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Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

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Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#31

Post by angersock »

amputect wrote: post #10

> 14. Humiliate people in public. If you have to choose only one item from the list, this one is really, shockingly effective and easy to implement. My wife was in tears the other day because she made two trivial, easily-fixable errors on some paperwork she was doing as a stand-in for someone who was out sick. She fixed the errors and resubmitted it when they were brought to her attention, but her boss still sent the…

Whenever I want to show my team better ways of doing things, I always pick on my own code or actions as the examples not to follow (if I can find them--otherwise I'll make some up). Then, I try to find examples from their work where they've exhibited the behavior I'd like (again, making up examples if needed).

You don't want to be the guy whose code is called out as garbage, unless you're doing it yourself.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#32

Post by hamburglar »

steve_g wrote: post #25
com2kid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am of two minds about this. On one hand, a "you broke the build dunce cap" isn't the worst of ideas. (Although by far I prefer a check-in system that doesn't allow the build to be broken for everyone...) I've been shamed, and semi-publically (within the team) shamed others, for not having written any unit tests before check-in. I'm also a big fan of publically celebrating successes. When a tester writes up a good b…

Teasing, shaming and other forms of negative humor are very hard to do with a positive result. People are astonishingly different in what they can tolerate and how they respond. I suppose, with the right people, and the right team dynamics it can be OK. But as a manager, I would strongly advise you to steer clear of that tactic. Even if you've got awesome emotional intelligence (and I don't) it's easy to screw up. It…

> Teasing, shaming and other forms of negative humor are very hard to do with a positive result. People are astonishingly different in what they can tolerate and how they respond. I suppose, with the right people, and the right team dynamics it can be OK.

So true. I've had great managers that had great rapport with the team and everyone was tight knit enough that the manager could stand in the hall and say "hey, come over here and look at the ridiculous code Bill wrote" and it would all be in good fun, even for the person who was being mocked (being able to laugh at your own mistakes is important, IMO). And on the other hand, I've had terrible managers who aren't able to do it in a good-natured manner and it ends up being mean-spirited, condescending, and morale-killing. There's a surprisingly fine line between "lol, Bill, what were you thinking?" and "Bill wrote bad code and I'm going to call him on it, making everyone on the team uncomfortable, and thus cultivating an environment where everyone lives in fear of making a mistake."

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#33

Post by philsnow »

beloch wrote: post #8

22. Hire antisocial self-declared "rock star" employees who can't stand other human beings. 23. Encourage sociable, pleasant employees to read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. 24. Peer reviews and stack ranking! 25. Stress that everything must be done in-house. If your employees want a wheel, they must reinvent it themselves. 26. Play video games in your office during crunch-time or, heck, just take the day off. You deserve…

> Peer reviews

I've had nothing but positive experiences from years and years of peer reviews. It's not even that I've had "nice" / overly-charitable peers who don't call me out on things: I've gotten good, actionable feedback that improved my career.

It's a pain in the ass to write them but I always put in a good effort because of the benefits I've received from them.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#34

Post by zenogais »

zenogais wrote: post #29
dasil003 wrote: post #5

If you have to write this post to vent because you are stuck in a job you can't afford to leave and you are scared you'll be fired if you raise these issues to management, then so be it, write the bloody post and I hope you feel better. However in terms of practical changes, this post can neither benefit you nor anyone else. We all know about broken management cultures that this post describes, but none of those mana…

Knowing the author personally and having worked at the same company with him (he left there a long time ago). I can say it is neither. It was among the most broken places I've worked. The author himself is a great communicator and technical lead. Perhaps we should accept the shocking reality that there are really startups this awful to work for :)

Or we can just do the "downvote of denial"

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#35

Post by georgemcbay »

dasil003 wrote: post #5

If you have to write this post to vent because you are stuck in a job you can't afford to leave and you are scared you'll be fired if you raise these issues to management, then so be it, write the bloody post and I hope you feel better. However in terms of practical changes, this post can neither benefit you nor anyone else. We all know about broken management cultures that this post describes, but none of those mana…

I don't understand your strong negative reaction to this. The way I read it, it is pretty much a (very) dry humor piece in which anyone who has been working in software development for any amount of time is likely to recognize most of the points listed as being real things that happen (but hopefully not too many at the same job).

I'd get it if the piece were "21 Ways to Minimize Employee Retention, like my former manager John Q. Smith did at CompanyCo", but as just a list of silly shit management does, I don't know why you'd have a "no hire" level problem with it.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#36

Post by psaintla »

beloch wrote: post #8

22. Hire antisocial self-declared "rock star" employees who can't stand other human beings. 23. Encourage sociable, pleasant employees to read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. 24. Peer reviews and stack ranking! 25. Stress that everything must be done in-house. If your employees want a wheel, they must reinvent it themselves. 26. Play video games in your office during crunch-time or, heck, just take the day off. You deserve…

With #22 I really believe that you should be careful. Introverts can easily be confused as anti-social. Now if they're a dick to everyone for no reason that's a different story.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#37

Post by Already__Taken »

psaintla wrote: post #36
beloch wrote: post #8

22. Hire antisocial self-declared "rock star" employees who can't stand other human beings. 23. Encourage sociable, pleasant employees to read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. 24. Peer reviews and stack ranking! 25. Stress that everything must be done in-house. If your employees want a wheel, they must reinvent it themselves. 26. Play video games in your office during crunch-time or, heck, just take the day off. You deserve…

With #22 I really believe that you should be careful. Introverts can easily be confused as anti-social. Now if they're a dick to everyone for no reason that's a different story.

Is asocial free for coining?

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#38

Post by jackmaney »

com2kid wrote: post #18
amputect wrote: post #10

> 14. Humiliate people in public. If you have to choose only one item from the list, this one is really, shockingly effective and easy to implement. My wife was in tears the other day because she made two trivial, easily-fixable errors on some paperwork she was doing as a stand-in for someone who was out sick. She fixed the errors and resubmitted it when they were brought to her attention, but her boss still sent the…

I am of two minds about this. On one hand, a "you broke the build dunce cap" isn't the worst of ideas. (Although by far I prefer a check-in system that doesn't allow the build to be broken for everyone...) I've been shamed, and semi-publically (within the team) shamed others, for not having written any unit tests before check-in. I'm also a big fan of publically celebrating successes. When a tester writes up a good b…

High school is over. Grow the fuck up.
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