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Though not the focus of the article, I have a huge problem with the idea that leaders should pick out their best employees and reward them, while leaving the ot
by Jormundir 13y ago
Though not the focus of the article, I have a huge problem with the idea that leaders should pick out their best employees and reward them, while leaving the others treading water on their own.
I am in the middle of watching a team constantly churn, unable to retain many talented developers, specifically because the managers are only rewarding those they think are the best engineers, but are actually rewarding very mediocre employees they trust. My advice to everyone, especially managers, is do not try to pick out your "best" employees and reward them exclusively!
My team has hired 6 engineers over the last 2 years; the distribution has been pretty even: 2 really great engineers, 2 decent ones, and 2 sub-par ones. Going in to the 2 years, the team had 5 engineers 1 really great, and the rest swimming between mediocre and great. The two managers try to follow the advice in the article, and it has been disastrous. Of those 6 engineers they hired, the two really great ones were out the door in 8 months and 1 year respectively, and just last week the 1 great engineer already on the team announced he was leaving. The problem feels like failure to launch. These talented people come in, are doing good work, and then feel there's no room to grow. The source is obvious, the managers have picked out 2 of the mediocre engineers who they feel are their "best", the "talent" doing the most work and attracting other great "talent". The "talent" is rewarded with the big projects, which in turn makes management think they're working harder, while the other engineers are left with the scraps. The result is simple -- genuinely great engineers take a few steps in the door, quickly realize the problem, and turn around to get out the door as fast as they can. It's really sad.
The advice of the article is good for the most part, just really be incredibly careful about choosing your "best" as a manager. It's far better to make sure you're fostering your whole team.
- zenonu 13y agoDoes your company have a peer feedback system that's considered in addition to the management's opinion?
- Jormundir 13y agoThey do, I'm not sure how effective it is. They've been tweaking it a lot, which is a good thing. Ultimately though, management is the biggest influence by far on retention and team development.
- kamaal 13y agoSadly, of the many things. The best way to grow in any company(Start up, large, mid scale) is to become your manager's pet. Go to lunch with them, play badminton with them on Sunday's, Help them buy groceries or whatever. The point is you need to become your manager's best man. Unfortunately companies want innovation, rock stars, stellar growth and all that. But rarely have their growth/rewards/compensation system aligned with those goals. I've seen CEO's and execs crib and whine endless for months and years about how difficult it is to hire and sustain good talent. How greedy good people are. For heaven's sake its not other people's job to sacrifice their lives to help you clear your BMW's car loan quickly.
- karmajunkie 13y agoA sad truth. From my experience, a lot of it comes down to "who looks like they're working more?" The sub-par engineers, god bless 'em, are just clearly going nowhere. The great engineers go home at 4 or 5, knowing they've written some great code and removed a lot of bad code. So who's left working at 7 or 8? The mediocre guys who have to put in more hours to get the same results. So yeah, eventually the great engineers get tired of playing code janitor and bail.
- boomzilla 13y agoNow if I understand correctly, the bigger question is: why are there two managers managing 6 engineers? If a manager only "manages" 3 engineers and still doesn't know who does what then what are they doing all days?