

Screw the Bonus, Ask for This at Work Instead - ohjeez
http://blog.smartbear.com/software-quality/bid/265392/

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MattRogish
The difficult/fun part of management is identifying each person's personal
motivations and making sure you tailor your "style" to match. Someone may be
best motivated by bonuses but it's also equally likely that someone on your
team may best be motivated by attending a conference, ability to work from
home, working on new technologies, raising their personal brand by blogging,
writing articles, etc.

Without the "soft" side, management can be done by a machine, which is why I
really dislike management-by-the-numbers. Why should a "manager" get paid more
money than "doers" if all the manager does is print out a Gantt chart, say
"Improve performance!" and crack the whip "Work harder!"? Makes no sense.

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qznc
One important thing: Do not treat them all the same. While this is convenient,
individuals need different ways of acknowledgement.

Related: <http://www.5lovelanguages.com/>

~~~
thisone
can't repeat this enough.

I want acknowledgement in two forms.

1) personal respect

2) pay me

Number one makes me happy, number two makes me think you value me. When I'm
happy and feeling valued then I don't think about leaving.

Other people I work with are different. They want management positions or
titles or nights out.

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bsilvereagle
In my experience, managers don't know how to do my job. So it's nearly
impossible for them to give feedback other than "fine" or "it's working, so
it's good enough for me".

The people that do know how to do my job don't become managers - because they
prefer to be engineers.

So while the idea of this seems good, I don't think it's really practical...or
I've been working at the wrong places.

~~~
ohjeez
Respectfully, I think you have been working at some of the wrong places.

The manager may not know how to _do_ your job, but she probably can tell if
(a) you got good results (b) you put a lot of energy into it (even if it
didn't achieve the results you hoped for) (c) you contributed to the team in a
visible way (e.g. "I really appreciated how much time you spent with the
intern").

None of that means the manager could write code (or whatever) as well as you
do. She has you on the team because you do that task well. But letting you
know that the work you do is appreciated and valued and makes a difference...
that doesn't require that the admiration be for your elegant indenting style
or your brilliant use of recursive descent.

A good manager who didn't necessarily understand the tech involved often can
bring out the best in her people by getting _them_ to talk. I had one manager
ask, after a project was done, "What would you do differently, if you had this
to do again?" Asking that doesn't mean that he would have made decisions any
better than I did, but it does mean that he was doing his best to help me
self-assess and get better at my job.

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philsnow
> I'm a security officer in a hospital, and it's truly a thankless job

When my infant son was in the NICU, I wasn't allowed to stay overnight with
him. I thanked every single security guard every single time I interacted with
them.

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peatmoss
The picture at the top made me think "office with natural light." Seriously, I
would be willing to shank a mofo for more natural light at work.

~~~
philsnow
Two things I love about my current office is the amount of natural light we
get (odd for me since I usually don't like a ton of sunlight, but somehow it
works) and the big enclosed interior spaces (it's probably 40-45 feet from
floor to ceiling in places): [http://www.google.com/about/jobs/locations/san-
bruno/#media=...](http://www.google.com/about/jobs/locations/san-
bruno/#media=gallery)

If you can't change your office, have you thought about getting a "happy
light" ? I have some friends who lived in former East Germany for a few years
and their sleep and mood improved a lot when they bought one for ~$30 and
spent 30 minutes reading in front of it each day.

