
How can you inspire programmers to work longer work weeks voluntarily? - aniobi
http://www.quora.com/How-can-you-inspire-programmers-to-work-longer-work-weeks-voluntarily
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edw519
Take away access to quora.

Then they'll get so much more done during regular hours, your problem will
just go away.

</sarcasm>

Actually this is a fair question that deserves and honest answer. My
experience...

1\. Don't do it regularly. It gets tired real quickly.

2\. Have everyone understand why overtime/deadlines are important. Be open and
honest. People genuinely want to help and will shovel shit under the right
circumstances.

3\. Hit your deadlines. Crying wolf only works so many times.

4\. Make it tactically easy with simple things like: bring in dinner/drinks,
carpool, motel room, day care, casual dress.

5\. Pay them with overtime or comp time. (Amazing how well this works.)

~~~
AgentConundrum
_5\. Pay them with overtime or comp time._

I'd suspect that this works best if it's the workers choice. At the same job,
depending on circumstance, I was paid off with both comp time and overtime,
and its surprising how different I felt the experiences were.

I definitely liked having the time off, but I generally squandered it since I
was still decompressing from the extra work (I should note that, in this job,
comp time generally came from working through the night - literally midnight
to afternoon - on a Friday night leading into a week on call, then followed by
the comp time). During a crunch time on another project, 60+ hour weeks
weren't particularly rare, but we were paid overtime (at our regular rate).

I definitely preferred the paycheque over the time off, unless I could quickly
bank enough time to take a full week off.

I think the choice comes down to your personal situation. Younger, single
folks - like I was then - are probably much more likely to want to work
through the pain in exchange for "extra" cash. Married folks, particularly
those with kids, are probably much more inclined to take the time off to be
with their loved ones. It's very much a personal choice, and I think an
employer that understands that and treats the situation accordingly will get a
lot more loyalty and respect from their workers than would an employer who
paints everyone with the same broad stroke.

That said, I seem to recall reading - in Peopleware, I believe - that workers
who push past 40 hours a week _need the time_ to compensate, and I believe
that they need to have _more_ time than they worked to recover. I'd have to
read the book again to be sure though.

------
cletus
Speaking from experience (working at Google), the answer is simple: you feed
them.

I have breakfast, lunch and dinner here. Frankly, cooking annoys me and going
out and buying food involves making decisions more often than not I just don't
care about.

My fridge at home only has Coke Zero in it and I think I've forgotten how to
buy groceries.

~~~
jonknee
What do you do on the weekends?

~~~
cletus
Well I live in New York (Manhattan actually) so buying groceries and cooking
for myself would be a challenge, even if I were interested (which I'm not).
Small apartments, small kitchens, etc.

So even if I wasn't supplied with food I'd be sorely tempted just to eat out
all the time (whether that be dining or take out).

So on weekends I eat cereal for breakfast and do something for lunch and
dinner depending on what I'm doing anyway. More often than not, lunch lately
has been wandering down to the West Village for a slice of two of pizza.

Dinner can be something as simple as soup from Whole Foods (they make great
soup), take out, going out for dinner or whatever.

As far as I'm concerned there are two things you never do for yourself in
Manhattan: cooking and laundry.

~~~
dragons
Will google do your laundry? Just curious :)

~~~
jonknee
Dry cleaning is a pretty regular perk offered at Google offices, so yes Google
will do your laundry.

~~~
dragons
Do engineers need their t-shirts and jeans dry cleaned? ;)

------
modoc
IMHO a much better question is: "how can we help our programmers be more
productive?"

Long hours only "help" for a pretty short time period, so making the core 8
hours/day more productive is a much more sustainable approach. In my
experience people LIKE being productive and don't like working crazy hours, so
it's also much easier.

Top hits in my experience:

Is the physical environment conducive to productivity? Comfortable/ergonomic
setting, fast powerful hardware with lots of screen real estate, does the
office allow for uninterrupted focused work and good communication.

Is the work environment conducive to productivity? Are the software tools low
drag? Is the process setup to allow developers to focus on 1-24 hour sized
tasks (optimal size may vary) without interruption and having to multi-task on
12 things at once? Are your programmers protected from random management
interference?

There are tons of factors that go into this as well, having your manager or
team lead protecting and empowering you versus cracking the whip, making it
easy to keep blood sugar at happy levels, having the programmers be interested
in the work, have the programmers understand the value of the work and be
invested in the success of the project.

I would much rather have programmers working 6 hours a day, focused,
motivated, and productive, than 12 hours a day, checking facebooks, switching
between 12 different "SUPER URGENT" tasks all day, etc....

