How NOT to motivate your staff 74

[chiph]

OK, this forum is dedicated to sharing ways to motivate your technical staff. I've decided it also needs a place to provide negative examples -- thus, this thread.

I'll start it off with:

- Have an HR director who spends most of his time locked behind his office door. Problems with your pay? Send an email, so that the IT staff can read it too!

- Offer free sodas, but don't assign anyone the responsibility of refilling the refrigerator/soda machine. Yummm! Nothing better than a warm soft drink first thing in the morning!

Chip H.

 

[loppydog]

In the ongoing saga of how not to motivate your staff it has ocurred to me that many of us are not supposed to be motivated. Imagine the horror for a manager having staff who constantly try to improve things, make proposals for improvements to directors and work harder than them. Most of the examples in this post are illustrations of how to dissappoint you staff and so make them feel suppordinate.

To reply specifically to Gwreng. I have had the same experience with remote fixes and it is incedibly frustrating when asked to drive 30 miles to install a network printer that can be done easily over the network. And people wonder why the NHS is inefficient.......but that's another story and I could fill an entire website with it..

regards
Loppydog


Loppydog is a friend of SamCant.co.uk

 

[KellyK]

Hire a $8,000 a month consultant to develop reporting "critical" to the success of your organization. Instruct said consultant to hit up the reporting associate in your department for anything he needs. Sit back as reporting person bends over backwards to accomodate increasingly complex data requests that the system does not easily support to provide to consultant who then loads it into an Access database and emails a report back to the organization. Do nothing with provided report.

Kelly

 

[Sashanan2]

Remind me to become a $8000 a month consultant.

"Any fool can defend his or her mistakes; and most fools do." -- Dale Carnegie

 

[ilovrose]

I love this thread. How about:

There are only two managers to a unit, one over IT and one over clerical/collection support. The IT manager secures employment elsewhere....so to save money promote the Clerical supervisor to run the entire unit. Oh yes give her a raise in the process but because she's been in collections we can promote her for little or nothing and she's happy. Then send her to meetings and make her the Business Analyis of the most important 3 year project we have. Better yet don't include the staff you trained 7 months ago for the project....and have her include more of her collection clerical staff to be the lead workers.

Works for me!!!!!!!1

 

[Tranman]

I love this thread!!!!
Here are a couple more.

My friend works for a company--I can't mention their name, but they are a "friendly neighborhood global telecommunications company", as a web page designer. They won't give her web access on her desktop because she "might use the internet during work hours."

My wife (Harvard MBA--smart, kind-hearted woman) worked for a "Federally supervised banking institution". One year, there was money for a bonus for her ($25,000), but none for the 4 people she supervised. She paid the income taxes, and gave each of her direct reports 20 percent of what was left. The other 20 percent she sent to help the starving kids in Africa. Two years later, the slimeball she worked for, fired her because she was "not a team player".

And finally, my story...I work for a state government agency as a programmer (20 years experience). None of us has had a raise, (except for a couple of 1,5% COLAs that didn't even cover the increase in insurance premiums), for 5 years. The governor has proclaimed this week "Public Employee Appreciation Week".

I hate to say it, but I am beginning to wonder what kind of a union we could put together...

Tranman

"Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however,...much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant."
Mark Twain

 

[lespaul]

I work for a state government agency as a programmer (20 years experience). None of us has had a raise, (except for a couple of 1,5% COLAs that didn't even cover the increase in insurance premiums), for 5 years. The governor has proclaimed this week "Public Employee Appreciation Week".

Except that it's only been 3 1/2 years working and 5 years experience, that could be my story too! Could only wish for the governor to appreciate us for a day!

Hopefully though we'll all be getting 10% with a reclassification that our department is going through. Everyone keep your fingers crossed for me!!! Let's also hope that the 10% goes through BEFORE the 1.75% we're getting in July!!

Leslie

Anything worth doing is a lot more difficult than it's worth - Unknown Induhvidual

 

[stormbind]

The only addition I can think of, although odds are it has been mentioned by someone else:

*. Deny IT sfaff a requested feature/service because the MD's secretary could not figure out how to use it.

