Motivating Workers
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@creayt said:
@thanksajdotcom Disagree. I absolutely adore what I do, I've been obsessed with it since I wrote my first line of code. I liked my job a lot when I took it, still in college. But my motivation definitely skyrocketed when after the first year, and just about every year since, my boss pulled me into his office and said "We'd like to give you a raise. A gigantic one."
Money is a valid motivator at the very least for many people. I've seen it happen personally and in others a variety of times in a variety of workplaces. It's romantic to think that it doesn't, and that there's enough flexibility, purpose, and freedom in every job out there to create meaning and "do something you love", but it's also naive. A lot of jobs simply don't have that maneuverability.
See, I disagree. I would say it wasn't the money that was the motivator, but rather what the money represented, which was appreciation of the value of your work. Money in and of itself doesn't mean much. However, people like raises because it means their work is being appreciated. Like @scottalanmiller said, sales people are motivated by the money itself, but I'd bet you were more concerned that they appreciated your skills and dedication than the money itself.
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@thanksajdotcom said:
I'd bet you were more concerned that they appreciated your skills and dedication than the money itself.
If my boss called me in to his office said "I can give you a raise or I can give you some appreciation, which would you prefer?", I'm pretty sure what my answer would be.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
I'd bet you were more concerned that they appreciated your skills and dedication than the money itself.
If my boss called me in to his office said "I can give you a raise or I can give you some appreciation, which would you prefer?", I'm pretty sure what my answer would be.
Businesses demonstrate appreciation by two primary means: promotions and raises. You could also add incentives to that, such as paid trips/vacations, etc. However, businesses demonstrate they appreciate you via those two means. If your boss calls you in and says he appreciates what you do, but he's firing you, that's not real appreciation. That's fake.
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Maybe you can't motivate them but, you sure can demotivate them. And companies do that all the time to workers.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
Maybe you can't motivate them but, you sure can demotivate them. And companies do that all the time to workers.
Totally agree with that!
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@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.
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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.
Then to each their own.
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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.
