Policy Development - Revisited 1

[MasterRacker]

I originally posted this in the "How to Motivate and Retain My Technical Staff" forum and was quite surprised to recieve only one response. I thought I would try re-posting here along with pivan's reply to see what folks here think.

I am most interested in any actual policies, but all input is welcome.

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Obviously, in the IT world, keeping up with current technology and trends would be considered to be a basic job requirement, since this is related to competence. Methods of keeping informed, would include keeping an eye on sites such as Tek-Tips, and reading books and trade publications. Since this type of reading could be considered to be a part of almost any technical job description, requiring staffers to do all of the reading on their own time would not be reasonable. You would essentially be requiring overtime.

I am trying to formulate a written policy allowing this type of “unstructured research” and am looking for input on what others are doing. How much time per week is reasonable? Do others have this actually written into job descriptions or is it mostly an activity that is informally accepted as long as the normal job is being done.? If your IT staffers have to do formal time tracking, how do they record this time, or do they have to “hide” it in other activities?

I have a friend who is a mechanical engineer who once had a job description that explicitly required him to spend at least 4 hours per week during normal business hours on the Internet reading research papers to keep current. From what little I’ve seen on this subject though, I suspect that this is pretty unusual. It will be interesting to find out how others are handling (or not handling) this.


Jeff
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Hi Jeff:
I am going to be interested in the respones this thread recieves.

Here is my two sense.

First, I have been blessed to have a develpoment staff that does research on their own time or in the course of solving a work related problem. If as part of their assignment, say optimizing compile time, they have to do research, then I expect to see them researching at their desk. Or if it hits them...at home at 2:00 AM. I dont care. From a time tracking stand point its all part of the assignment and budget allocated as such.

It has never been in any job description I have seen. I personally would keep it out of a job description because I think it could be abused. In walking around, I see glimpses enough times of developers searching the web for things that are not work related. I dont want to give them in open invitation to surf the web.

In getting developers to stay abreast of new technologies I do a few things:
1) set an example by taking classes at UCLA that are withing are technology scope.
2) advocate at every chance that we can not afford to be stupid and that we must constantly stay abreast of new advances in our technology.
3) reimburse developers for books and classes without question.
4) get as many of them as want to and Sr. Mngt will allow to venues such as JavaOne.

My own personal belief is that we are all professionals and keeping up with current technology trends is ultimately the responsibility of the individual.

Hope this helps.

pivan
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Jeff
I haven't lost my mind - I know it's backed up on tape somewhere ....

 

[ErikZ]

Ahem, I'm currently on my last day as a Temp worker. So, your policy sounds fine, but really, I'm willing to work in a draconian enviroment just to get a real job.

Also, with the complexity of software these days, I'm surprised that any employer of programmers wouldn't let them have their own library.

The Internet is the biggest library out there.

 

[carp]

My last employer had a policy in effect that mandated every employee on the IT staff WOULD have one week of training per quarter. Whether that training was in the classroom, over the web, or a self-directed voyage of discovery was up to the employee and his/her manager.

My current situation is a little less formal. No written policy, but management's attitude is if you need the knowledge to get the job done, than acquiring the knowledge is part of the job. Books/classes are easily justified and willingly funded. However, this is HIGHLY dependent upon each manager's disposition, which makes it a tenuous situation. I would like to see line items in the budget (both monetary and temporal) for training.

 

[pl12987]

This is a beautiful idea! I wish I had more time to do training and research myself...I'm so busy producing that I've fallen behind. And that's your best point: Allowing people to keep up just keeps up their values. It's also fun, and you never known when a magic bullet that can speed up another project will pop up.

It's just that mgmt has to understand the value of cutting workers some slack for research, reading, training -- that even includes a few minutes of mind candy here and there too. Anyone can tell you the best ideas come when your mind is at play--or just sitting thinking with a cup of coffee. But a boss that makes people feel as if they have to repeatedly type "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" every time they need to think, just so they look "busy" is just asking for burnout and frustrated staff.

 

[LoaferMan]

Knowledge... That's a big subject.
Asking an engineer to keep up with knowledge is like asking him or her to drink the lake outside the office. If he or she had all the time (or all the thirst) in the world, they could never get it done. The amount of knowledge is infinite. I myself am an engineer, but most of the work out there is about technology. To understand past, current, and future technology requires a theoretical background. (That means science) Knowledge needs to be applied. (That means engineering training.) It needs to be applied practically. (That means technology training.) A lot of training and learning these days is for throwaway knowledge. We can't just constantly study technology or we will be continually frustrated, but we can't just study science or we will never get to the accomplishment phase.

We need a balanced learning program.

(Here is an example of something with a short technology "half-life".) Learn about DAO, wait a second, now forget DAO and learn about ADO. (Couldn't they at least have used different letters?)

If you want and expect people to stay up with the latest trends, that means playing follow the leader. There however is more than one leader, so people need to follow Microsoft, SUN, IBM, and Oracle etc. That task alone is monumental. It requires more than full time training.

If you want and expect people to get ahead of the latest trends, that means understanding the history of technology plus understanding the theoretical basis of what is happening now, plus understanding the latest advances in technology so that they can be applied. This all sounds very nice, but people in this economy don't want to pay for it.

(By the way, surfing the web, or hanging out in the library will not get us all the knowledge we need anymore than sucking up water from the lake outside.)

People in all our companies and institutions need three things to keep them up to date.

1. They need mentors who have been there and back and can show them what an awesome life long learner is capable of.

2. They need managers who delve deeply into what their gifts, skills, and abilities are, then encourage them to find technologies that enhance, embrace, and improve their strengths while diminishing their weaknesses.

3. They need to be given a project with a real purpose that ties them to a goal that requires them to do the research and work that will cause them to learn valuable, timely, worthwhile, satisfying, economically important, pertinent, foundational, exciting things that can be put to use to train others and work on future projects.

We can't get caught up on the medium (the web). It is just another mode of I/O like a telephone, letter, TV, typewriter, morse code, note, conversation, book, movie, song, classroom, forum, newspaper or billboard.

Create a goal, then use all mediums at your disposal to accomplish it. Make it fun and worthwhile to learn. LoaferMan - There is no practice life. This is it. (Billy Crockett)