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I read somewhere that a great employee is one that makes themselves unnecessary, that is, they document everything they do, automate key processes they (used to
by tabeth 9y ago
I read somewhere that a great employee is one that makes themselves unnecessary, that is, they document everything they do, automate key processes they (used to) complete and so forth.
I wonder if "institutional memory" is just a symptom of a poor process.
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For example, say you work at CoolCorp. At CoolCorp you're a sales engineer and you notice that many engineers and sales people alike constantly ask you questions concerning conditional pricing.
You consider yourself to be an amazing employee. So, when again confronted with a edge-case pricing and technical question what do you do?
A. Answer the question and move on to additional tasks.
B. Answer the question and consider documenting this particular question somewhere along with your answer.
C. Answer the question and note the general scheme of this question in order to build an internal tool to give people the answers automatically.
I don't think there's a right answer since there are costs involved with each option, but it's interesting to think about.
- Avernar 9y agoGreat Employees drive themselves to extinction. They documented everything so well that their jobs were offshored somewhere with a lower standard of living. That's why they're so hard to find. The ones that survived learned their lesson and won't make that mistake again.
- tabeth 9y agoThis is a great point. Like you imply, I don't think the incentives are there. After a certain level of "greatness" your compensation will almost never be commensurate with your value.
- Avernar 9y agoExactly. For the knowlege they contain I'd bet they get the standard cost of living raise and will probably have to fill out some stupid self evaluation to justify even that. It's only when the companies are going to loose that employee do they start trying everything to keep that employee. By then it's too late. Always reactive and never proactive seems to be the corporate motto these days.