Motivating Workers
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@creayt said:
@thanksajdotcom Definitely not. It was the actual money specifically, and the things it let me do in my personal life. I consider myself an excellent programmer, independent of whether my boss or company owner directly appreciates me as an asset ( a lot of the time they do not because we directly differ in subjective opinions on how software should look and work ). Money is what's kept me at that job, and what's kept me happy and motivated there, and I've definitely noticed that as the raises have gone up, so has my motivation.
Social sciences aren't nearly as accurate (although they get more so over time) then "hard" science. So there are always exceptions to the rules. However in the majority of cases money isn't an effective motivator when compared to other incentives.
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@coliver said:
@creayt said:
@thanksajdotcom Definitely not. It was the actual money specifically, and the things it let me do in my personal life. I consider myself an excellent programmer, independent of whether my boss or company owner directly appreciates me as an asset ( a lot of the time they do not because we directly differ in subjective opinions on how software should look and work ). Money is what's kept me at that job, and what's kept me happy and motivated there, and I've definitely noticed that as the raises have gone up, so has my motivation.
Social sciences aren't nearly as accurate (although they get more so over time) then "hard" science. So there is always exceptions to the rules. However in the majority of cases money isn't an effective motivator when compared to other incentives.
Agreed. Many studies show people get less performance/less effective with higher pay.
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What are you using a squiggly pen to underline that text, bro?
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@coliver Totally disagree and would love to see some research and/or statistics to back up what to me feel like aggressively naive conclusions based on what appears to be an overly optimistic projection of what the majority of human beings might be like, but more probably, what you and any authors you're concurring with wish they were like, because it feels more noble.
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@thecreativeone91 Do you have some links? I'm guessing that whatever you're talking about is actually compared to slightly higher pay. If you produce a study that shows that people perform worse and are less effective when you double their salary, for example, I'll eat all of my words.
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Joel Spolsky has a good article series on this topic:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/10.html -
Motivating workers? The beatings will continue until productivity increases.
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@Nic said:
Joel Spolsky has a good article series on this topic:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/10.htmlJoel makes abysmal software so I'll read it with a bucketful of salt but am excited to see if he found any actual evidence.
@MattSpeller said:
Motivating workers? The beatings will continue until productivity increases.
Hahahahahaha. Too good.
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@MattSpeller said:
Motivating workers? The beatings will continue until productivity increases.
I think that's why us IT folks where called Toby's at my last job.
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@creayt said:
@Nic said:
Joel Spolsky has a good article series on this topic:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/10.htmlJoel makes abysmal software so I'll read it with a bucketful of salt but am excited to see if he found any actual evidence.
I have to agree with @creayt here. Joel writes well and has some good insights, I have all of his books and find them valuable. But what he turned out at Microsoft is the worst of what MS has produced (VBA!!) and Fog Creek's products are definitely a joke. We tried one once based on his reputation and we were completely shocked and what garbage it was. No support for any enterprise OS, didn't install or work. The only thing we were happy about was how easy it was to get our money back. Customer service was excellent. Nice people, terrible software. Their use of VBScript has made them a laughingstock in development circles. I would never put it on my resume, it could easily be a career ending place to work.
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Agreed. Many studies show people get less performance/less effective with higher pay.
This guy just took a million dollar-ish pay cut specifically because money motivates ( and provides fulfillment to ) workers, if anyone's curious.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/14/gravity-payments-raise_n_7061676.html
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@thanksajdotcom Princeton did a study recently semi-concluding that "to be happy/motivated/fulfilled, $75,000 a year works."
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628,00.html
Teaser: "People say money doesn't buy happiness. Except, according to a new study from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, it sort of does — up to about $75,000 a year. The lower a person's annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels."
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Yes, no one is saying that it isn't motivating until you can afford the basics.
As someone who took a pretty massive paycut in order to have a better life and took a whopping paycut compared to what I was being offered.... I can tell you that money above a certain amount really does not motivate a lot of people. You need a certain level, but beyond that it just isn't worth very much.
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@scottalanmiller said:
As someone who took a pretty massive paycut in order to have a better life and took a whopping paycut compared to what I was being offered.... I can tell you that money above a certain amount really does not motivate a lot of people. You need a certain level, but beyond that it just isn't worth very much.
A lot of people, sure. But not all people, and definitely not "most" people based on evidence. Most people want the freedom of not having to throw 40-80 hours at someone else's benefit in exchange for "the basics" and some compliments and would be exponentially happier spending the rest of their lives seeing the world and experiencing everything there is to experience, a caliber of happiness that money, exclusively, can buy.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yes, no one is saying that it isn't motivating until you can afford the basics.
They pretty much are saying that, which is the point. $50,000, in all but the toughest neighborhoods ( like NYC ), can get you "the basics" provided you manage your money appropriately. It feels to me like some people here are arguing that "people will work harder for a little praise and artistic liberty at work than they will for an A5", which until someone proves me wrong, flies in the face of research, common sense, and the attitudes and opinions of most people I've talked to, in my industry at least. People work hard for money, which lets them do things they otherwise couldn't, and enjoy a level of security and comfort they otherwise couldn't. Whether their boss, coworkers, and peers tell them they're great at what they do and how wonderful their work is makes a lot of difference, and is great sure, but it's not as great as being able to have a beautiful 59 story home overlooking the beach and a helicopter in your backyard to take you to a far-off breakfast, or even better, to be able to retire at 40 ( a lot of programmers ) and have literally decades of extra free time to pursue your actual life passions.
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I'd be motivated a lot more by a 4 day work week than more money. Unless it's substantially more money.
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@creayt said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Yes, no one is saying that it isn't motivating until you can afford the basics.
They pretty much are saying that, which is the point. $50,000, in all but the toughest neighborhoods ( like NYC ), can get you "the basics"
Where do you need $50,000 to get the basics? Median income here is $37,000
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@thecreativeone91 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
6 United States 43,585*
7 Canada 41,280
8 South Korea 40,861
9 Kuwait 40,854
10 Netherlands 38,584
11 New Zealand 35,562 -
@MattSpeller said:
@thecreativeone91 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
6 United States 43,585*
7 Canada 41,280
8 South Korea 40,861
9 Kuwait 40,854
10 Netherlands 38,584
11 New Zealand 35,562I was referring to my area not the whole country. But still most people make well below $50,000. And that is also household income, not individual income so it could be significantly less for each person.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@creayt said:
@Nic said:
Joel Spolsky has a good article series on this topic:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/10.htmlJoel makes abysmal software so I'll read it with a bucketful of salt but am excited to see if he found any actual evidence.
I have to agree with @creayt here. Joel writes well and has some good insights, I have all of his books and find them valuable. But what he turned out at Microsoft is the worst of what MS has produced (VBA!!) and Fog Creek's products are definitely a joke. We tried one once based on his reputation and we were completely shocked and what garbage it was. No support for any enterprise OS, didn't install or work. The only thing we were happy about was how easy it was to get our money back. Customer service was excellent. Nice people, terrible software. Their use of VBScript has made them a laughingstock in development circles. I would never put it on my resume, it could easily be a career ending place to work.
Yeah I've heard mixed things about FogBugz, but Trello and Stack Exchange seem to be taking off. Either way, kudos to him if he can keep a good business running and attract and keep good talent. Tom Limoncelli just went to work for them.
