50 company I work for over the past two years. Of those, I would never use any of them. Ever. The total audience for our usual application is maybe 50 people, and they have to use it to do their job. So I learned that even having a purpose can mean nothing when that purpose is futile. I've been rewriting legacy applications in an already legacy framework. Of those applications, most of them could have been covered by building one standard application that handled a more generic use case. Instead we built each one, individually, on top of archaic tools and frameworks. I'm ashamed to admit that I've gotten used to being less than optimally productive. I've learned to put things off, and to manage expectations. I used to burn through line items, and get things done, but all that seems meaningless when you have no idea where you're going or why. So now, in an effort to fix it all, I've joined the leadership program at my division of our company. Unfortunately, I can't move on to my next assignment until June. The program promises to give me more visibility, experience and an accellerated career path. The best part, though, is that I get to change positions every 6-9 months. Sounds like it is just what the doctor ordered, but only time will tell. For now though, I remain incredibly burnt out. They want spell check implemented for everything on their 50+ field form, using a vendor supplied input field. Meanwhile, the viewstate is hovering around 1.5mb and we still don't have a session database.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
elptacek 17y ago
Curiously, I'd come to a few of these conclusions myself since I started working for my current employer. A lot of people make that sort of Knowing Face when I tell them that I work for my husband. Sure, switching from being the boss to being the bossed, during work hours, leads to some occasional friction,... :-) But because of our unique relationship, there is a measure of equity and communication that I've only ever felt from one other employer (and that only from my immediate superior). At least one of my former employers would pat himself on the back after reading this, completely blind to the impact on moral of his constant threats to fire us. So while these things make sense when you read them, obviously some self-(awareness|respect) is necessary to understand and act on them.

102 points by vijaydev 17y ago

kowen 17y ago

For those interested in this subject, I would suggest looking into ROWE - Results-Only Work Environment. http://gorowe.com/ http://gorowe.com/ The basic tenet of ROWE is to stop doing busy-work, and start doing only what matters. Stop wasting everyone's time. All meetings are optional. You work when and where and how you like, as long as the job gets done. That's key, by the way... as long as the job gets done. The most common objection in the corporate world seems to be "but how will we know if people are doing their job if they aren't in the office from 9 - 5?" and the answer, of course is "how do you know now?" (hint: for the most part, you don't, unless you have clear goals and are judging people solely on output rather than on face-time etc.) In a start-up this is hardly an issue!

robryan 17y ago
A problem I see in a big company with judging people on their output rather than closely monitoring their hours is that if you do have an employee that is only doing say 2 hours work a day but is getting as much done as some of the people putting in 8 you want to identify them and give them adequate compensation so that you get the full time out of them and as a consequence get more done. I think flexible work hours are great in a motivated group with clear goals but they could be costly if you have an unmotivated group doing it for the paycheck.
- kowen 17y ago
  > only doing say 2 hours work a day Right! However the employee actually has a couple of choices at this point... either they can have a lot of free time, start a startup, go snowboarding, etc, or they can go to their manager and negotiate. From what I've heard, both of these actually occur. Another interesting trend is that employees tweak what they're doing and start working more efficiently, increasing a teams output by as much as 35% without working "more". > [it] could be costly if you have an unmotivated group doing it for the paycheck It would appear that lack of motivation shows up in lack of results and the unmotivated group quickly has to find another job. In one case, a company fired nearly 90% of a particular department, but the retention rate sky rocketed, so their costs went way down, even when you include the cost of having to look for and hire new people.

illumin8 17y ago

Good tips. I love my job right now, salary is good, work is not too hard, I have time to learn new skills. However, one thing that is frustrating is that there are those on my team that refuse to work and management never disciplines them for any reason. They are allowed to just collect a paycheck, while only putting in about 2 hours of actual work every week. This is mentioned in the article. Any tips for me? Just suck it up and try to do good at my job is what I've been doing for the last 3 years, but sometimes it gets frustrating.

jswinghammer 17y ago
That's been every job I've ever been at. I think employers are just too nice sometimes. It works in your favor when something comes up and you need them to be understanding but it's hard to stay motivated sometimes when you either need to clean up after someone's mess or know that someone just isn't doing anything. With some people I'd rather them stay out of the way than have to fix the build every day or redo pages they did because they did something crazy.
- illumin8 17y ago
  Good point... sometimes it's better not to get much work from some people. They do more harm than good.
exit 17y ago
what kind of work do you do?
- illumin8 17y ago
  Enterprise system architect - basically I design Oracle RAC database clusters, SAN storage, and VMware systems. I also do SAN administration and Linux administration. Like I said, I love my job, but it can be frustrating sometimes when everyone just expects "he'll do it for me."
radu_floricica 17y ago
As an occasional employer, I can tell you people who like to work are appreciated way beyond their actual ability. If you're one of them, it's too good an advantage to give up. Now, there are several problems with this. First is that it's simply not as easy - what the others do has a real effect on your motivation. Your manager may not be also your employer, so he may not have good enough reason to appreciate you. Being too conscientious and good for a job may keep you in that job forever. Etcetera. In the end, if you feel staying at this job prevents you from working as hard as you'd like, it's a valid reason to switch.

