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How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

technocrat.net

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Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#91

Post by neilc »

RK wrote: post #20
brown9-2 wrote: post #9

The fact that the CEO sends emails with subject lines such as " MANAGEMENT DIRECTIVE: Week #10_01: ..." (with "directives" numbered by week and sequence) should have been warning enough. update: Google Finance and Reuters show that the Chairman and CEO of Cerner in 2006 is still in the position today. Looks like their stock has recovered from this "20% drop nicely": http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:CERN

The comments imply the original memo was from 2001.

But Neal Patterson, the author of the memo, is still the CEO and chairman of the board. http://www.cerner.com/public/Cerner_2.asp?id=27586

Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#92

Post by minsight »

blantonl wrote: post #80
wildmXranat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first programming job after graduation had a paid Saturday requirement that crept in a couple of months after I started. I think I was the only one that said no to it. I didn't even think twice about the decision and Mondays felt a lot better from my perspective.

And you are no longer there.

No longer being there is a good thing.

Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#93

Post by mindcrime »

Periodic wrote: post #41
abstractbill wrote: post #4

From the comments: My sister used to work for a large multinational that pressured people to come in on Saturdays. The employees would come in but they would work on personal tasks like paying bills and balancing their checkbooks. It was all for appearance and it just pissed off the employees. She left the company after this pressure started. Part of her Saturday "work" was looking for a new job. In my experience thi…

It's a case of misplaced metrics. I can't find the name of the paper or the researcher, but I believe it's been shown that when you try to reward/punish some metric of productivity, invariably the employees will begin to maximize that metric, perhaps at the expense of productivity. Measuring number of hours in the office is not a direct measurement of productivity, and these employees were meeting the metric, but onl…

  It's a case of misplaced metrics. I can't find the name 
  of the paper or the researcher, but I believe it's been 
  shown that when you try to reward/punish some metric of 
  productivity, invariably the employees will begin to 
  maximize that metric, perhaps at the expense of 
  productivity.
You may be thinking of the Hawthorne Effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#94

Post by sanj »

brown9-2 wrote: post #9

The fact that the CEO sends emails with subject lines such as " MANAGEMENT DIRECTIVE: Week #10_01: ..." (with "directives" numbered by week and sequence) should have been warning enough. update: Google Finance and Reuters show that the Chairman and CEO of Cerner in 2006 is still in the position today. Looks like their stock has recovered from this "20% drop nicely": http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:CERN

Neal Patterson isn't only the CEO of Cerner, he's also the Founder.

Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#96

Post by hernan7 »

willyt wrote: post #82
jgrahamc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the company's web site there's a page about him (he's the CEO): http://cerner.com/public/Cerner_2.asp?id=27586 In that it says: "Cerner associates extol Neal for his passion and foresight, his ability to drive change within organizations, his entrepreneurial spirit, and his candid, uninhibited conversational style." So that's just a candid, uninhibited conversational style :-) Note that that message was sent in 20…

I watched a Midwife trying to enter my partners test results into what I believe was a CERNER system at my local hospital. It was painful. The UI is text based, looks pre windows 3.1 and breaks all the basic rules of UI design. Evidently, they also had more serious technical issues under the hood: http://bit.ly/4vLPtE http://bit.ly/9NQKi8 It took them months to sort this out and wasted a huge amount of the medical st…

So, basically customers buy their product using other people's money.

Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#97

Post by MikeMacMan »

umjames wrote: post #57
brg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been around senior management of a larger company? Everyone I have met works at least 10 hours a day, and often more. Except for vacation days perhaps, but even then they are still tied to the laptop and phone.

Yes, but I'm sure it's ultimately their choice. Does the board of directors or stockholders send the CEO a memo that his car is not in the parking lot long enough for their liking? If the CEO wants to work him/herself into an early grave, that's his/her choice. But to force employees who, let's face it, aren't going to be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor like the CEO will, to give up large portions of their pe…

Agreed. This reads like the ranting of some fossil that clamors for the 'good ol' days' when everyone used to be married to their job. This is apparently one of the best places to work in the country, according to ComputerWorld: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/349873/No._52_Best_Pl...

Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#98

Post by electromagnetic »

abstractbill wrote: post #4

From the comments: My sister used to work for a large multinational that pressured people to come in on Saturdays. The employees would come in but they would work on personal tasks like paying bills and balancing their checkbooks. It was all for appearance and it just pissed off the employees. She left the company after this pressure started. Part of her Saturday "work" was looking for a new job. In my experience thi…

What I found ironic in the post is that the CEO wants to implement a time-card system, but also wants his employees (probably a lot on salary) to work extended hours. I'm not sure how it is in the US, but here this would result in the company paying a shit-ton out at year end in banked time.

Forcing your workers to do overtime and work a half-day on saturday would land a company paying near to two-months wages at year end for all its employees if they weren't careful. This would have killed an IT company for sure back in 2001.

Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#99

Post by bitwize »

bryanh wrote: post #65
sigzero wrote: post #3

We got this: "Recognizing that many of you may have childcare obligations that may create a personal challenge for you please seek approval from your manager to deviate from the above and don’t allow your personal schedule to take priority over your need to support your team’s efforts to service the customer." A lot of people where I work didn't particularly like the tone of that.

Translation: "Kids are important and stuff, but keeping customers happy is what matters."

"You're supposed to be helping OUR people! What about our stockholders? Who's looking out for them? HUH?!" --Gilbert Huph

Re: How to kill a company's morale in one easy memo

#100

Post by gruseom »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #50
Periodic wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a case of misplaced metrics. I can't find the name of the paper or the researcher, but I believe it's been shown that when you try to reward/punish some metric of productivity, invariably the employees will begin to maximize that metric, perhaps at the expense of productivity. Measuring number of hours in the office is not a direct measurement of productivity, and these employees were meeting the metric, but onl…

>I believe it's been shown that when you try to reward/punish some metric of productivity, invariably the employees will begin to maximize that metric, perhaps at the expense of productivity. After years of direct involvement in measuring productivity, I would accept that as a general axiom. I've likened it to badly applied wallpaper: push down a bubble and it just pops up somewhere else.

So what would you say are the best ways to measure productivity?
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