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.

 

[varocho]

Here are a few:

Hire someone just because he/she is friends with one of the managers.

Not offer training

Unrealistic deadlines

Denigrate an employee...in front of a client.

 

[dwmatteson]

Here are a few more ways to ensure high turnover in your IT staff:

1) Not offer training (as varocho says, but it's a biggie)
2) Flatly refuse any flextime, even when your IT folks are pulling shifts that make [major deity of your choice]'s hours look like banker's hours
3) Demand that strict policies are put in place regarding information resources, but ensure that your IT department has no authority to enforce those policies; be sure to punish them when they try
4) Use your techs as secretaries (e.g., typing memos, sending e-mails for you, ordering lunch) when the regular secretary is not available
5) Request recommendations from your IT people regarding hardware/software purchases, then call someone else entirely (ideally from a different organization with completely different means and needs) for their opinion in front of them.

Five's good for now. I'm sure more will seep into my brain as the day wears on....

Don

 

[Davefeet]

I liked #4 of Don's Salt Lake City Home of 2002 Winter Olympics

 

[Mattyj]

I've been reading all of the above posts and the all are very very good and most probably in practice, in most places of employment in some form or another.
Some more demotivating ideas:

Ensure that the techs are constantly doing the same job, without any change in the job, praise or challenges.
Make sure that you change the management structure and managers at least once every 6 months, to ensure a stable environment.
Take away all 'perks' of the job, browsing and downloading from the internet, gaming after work hours.

No doubt I'll think of more...

 

[CitrixEngineer]

At my last place, the top ten manager tips for employee dissatisfaction were;

10. Send technically inept manager on a high-level tech training course. Manager comes back, not having understood a word, and passes all related tasks to employee who has been doing them for the last 3 years.

9. We can't justify (useful) training for you in this year's budget - how about a basic Windows 95 course?

8. This (obviously completely technically incompetant but managerially experienced) person is now your boss.

7. You can't have any more pay, because you're at the top of your pay scale. To have more pay you need to be a manager - but you don't have any managerial experience.

6. It doesn't matter to me what else you've been doing, you haven't done (fairly trivial task, such as filled in daily timesheet), so you'll stay here until it's done.

5. Stop all on-call pay - this is now part of your contract.

4. We need you, you and you to volunteer for (unpleasant task of your choice, while more important jobs pile up).

3. I don't care how important the job is, you're not putting any computers on your desk apart from the one you use.

2. The two Citrix admins must not take coffee breaks or lunch at the same time.

1. We're offering voluntary redundancy to all staff - except the Citrix admins, who are vital to our success.

I left, and so did the other guy

 

[Guest_imported]

I'm intimately familiar with some of these, especially #7 (and it's variation, which we'll call 7a):

"Yes, we understand that the surveys all show that the IT industry's average raise has been 8-10% per year for years now. However that kind of increase falls far outside our matrix. Besides, we want our company-wide average to be 3%, so that's the most we can give you....."

 

[Kjonnnn]

Ok here's one...

When your IT guy wants to order a length a computer cable to replace a frayed one, you say "Can't you splice it with some electrical tape?"

 

[chiph]

One from a contract I did many years ago:

"We've standardized on OS/2, so that's what you'll have to run, even though you're developing a DOS product."
"How about I have two PC's then? One set up for OS/2 to do administrative tasks like email, etc, and one for product development?"
"Sorry, it's not in the budget."

This was also the place where coding began before any specs were written....

Chip H.

 

[SteveTheGeek]

Over the course of a few months:

"I also need you to learn the phone system ASAP so that we can stop calling those expensive PBX consulting guys.... What do you mean you need training on it? Just learn it from the manuals... The phone system is mission-critical, what do you mean you just brought it down troubleshooting that PBX problem? ... I can't give you a big raise because we're paying too much for phone system support again."

 

[ManagerJay]

To add to this:

"We are assigning manager repsonsibilities for your department, since no-one else in the organization understands what you do. But, we will not be increasing your pay accordingly."

 

[ljzman]

I think the worse thing any company can do is not include the IT management in the decision making process when it comes to choosing critical business applications. Nothing is more degrading to a department when they have to support a product that just plain doesn't work, and ends up with no social life being on call 24/7, get blamed for the inadequacy of the product, and spend nights pulling hair as half the staff finds other work... all because some smooth-talking sales jockey blew smoke up the GM's kiester behind a closed door, and the IT Manager wasn't there to stop him.

Lance Johnson

 

[camper2k]

This is a great thread.
My small Contribution would be lots of pointless, irrelevant, mandatory meetings. But don't extend the deadlines. Two hours per week listening to the manager update us on the lead team meeting about repainting the parking lot adds so much to my job satisfaction.

 

[JGirl]

Wow, turns out that its not just me who thinks I have the worst job in the world. Here are my ideas on how to really turn your staff against you:

1. Hire all staff with the job title of 'Programmers' - this includes your DBAs, Analysts etc. Then when they ask for more money, you dont have to give it becuase pay is on par with other 'Programmers'.

2. Promise staff that training has been budgeted for each year, and then tell them that its too busy to do without resources for a day or 2.