abstractbill 17y ago

A critical condition for employee enthusiasm is a clear, credible, and inspiring organizational purpose: in effect, a "reason for being" that translates for workers into a "reason for being there" that goes above and beyond money. Every manager should be able to expressly state a strong purpose for his unit. Out of all of these points, I'd say this is the most important. If you can't tell people why they're doing what they're doing, and convince them that it's important, then you've lost already.

abyssknight 17y ago
I wanted to post a long comment about my current journey in corporate life, but really, this is all that needs to be said. If you feel like you have no purpose, you will have no purpose, and you will get used to it. Don't.
- smwhreyebelong 17y ago
  Can you elaborate ? I have been in similar situations before where the organization didn't have a purpose and the strictly top-down management didn't have that much experience to know that they were headed down the wrong path (even when the employees told them so) It was pretty hard to motivate oneself in that environment. Even when you tell yourself that you have a purpose and try to do your best, you always know what the reality is.
  - abyssknight 17y ago
    Sure, glad to. You can also ping me off HN if you want. For me, the realization started at my last job. We were a really small, but matured startup from the dot com boom. I joined, and stayed a single year. I left because we had no purpose, or rather I didn't know where we were going or why. The CTO made goals for me, and basically they equated to building new products and features into our existing offerings. The only problem was, no one knew what those should be. So I spent the better part of a year just building things, throwing them away, and building them again. We went to a company meeting, a once a year affair, and I finally met our CEO. He told all of IT to stop building new things. I figured, okay, we're going to stop and do some bug fixes. I got back to the office, and absolutely nothing changed. One layoff, a few server outages, and countless prototypes being thrown out I'd had enough. So I did what I thought would be my out, I applied for a new position at a huge company. One that would have to have a forward vision to survive, and a budget to keep me up to date and well paid. I ended up where I am now, and at first everything was clear. Our objectives were laid out in requirements, the requirements made sense (mostly), and when we met them everyone was happy. Until the customer got ahold of it. Which was fine, until the customer completely changed their mind. Everything started to sound familiar at that point. We would promise the impossible, deliver what we could, and almost never push back. We started to develop things before they were fully spec'd even while keeping a waterfall development model. It was just... messy. The only difference between this and my first position was that the goal was clear, but the true question of "Why are we building this?" was still not answered. I've built or helped build about 4-5 systems for the Fortune 50 company I work for over the past two years. Of those, I would never use any of them. Ever. The total audience for our usual application is maybe 50 people, and they have to use it to do their job. So I learned that even having a purpose can mean nothing when that purpose is futile. I've been rewriting legacy applications in an already legacy framework. Of those applications, most of them could have been covered by building one standard application that handled a more generic use case. Instead we built each one, individually, on top of archaic tools and frameworks. I'm ashamed to admit that I've gotten used to being less than optimally productive. I've learned to put things off, and to manage expectations. I used to burn through line items, and get things done, but all that seems meaningless when you have no idea where you're going or why. So now, in an effort to fix it all, I've joined the leadership program at my division of our company. Unfortunately, I can't move on to my next assignment until June. The program promises to give me more visibility, experience and an accellerated career path. The best part, though, is that I get to change positions every 6-9 months. Sounds like it is just what the doctor ordered, but only time will tell. For now though, I remain incredibly burnt out. They want spell check implemented for everything on their 50+ field form, using a vendor supplied input field. Meanwhile, the viewstate is hovering around 1.5mb and we still don't have a session database.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

elptacek 17y ago

Curiously, I'd come to a few of these conclusions myself since I started working for my current employer. A lot of people make that sort of Knowing Face when I tell them that I work for my husband. Sure, switching from being the boss to being the bossed, during work hours, leads to some occasional friction,... :-) But because of our unique relationship, there is a measure of equity and communication that I've only ever felt from one other employer (and that only from my immediate superior). At least one of my former employers would pat himself on the back after reading this, completely blind to the impact on moral of his constant threats to fire us. So while these things make sense when you read them, obviously some self-(awareness|respect) is necessary to understand and act on them.