------
danilocampos
The simple answer: work on a problem/product whose solution is both fun and
challenging, then recruit developers who respond to fun challenges. Don't do
mediocre shit, or if you must, don't expect it to be easy to get other people
excited to give above-standard effort to it over an extended period.

I worked some nights and some weekends from November through January because I
was doing something that I truly enjoyed. No one had to ask me – I did it on
my own initiative because that's where my mind went each time it was allowed
to wander. It was awesome. edit: Oh, and get out the ass-in-seat model of
productivity. All this bonus time happened at home, in my comfy apartment.

At the same time, it wasn't a death march. If I needed a break, I took it. I
spent plenty of nights/weekends relaxing, having fun with my girlfriend, and
otherwise doing my own thing. I felt no pressure to put in the extra time and
no guilt when I didn't.

In the end, everyone got a great deal. I work on stuff I truly enjoy, my
employer gets substantially more productive juice than is standard, and
everything is flexible.

Of course, even on your own initiative, it's possible to burn out. I'm a
little frayed after all that effort, fun though it definitely was. Still
figuring out how to regroup and recharge, and I'm a bit slower now as a
result.

------
jasonkester
Amazing that nowhere in all those responses is the simple answer:

Pay them for their time.

Want me to sit in your cube for 12 hours on a Saturday? No problem. That'll be
$(hourly_rate * 12). Need 70 hours of my time this week because we've all got
to dig in for this one last big push? I'm there, so long as you're prepared to
pay me $(hourly_rate * 70).

Granted, if you want my best productivity, you'll purchase 30 hours of my time
over the course of 4 days each week. But hey, it's your choice.

~~~
tlholaday
The questioner specified "voluntarily." I believe those answering interpret
that as "without increasing compensation."

~~~
Dylanlacey
I wonder if the asker was deliberatly trying to avoid saying "For free", while
still wanting to not do anything at any cost.

They might already know they're being unreasonable, and are just hoping to
avoid having to think about or admit it.

Then again I'm an outrageous cynic who thinks that any organization slowly
tends towards screwing their employees unless careful, deliberate measures are
taken.

------
gte910h
Pay overtime. Not being glib. It works like a charm. Then again, "works
longer" likely isn't your real goal, and more hours may not serve that real
goal.

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wpietri
Whoa! This is where all the upvotes are coming from. I'm the Quora user with
the answer that leads with "Wanting programmers to work longer weeks is
foolish." Thanks for the votes of confidence.

I will shamelessly self-promote by mentioning that I'm just about to start
hiring for our San Francisco web startup, so if you have strong front- or
back-end chops, want to be among the first 5 people at a startup, and want to
work for somebody who gets that overtime doesn't mean better products, contact
me at william at scissor.com or @williampietri on Twitter.

------
angdis
The short answer is "If you have to ask that question, you can't do it."

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blocke
I believe Fortune 500 companies call this "maintaining a startup environment".

</snark>

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timwiseman
Here is what I found worked to get me to be willing to work extra, and it has
worked for many of the my employees when I went to management, though of
course people vary:

1\. An interesting project so the work wasn't drudgery (knowing why it
mattered to the company also helped a lot).

2\. Incentives. This could be as general as stock options/employee stock
purchase so that at least key employees (people able to indvidually affect the
overall welfare of the company) are strongly motivated to see it succeed.
Promises of bonuses tied to performance, or promotions down the line help, or
comp time all help.

3\. Food.

4\. The boss should be there. At my last company, my boss was there _most_ of
the time if he asked us to work late. When I became a manager, I was almost
always there if I asked my people to work late. It was a small company, the
CEO was occassionally the one bringing in the take-out if several of us were
asked to work long hours.

------
th0ma5
Interesting, however, I would question the quality that comes out of longer
work weeks, see many previous discussions on HN.

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raganwald
Hire me! I can accomplish almost as much in seventy hours a week as I can in
fifty.

------
dominostars
I often work longer hours at my current company, for these reasons:

1\. I work on projects I like and care about.

2\. We set aggressive deadlines.

3\. I'm never explicitly asked to work longer hours.

4\. If I do work longer hours, it's recognized and appreciated.