--Glen

Memoria mihi benigna erit qui eam perscribam

 

[PBurcin]

Here's a good motivator for your over-worked IT staff...

The server migration is scheduled for the weekend. The IT person gets sick on Wednesday night and does not go to work on Thursday. Having worked 32 hours in the 3 previous work days is no excuse. How dare you get sick?? Even though you worked 10 hours on Saturday to perform the server migration, you MUST file paperwork for Paid-Time-Off for being out sick on Thursday. Work a 45 hour work week and still be made to file for PTO for a sick day??? How rewarding!

 

[dglienna]

I better get a new account before I start ranting. People can find me!

David

 

[KellyK]

dglienna, i was thinking about doing the same! I've already been busted on another thread.

Kelly

 

[loppydog]

Hi Guys the Loppydog is back, well we are all having fun with this thread. How about this true tale from the NHS. Tell all the GP practices in your area that there is no money for new equipment, repeat this until it seems to be true and then give directors new PCs because the ones they have don't match the colour of the monitors....why do we bother....Take a look on samcant.co.uk for lots more true and heart warming tales from the caring NHS.

B-

Loppydog is a friend of SamCant.co.uk

 

[skiflyer]

<i>Let's also hope that the 10% goes through BEFORE the 1.75% we're getting in July!!</i>

Ok, not to be off topic or anything, but I'm confused, why do you care which one you get first? A 10% raise followed by a 1.75% raise is going to be the same as a 1.75% raise followed by a 10% raise, isn't it? Or is it just that there're a couple of paychecks during which you'd get the higher rate sooner?

 

[SF0751]

<off-topic math problem>
[tt]
$1000 + 10% = $1100; $1100 + 1.75% = $1119.25
$1000 + 1.75% = $1017.50; $1017.50 + 10% = $1119.25
[/tt]
</off-topic math problem>

Perhaps if the 10% raise were on an east-bound train, traveling at 85 mph......

Susan
"'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'"
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lost Road

 

[skiflyer]

Or more generally
Let x = initial salary
Let r = small raise
let R = large raise

s1 = (x + rx) + R(x + rx)
   = x + rx + Rx + Rrx
   
s2 = (x + Rx) + r(x + Rx)
   = x + Rx + rx + rRx
   = x + rx + Rx + rRx 
   = s1

However, what I Think I overlooked, is July is still 3 paychecks away, assuming random person makes 50 grand, that's still almost 290 worth of free money if they get R today.

However, I am however curious to hear more about this eastbound train which has stolen my raise.

 

[LesleyW]

I knew exactly what Leslie meant..... they could go through **at the same time** in which case she would only get the 10% not the 1.75%. Hey if it's anything like here they will, best case scenario, give the 10% then refuse to give the 1.75% because "but you just got a 10% rise!

 

[PrinzII]

I LOVE this post. Some of the things I have seen I recall all too well. Here are some from my point of view.

a) Work with a manager who doesn't know jack about systems and then rides you like a government mule when you suggest something.

b) Please, I don't mind working in an environment where my skill set is not being put to use. I love taking calls for clogged toilets, stains on chairs, and from secretaries who want to page their bosses.

c) I don't mind being excluded from training because I am a contractor. I am sure you won't mind me being ineffective whilst under your employ because of your silly fear that I will take my newfound skills elsewhere.

d) I absolutely love checking back in with my bosses before I leave. It gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling.....like KINDERGARTEN.

e) Oh please, almighty end user, show me more of your technical prowess only for you to FUBAR a computer and you have to call the person you just berated or condescended to.

f) Oh, thank you for those wonderful rotating shifts that you like to stick me on. My transportation issues are irrelevant to you but all you are concerned with is having a body there.

g) It's wonderful to work in an environment where the morale is lower than an ant's stomach. I guess I should have been more grateful to have a job.

Most of the above were things I experienced working at "The Madhouse on Madison" aka Chicago's Office of Emergency Management.

 

[ygdrassil]

Have another good one here: tell your IT guy we're moving to the second floor and we need lan drops for all the workstations there, and just when he puts the last faceplate on, tell him a mistake was made and the new offices will be located at the 3rd floor.