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With zero knowledge of your company and culture, I can only offer very broad strokes advice on this; - Burnout is real and it will happen to people that work l

With zero knowledge of your company and culture, I can only offer very broad strokes advice on this; - Burnout is real and it will happen to people that work like that. Explain clearly that burning out means their hard work, and other peoples hard work goes to waste. - Consider ways in which you might be inadvertently encouraging this behaviour. Are your devs constantly stressing about output or profitability? Do you often email or slack people at weird hours? Are people expected to be on-call? etc etc. - Offer an extra day or two off every now and then and make sure everyone takes it. My company has at least a couple of 2 or 3 day breaks throughout the year in addition to our leave entitlements, and they are absolutely mandatory for everyone to take. This does wonders for morale, and I'm shocked this isn't more of a widespread thing. - Monitor and moderate their assigned work if you have to. If engineer X has 20 unfinished tasks this sprint and they're all due tomorrow, that's a problem for everyone. Make sure they know to speak up early if they're over burdened. - If you can, offer some sort of employee assistance program. People use work to escape from home and personal lives they don't like, having someone to talk to anonymously may help a bit.

aunty_helen 4y ago
Thanks for the advice, yes I am a culprit for a fair bit of this behaviour. Today's been my most "day off" day for 16 days now. I'm also finding that the only time I have to write code is when everyone else is sleeping... so taking corrective actions there. For scheduling, we use a trello board and it's a pick up as you go situation. I'm not sure how I could restrict that and I really like the simplicity of it so don't want to throw it away for another solution. The 2/3 days off for everyone is an interesting concept. I'm doing a bunch of policy changes at the moment (hence the question), it's something I'll keep on the cards.
- synicalx 4y ago
  No problem! I've been in a sort of similar situation myself and I know it can be hard; this is one of many "do as I say not as I do" situations that you'll probably find yourself in. If people are aware that you're often up at odd hours hammering away at stuff, maybe just communicate that you don't have this expectation of them, and that you would strongly prefer they didn't follow suit (or whatever messaging would be appropriate for your situation). I'm sure folks would understand and hopefully get the message and if not at least it's a starting point. Either way, good luck and thank you for thinking of your employee's wellbeing!

aunty_helen 4y ago

Thanks for the advice, yes I am a culprit for a fair bit of this behaviour. Today's been my most "day off" day for 16 days now. I'm also finding that the only time I have to write code is when everyone else is sleeping... so taking corrective actions there. For scheduling, we use a trello board and it's a pick up as you go situation. I'm not sure how I could restrict that and I really like the simplicity of it so don't want to throw it away for another solution. The 2/3 days off for everyone is an interesting concept. I'm doing a bunch of policy changes at the moment (hence the question), it's something I'll keep on the cards.

synicalx 4y ago
No problem! I've been in a sort of similar situation myself and I know it can be hard; this is one of many "do as I say not as I do" situations that you'll probably find yourself in. If people are aware that you're often up at odd hours hammering away at stuff, maybe just communicate that you don't have this expectation of them, and that you would strongly prefer they didn't follow suit (or whatever messaging would be appropriate for your situation). I'm sure folks would understand and hopefully get the message and if not at least it's a starting point. Either way, good luck and thank you for thinking of your employee's wellbeing!