Being Retained
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Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/sjones/beingretained.asp
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my being retained seems to be in the form of money, by my boss and i dont even ask for it !
Ive also been told not to work overtime either...only problem is like most people i have 1.5-2weeks work to do in 1 week...clearly not a rentention winner if you are not paid for the extra time you put in for when you work.
I find simple things like having some creature comforts (eg clean water cooler) at work to make me feel better about coming to work as well and staying in the job...
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Life is far too important to be taken seriously -
I would say 'People leave their managers not Companies'
. In the IT industry, all depends on how the project, you are working on, is managed. Plus and important part of a manager is to set the expectations of the team members right. Who wont like to work in a well managed environment 
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I worked in the UK for an Oracle software house which was part of a large company. When the UK industry sector went into the doldrums a few years ago, the parent company started to lay off thousands of people world-wide through a generous voluntary redundancy package.
Our management called a meeting to explain the situation, and someone asked if they could give us any assurances that our own jobs were safe. We were told that the parent company was very keen to keep their software development capability, but that they could not give assurances.
60% of the employess in our software company took the voluntary package in the next two weeks following the meeting. This meant the company was no longer a viable business, the rest were made redundant a few weeks later.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...
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I look for a company in which the managers take their employees seriously. Too many managers think only their opinions count (they are the manager after all) and what their subordinates have to offer is not worth hearing. The subordinates are just grunts to do what they are told. There was time when our opinions were important here, but...
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Yes - people leave their managers NOT the company.
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Interesting piece.
As someone who has worked for the worst management and some great ones. I have noticed that retention seems to be related to a few little things:
1. Let the employees do their work and make some decisions (have input)
2. Flexible in/out times each day. (choosing a start time, not yelling if 5 minutes late)
3. Management simply being evangelists for the dept, not being a boss of each person's work. and listening to the employees.
Just a few things I have noticed that seem to make a real difference.
Cheers
http://twitter.com/widba
http://widba.blogspot.com/ -
Steve, I think you need to do a quick edit on the bullet points. The (this article) parenthetical should be moved to point 2, point 1 should have a link to article 1, and point 2 in article 1 should point to this article.
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Not so much a comment on "employee retention" as it is an "employee rant"...
There were definitely LOL moments for me when I read about MS Project used to track time as well as the part about playing Cassandra and prophesying the future - albeit a limited one of 6-8 weeks!
I absolutely DREAD my monthly task reports for they in no way reflect how hard I've really worked - in fact, the length of the report is more often than not inversely proportional to the work input. There might be a few weeks when I've fixed a whole bunch of annoying bugs that when "written up" sound impressive - on the other hand I can struggle with a piece of code or module for days and all I have to show for my efforts is a very sparse and depressing one-liner....
As for the "forecast for the future"...I am stuck with this d^%n piece of nonsense with every report and invariably find that I've been way off in my predictions...this is mostly because the project takes on a life of its' own with priorities, unexpected bugs, user intervention ("yes I know I signed off on that requirement but your interpretation of it is completely different from my expectations...")...etc. But do the managers understand this - NO - all they see is that in your monthly report, the tasks done do NOT MATCH the tasks you said you were going to do!!!!!!!!
Then you have to point them to your very creative and inventive "justification section" where you have to phrase things in such a way that you lay the blame squarely on the client (where it usually belongs) and yet couch the whole darn thing in ambassadorial terms so that no offence is taken even though it is definitely meant!
I spend more (wasteful) time thinking of ways and means to accomplish this than I do on the actual task at hand!This diatribe would be incomplete if I did not mention the number of emails we get about the importance of signing our e-timesheets in a "timely" way....our "punishment" is much worse than being a "soda jerk" - we have to go to so many drop-down boxes and enter so many explanations for why we didn't sign the timesheet when we were supposed to that that the whole system has us all cowering in terror - so much so that even on weekend mornings I wake up with a start saying "d#$n - I must sign my timesheet" - only to fall back in bed after I realize that it's a "happy day"!!! And if it's the "end of the week" - the managers get really frantic about unsigned (& unsubmitted) timesheets - but nothing compared to the frenzy at the "end of the month" - specially those that fall in the "middle of the workweek" where the pace of the emails becomes so frenetic that the inbox starts choking and gagging with the overflow...I cannot help but wonder then if they EVER get anything else done other than tracking down all the defaulters and ranting at them....
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I agree that managers (not the company) can be a reason for leaving. But in my case, I work in the best environment I have ever worked in. My manager and Sr. manager, both of whom are practicing techies and managing at the same time, view each of the employees as self sufficient in their areas - unless we prove otherwise. The beauty in our environment (in a telecom company) is that leadership - at least on my team - manages to the projects, not to time. We have leeway to learn other technologies that pertain to the business. As the article metioned, the biggest factor for most of my team is not the manager, but the company. With all of the mergers in Telecom and regulation etc, the industry has become less profitable and many centers have closed. We all worry about re-orgs and lay-offs. Another is coming up.
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Next monthly report, add a 15 hours timespan title : file timesheet
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Steve focuses on the value employees place on feeling their job is secure, but also on the value they place on being challenged to grow professionally. In most organizations there are individuals who view change, and therefore the growth that usually accompanies change, as a threat to their security.
So how do you keep an organization performing well over the long run? You make sure that employees know that good performance and the willingness to take on additional responsibility will be supported and rewarded, while at the same time letting them know that their job exists because of what they contribute in their job and that there is no job security without good performance. You also recognize that employees are valuable today for what they already know how to do, but they are most valuable tomorrow for what they don't yet know how to do but are willing to learn. And compensation, recognition and perks need to flow to those who take on new responsibilities and learn how to handle them effectively. Otherwise, you retain the security focused employee while pushing away the growth oriented employee. I'd rather have the security oriented employees be a little bit uncomfortable and looking for other opportunities and have the growth oriented employees excited about coming to work.
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....but they are most valuable tomorrow for what they don't yet know how to do but are willing to learn.....
the sad truth though is that employers do not recognize this - they do not equate the fact that if you do your job well now the chances are excellent that new technology or not you'd do well once you're past the learning curve...employers (for the most part) look for buzzwords and if you don't have it on your resume then you're bypassed for those that do...very few are willing to invest training time in an existing employee seeing as they're caught up in deadlines, looking for an exact skillset match, bound by contract funds etc...
remi - can't tell you the # of times I've been tempted to do just what you suggest!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Well it wouldn't be false
... and it might start to send 'em some hints. -
I used to randomly allot my time between projects (in corporate work), varying the amount per day, adding them up to 8 or 10 randomly. Just to make life easier. I work to solve problems and keep my clients happy, not particularly to give a bean counter something to do.
In consulting work, I was honest about, I'm not tracking each individual item. It's a waste of time when you move fast and change topics quickly. It works for some people, but an honest accounting of time and a good job go a long way.
Andy and I disagree because he's sure we can somehow derive value from knowing timings to better our esimates. My feeling is estimates are crap , period. The amount of time depends on the project and amount of work, my skills, familiarity, etc. However it also depends on how I feel, did I get enough exercise this week, what I ate, if my wife and I had a fight, the kids are in sports, etc. All of that has a huge impact on productivity.
I agree we usually leave managers, but managers often please their managers and so it's really all management as well as your direct supervisor.
The big thing I wanted to get across is that employees are people. Not resources, not line items. We're human, we do good work, and sometimes bad work. We're inherently fallable and unpredictable. Manage us with some rules, but a lot of flexibility. My managerial tact was treat them all differntly under the same rules.
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