3. Tell your staff that there isnt enough money in the organisation to give anyone more than a 1.5% raise, and then announce 2 new management positions for the department the same afternoon. This ensures that the management to everyone else ratio is 1:1

4. Tie down your technical staff with ridiculous amounts of administrative tasks, such as timekeeping, emailing for managers who are too scared to say no for themselves, making phone calls for managers who are too scared to say no for themselves, problem log spreadsheets, incident reports, daily procedure verification forms etc so that only 2% of their time is spent doing the job they were hired for.

5. Complain that you dont have enough resources to get any new work done for a year, when it could be done for tomorrow if there wasnt so much paper shuffling going on.

6. Promise promotions, then bring in new underqualified staff to boss everyone else around, even though they have never worked in the industry, and havent worked with your systems. Make sure to tell the existing staff that this wont affect their career opportunities.

7. MY FAVOURITE - Spend weeks getting everyone to rate their performance, and go through it with them and get everyone to set goals for the upcoming year, since your performance affects your pay rises. Then give everyone the same 1% raise (just like the year before), but only if they sign the new (dodgy) contract that has a clause allowing your company to adjust your renumeration package at any time. Then tell the employees that its not blackmail, and that they dont have to sign the new contract.

And thats just the tip of the iceberg! I really need a new job!

 

[fearlessfreap24]

here is one, but i am in the military so it is a little different. we are going to let the new guy have your supervisor position because he has more rank. then tell me 2 months later that they need me to run the shop, but i can't have the supervisor position.

 

[Craftor]

But wait there's more ...

1. Actually offer training but either:
1a. Refuse any and all requests unless accompanied by at least 140 hand typed pages detailling why the company should spend its valuable money on enhancing its employees skills rather than a pay increase for management.
1b. Refuse for the "junior" staff but allow the "senior" staff on the highly expensive (and irrelevant) course to an exotic location - this one especially if the so called senior staff member is a relative or partner.
1c. (my favourite) Agree and give an associated pay increase. The employee must sign a 2 year contract to stay with the company to pay back the study fees. The increase given is equal to the value of the course. Then take the course payments out of the employee's 'increase'.

2. Offer the employee a fantastic, interesting but challenging project. Hold several meetings to ensure the employee is confident and knows what is required. Buy new hardware for the project. Wait for the employee to get really excited about the project and to tell everyone they know that they will be on the project. Give the project to a contractor and retrench the employee (yes it happened to me).

3. Due to a total misunderstanding on management's side of what was required for a client's project, penalise the employee involved for developing the project wrong.

4. Let the manager go on holiday anytime he/she likes with little or no advance warning. Make employees give at least 3 months notice for leave. Mumble over whether it is allowed until 2 weeks before the due date. Refuse to allow the leave.

No bitterness of course ;-) but all real life examples

Craftor

 

[compaqtech]

How about this Employ your IT guy from another country but make sure he can speak the language (no extra cost) make him wait 6 months before he starts and keep telling him it's next week (screwing up his other job and plans)eventually meet him after a year don't give him transfer costs,put him in a 3 star hotels for a month and keep moving him insist that he gets a house as expenses are too much (even though there was meant to be a apartment ready)give him workloads that only speed freaks would be able to complete + take over the site after 4 consultants fly by night IT guys have screwed it up.Give him no software cd burner tools etc hide the software licenses all over the company to keep him busy, write nasty email when he has not logged calls and is falling behind on reports,take the company crapped out car off him even if he does live 30km from the job and no one needs the car and there is no public transport in the area, call him up while on holiday in a different country and make him cancel his second week of holiday and come back early,Give him a mobile phone that is so old that it's an antique and complain when he never answers because the battery is dead.Insist that he takes 3 weeks holidays near the end of the year and ring him up the next day and ask has he decided yet,when he take the above mentioned holiday and has booked flights call him stupid for taking 2 weeks in a row as you are not allowed to and make a big deal of it.Will i go on .......? you get the picture


TO BE CONTINUED ...................

 

[seanken]

my latest:

(1)
'Hi Mr Manager. I'd like to give some of the junior guys training in unix after hours. I need to use the training room.'
'We have tight budgets 'till the end of the year. What does the company gain by this?'
'Ehhh, free training, trained resources, my career progression....'
'OK but what else?'

(2)
'Hi Mr Manager. We just got back those 15 Oracle vouchers so we can start the exams soon'
'Fine but you can't have any time off to do the exams'
'But the course centre is only open 9-5, mon-fri'
'Oh. You can take a 1/2 day to do it'
'Fine. I'd like a 1/2 day please'
'Sorry, there's a freeze on holidays not entered by last friday. Don't worry, there should a loosening next quarter'

I am starting to look & feel like that Dilbert fellow...

 

[Craftor]

And another ...

Have a "coding standard" that requires you to write FULL SENTENCES for your comments!! Grade 12 grammar as well, please.

 

[garwain]

Oh! oh! over here!

1) have no coding standards so that comments are non-existant and you can read other peoples code.

2) having the project specs change just after releasing a new revision so that you have to re-design the same section of the program again, and then explain the a lot of confused end users that it's normal for the program to look differnent in this new revision that fixes meets the specs...

3) "but you must be able to fix this problem. You work with computers all day"

4) "Could a one of the programmers fix the web server?"

5) asking a unix guy to fix the NT server
or
asking a windows guy to fix the unix server