3 ms·

How do you motivate your employees to give a shit. Even with good salary.

wizerdrobe 3y ago
Stepping beyond the obvious, pay them a good wage. Filter at the door, look for people who give a shit, have a passion for the work, etc. Hire them, look to avoid people who got into it simply because it’s a fat paycheck. I wouldn’t confuse this with “I spend all day everyday in my off time coding,” but seek out people who have a reasonable articulable love for a tool, a language, or something and or can articulate why they don’t like a thing. I have opinions on, say, Java over NodeJS and can speak at length with passion about why I feel the way I do. Understand and manage them as human beings. I’ve been hired on to companies that experienced radical change within the first days, weeks, and months of accepting the job. I’ve walked into jobs such that what I interviewed for literally did not exist when I started on Day 1. I’ve worked at companies that have had serious pivots around product-market-fit such that the job I accepted radically changed, i.e. from Full-Stack SE to AWS DevOps. Those companies just offered no honest conversation or explanation around circumstances, just managers magically started assigning random tickets one day. Coincidentally, I hated those jobs and couldn’t have given less of a shit if they succeeded or failed. I’m not a cog, a fungible unit, or a human-resource. I’m a human, full-stop. The firms I’ve worked with that suffered turmoil but offered me the basic human decency of a conversation, however, earned loyalty out of me and enabled me to continue giving a shit.
RugnirViking 3y ago
When people understand the wider context their work falls under they naturally give a shit. People want to give a shit, it feels good to have meaningful work and do it well. They only stop giving a shit when given a reason to do so (usually because they are heaped with meaningless work and have no connection to whether the work is good or bad). That doesn't (just) mean "incentives", it literally means them simply being told "great job, no problems reported from the client" or even more preferably the client themselves telling them that. The more steps between them and the effect of their work, and the less feedback, the less possible it is to give a shit even if they try. Trying to game or make this process as low effort or box-check-y as possible is noticable and counterproductive, it needs to come from a genuine involvement. People involved in meetings tend to care more. Not "involved" as in invited to, involved as in people want to hear their opinion and care what they think. The trope of people hating/not listening in meetings comes from it literally not mattering whether they are in the room or not. I get that you might not initially care what <newhire> has to say, they're hardly bringing insights, but the best onboardings ive seen are those where seniors want to hear their experience, what they struggled with, and work with them to make it easier for them and future newhires. It's noticable how much harder people work shortly after seeing their feedback/work being put to use. Another thing ive observed a lot is its common for people who give a shit to get promoted to lead others, but by taking on a lot of the meaningful work themselves, overworking, and failing to delegate, they breed people under them that dont give a shit, due to leaving only meaningless tasks and having no time for feedback or informing their reports what is even going on. Finally, once someone has fallen into the habit of not giving a shit at a specific company, unfortunately it requires a mighty effort to bring them back again. It's usually possible with time, but much harder than just keeping them happy in the first place. I guess give a shit about people and you may well find they give a shit themselves

Stepping beyond the obvious, pay them a good wage. Filter at the door, look for people who give a shit, have a passion for the work, etc. Hire them, look to avoid people who got into it simply because it’s a fat paycheck. I wouldn’t confuse this with “I spend all day everyday in my off time coding,” but seek out people who have a reasonable articulable love for a tool, a language, or something and or can articulate why they don’t like a thing. I have opinions on, say, Java over NodeJS and can speak at length with passion about why I feel the way I do. Understand and manage them as human beings. I’ve been hired on to companies that experienced radical change within the first days, weeks, and months of accepting the job. I’ve walked into jobs such that what I interviewed for literally did not exist when I started on Day 1. I’ve worked at companies that have had serious pivots around product-market-fit such that the job I accepted radically changed, i.e. from Full-Stack SE to AWS DevOps. Those companies just offered no honest conversation or explanation around circumstances, just managers magically started assigning random tickets one day. Coincidentally, I hated those jobs and couldn’t have given less of a shit if they succeeded or failed. I’m not a cog, a fungible unit, or a human-resource. I’m a human, full-stop. The firms I’ve worked with that suffered turmoil but offered me the basic human decency of a conversation, however, earned loyalty out of me and enabled me to continue giving a shit.

RugnirViking 3y ago

When people understand the wider context their work falls under they naturally give a shit. People want to give a shit, it feels good to have meaningful work and do it well. They only stop giving a shit when given a reason to do so (usually because they are heaped with meaningless work and have no connection to whether the work is good or bad). That doesn't (just) mean "incentives", it literally means them simply being told "great job, no problems reported from the client" or even more preferably the client themselves telling them that. The more steps between them and the effect of their work, and the less feedback, the less possible it is to give a shit even if they try. Trying to game or make this process as low effort or box-check-y as possible is noticable and counterproductive, it needs to come from a genuine involvement. People involved in meetings tend to care more. Not "involved" as in invited to, involved as in people want to hear their opinion and care what they think. The trope of people hating/not listening in meetings comes from it literally not mattering whether they are in the room or not. I get that you might not initially care what <newhire> has to say, they're hardly bringing insights, but the best onboardings ive seen are those where seniors want to hear their experience, what they struggled with, and work with them to make it easier for them and future newhires. It's noticable how much harder people work shortly after seeing their feedback/work being put to use. Another thing ive observed a lot is its common for people who give a shit to get promoted to lead others, but by taking on a lot of the meaningful work themselves, overworking, and failing to delegate, they breed people under them that dont give a shit, due to leaving only meaningless tasks and having no time for feedback or informing their reports what is even going on. Finally, once someone has fallen into the habit of not giving a shit at a specific company, unfortunately it requires a mighty effort to bring them back again. It's usually possible with time, but much harder than just keeping them happy in the first place. I guess give a shit about people and you may well find they give a shit themselves