------
fleitz
Use an 8 day week now your programmers can work 48 hours per week.

~~~
AgentConundrum
If at first you don't succeed, redefine "success".

------
martharotter
The best manager I ever had was amazing at this and the reason was simple: he
understood downtime and he negotiated.

So when we were trying to ship something and everyone was working late nights
and weekends, he'd give us several days off afterwards. Additionally we had
flexibility such that I could offer to work a few weekends in a row in
exchange for a long weekend a few weeks later.

It was a great system and his employees always respected him for it.

------
bartonfink
Voluntarily? There's a lot of wiggle room in that term, and probably some
assumptions that need to be challenged.

If we assume that "voluntarily" means that you expect your developers to
simply stay late without any investment of effort on your part, then good luck
to you - I hope your developers REALLY believe in your company. You want
something for nothing, and personally, I'd comply long enough to get another
job. My life is too short to spend it "killing time" on your project.

If we assume that you are willing to invest in the environment or other
workplace changes, but not willing to compensate your developers financially
for extra time, then I think that you're going to want to be careful what
message you're sending so you get the most bang for your buck, so to speak.
Ordering dinner (and not just pizza by default), for example, would be a good
start. Most of the time, I'm hungry in the evening, but if I'm staying late
I'm not going to be thrilled about spending 30+ minutes to go get my own food.
I'm going to be thinking "great, this is 30+ minutes later I need to spend
when I get back." Giving me clear direction for what you need and why you need
it now is another biggie. If you're asking me to stay late, clearly you have
some task in mind so make sure I understand exactly what you want to see so I
don't waste my time. Making it clear that you are doing whatever you can to
remove the reason I'm here late is another biggie. To paraphrase, lack of
planning on your part does not constitute a good reason to give up my evenings
on my part. If you're asking me to put in 12 hour days, I'm not going to be
amused by the addition of a pinball machine or other games (I have worked at a
startup where the other developers managed to squeeze in 8 hours of work and 4
hours of ping-pong in every day and bragged about "working" late). I'm at the
office late because you need something done, and anything that doesn't make
that goal easier so I can hurry up and get home just reeks of management
missing the point.

If we assume that you are willing to compensate your developers financially
for their time, then make sure that this is a win for both parties. Time after
hours is time that your developers can't spend doing other things. Evenings
are time with families, for example. Evenings are a chance to spend time with
friends away from the office. Evenings are a chance to unwind with hobbies. I
value my evening hours more highly than my midday hours because I have a
family and that's when it's easiest for me to spend time with them. If I'm not
going to make it home for dinner, I don't want to tell my wife "honey, I need
to work late but it's okay - I'm getting an extra $50 out of the deal." That
figure needs to be high enough that the decision is easy. I also do contract
work after hours, so if my day job wants me to stay late, I'm forced to either
give up sleep to meet those obligations or I'm giving up weekend time. You're
shifting the array of my life around, and that's an inconvenience I would like
to be compensated for. I'm not asking for something ridiculous, but I think a
premium atop my regular rate is in order.

------
chrisbennet
Alternate title: "How can I get my programmers to work more hours - for free?"

I worked for a (great) startup 10 years ago that almost never had us work any
overtime (a few days a year max). We had a fixed 50hr work week - but they
also paid 25% more.

How would you (as an employer) answer if the question posed by your
programmers was "How can I inspire my company to work us less hours for the
same pay?"

But seriously, the sooner you can pose your original question to your
employees the sooner your smart employees can find another place to work
leaving you with the programmers/serfs that might better fit your management
style.

------
run4yourlives
You don't want a professional, you want a slave, in the strictest sense of
both words.

You want a person to work more than you are willing to pay them. Recognize
this fact and I think you'll find the answer to your question.

------
dedward
How about: how can you manage your business so you don't have to overwork your
programmers as a core business strategy?

------
jimfl
Be sure it is worth it.

Smart developers can smell an arbitrary deadline a mile away. The need for
extra effort need to be tied to something more tangible than the Gregorian
calendar and/or an executive's bonus.

Stimulate a culture of ownership.

Interest your developers in the competition. Your competition are fools and
trolls. Certainly we can do better. Regularly checkpoint against the
competition.

Consider developer-suggested features. Developers will put in the extra effort
if they are playing out their own ideas, and are motivating each other.

Consider the following scenarios: Manager: "I need you to work this weekend to
get xyz done by mmddyy."

Or, Developer: "Dude, I am going to hackathon on xyz at the coffeehouse on
Saturday. Caffeinated mints are on me."

------
gaoshan
Tell them they should be grateful to even have a job. That they should put
their noses to the grindstone and be happy they can put food on the table and
aren't in the unemployment line... oh wait, sorry... that's what the publisher
at the newspaper where I used to work always said and it was rather less than
inspiring to me. Never mind.

------
goombastic
This is not ok. Even if you use words like "inspire." No one should be forced
to work long hours. If you are considering it, make it optional and don't use
peer pressure. ALSO, PAY OVERTIME.

