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Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

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Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#61

Post by chris_mahan »

jackmaney wrote: post #38
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…

High school is over. Grow the fuck up.

If your organization needs shaming people publicly in order to be profitable, it won't be.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#63

Post by Someone »

Already__Taken wrote: post #37
psaintla wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, but feel free to use it (it already has the meaning you intens to give it. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asociality)

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#64

Post by meowface »

csallen wrote: post #19
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 beg to differ. I know more than a few technical people in management positions who read Hacker News religiously. If confronted with this list by an employee, sure, they may react defensively. But if they come across it themselves, they may find a few pieces of "advice" on the list that they've been following unknowingly and decide to change their ways.

I severely doubt anyone actually doing any of these things would have the self-awareness required to realize they're doing them and stop doing them.

I still think it was a funny and informative blog post though.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#65

Post by loup-vaillant »

meowface wrote: post #64
csallen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to differ. I know more than a few technical people in management positions who read Hacker News religiously. If confronted with this list by an employee, sure, they may react defensively. But if they come across it themselves, they may find a few pieces of "advice" on the list that they've been following unknowingly and decide to change their ways.

I severely doubt anyone actually doing any of these things would have the self-awareness required to realize they're doing them and stop doing them. I still think it was a funny and informative blog post though.

Actually they may, if they only do some items. At least, they can wonder "wait a minute, why doesn't he like that?"

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#66

Post by csallen »

meowface wrote: post #64
csallen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to differ. I know more than a few technical people in management positions who read Hacker News religiously. If confronted with this list by an employee, sure, they may react defensively. But if they come across it themselves, they may find a few pieces of "advice" on the list that they've been following unknowingly and decide to change their ways.

I severely doubt anyone actually doing any of these things would have the self-awareness required to realize they're doing them and stop doing them. I still think it was a funny and informative blog post though.

There are a few on there that people may be doing without realizing. For example:

    3. Interrupting people regularly for status updates.
    4. Falling into "doom loop" of rushing software dev.
    6. Changing communication tools regularly.
    10. Being overly stingy with hardware.
    14. Failing to deliver public praise.
    17. Being stingy with information.
Given enough naivete and inexperience, I can see a well-meaning and honest manager failing at some or all of these.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#67

Post by mason55 »

hawkice wrote: post #52

Or, my favorites: * Have CEO live in another state, but not let his absenteeism stop him from insisting the entire company change * Throw chairs at people who want to release the code after it's feature complete [Ah, TJ, I wanted to give you a big ol' bear hug for finally pressing the point after hitting feature complete more than 10 times and us never releasing] * Be constantly high on amphetamines * Steal the ident…

> If you guys think it's a harsh reality that companies do the stuff in this article... I guess I am curious if you guys have worked at venture funded startups?

I've worked at three including one medium sized exit and never experienced what's in the article or your post.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#68

Post by hawkice »

mason55 wrote: post #67
hawkice wrote: post #52

Or, my favorites: * Have CEO live in another state, but not let his absenteeism stop him from insisting the entire company change * Throw chairs at people who want to release the code after it's feature complete [Ah, TJ, I wanted to give you a big ol' bear hug for finally pressing the point after hitting feature complete more than 10 times and us never releasing] * Be constantly high on amphetamines * Steal the ident…

> If you guys think it's a harsh reality that companies do the stuff in this article... I guess I am curious if you guys have worked at venture funded startups? I've worked at three including one medium sized exit and never experienced what's in the article or your post.

Congratulations! :) Startups are more fun without these things (I think that's the implication of the article as well).

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#69

Post by frostmatthew »

grecy wrote: post #45
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…

> she's also stopped helping other people when they're out sick, because it can only possibly lead to either 1) Her doing more work for no recognition, This rings especially true for me at my current company. Everyone says around here that the most important skill you can learn is "expectation management". When given a task that is supposed to take 1 week, the absolute worst thing you can do is complete it in 2 days.…

Sounds like you need to make your current company your former company.

Re: Ways to Minimize Employee Retention

#70

Post by luch »

civilian wrote: post #12
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…

Therefore a wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him. Niccolo Machiavelli "The Prince"

Most people associate Machiavelli with a devious, twisted mind when he was actually simply a pragmatic. He is labeled as an amoral guy since he admits that violent or cunning methods are sometimes useful.

Also, as an software contractor, his thesis on private forces/ paid forces is quite enlightening.

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