Timeline for How do I prevent employees from either switching to competitors or opening their own business?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 6, 2019 at 17:43 | comment | added | Todd Wilcox | The IT people matter because without servers, workstations, and networking you can't function. Accounting matters because your business dies without money and is terminally threatened by government fines for violating tax and accounting laws. The legal team matters because your business dies if you are constantly paying to fight lawsuits and enforcement actions. HR matters because you have to find, hire, and retain all the people who matter. Even if you outsource all of that, the middle managers or VPs who deal with those vendors matter at least as much as those services do. | |
| Jun 6, 2019 at 15:25 | comment | added | Wesley Long | @gazzz0x2z - That's so pithy it's sublime. Consider it stolen. | |
| Jun 6, 2019 at 13:50 | comment | added | gazzz0x2z | gotta love this answer - people who do the thing you sell and people who sell the things you do are the most important ones. Others might help, but only if they support those 2 teams. | |
| Jun 5, 2019 at 20:59 | comment | added | user15729 | To sum up here: fixate on your core competencies, not auxiliary issues. Create value in your product and company and other things tend to fall in line. | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 21:51 | comment | added | Azor Ahai -him- | Only a developer would write about developers like this ... lol | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 16:10 | comment | added | superluminary | I would add in: stick to a sprint. Developers do well when they have clear goals that they can hit. Don't pull them around from place to place. Also, don't cheap out on hardware. Nice laptops, nice monitors, occasional team lunches. Just be nice. | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 14:18 | comment | added | Mike Wise | This is a very good answer, and rings true from my long experience both with very small and very large companies. | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 14:04 | comment | added | gerrit | "No one else matters" sounds like an overstatement. The cleaning staff matters too, to say that they don't is rather unfriendly and untrue. They just happen to be less specialised but the work they're doing is still important. | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 12:13 | comment | added | Conor Mancone | After he left I was going through his work/git logs in detail to figure out how to get things moving again. I don't know exactly what he was doing for those few weeks we overlapped, but I can definitely tell you he was never in the zone. In fact, he wrote very little code at all, even compared to his past rate of work. I'm pretty sure he used that line simply because he wasn't doing anything work related and didn't want to get busted by a surprise visit from the boss... | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 12:12 | comment | added | Conor Mancone | @HenningMakholm "Developers are different and you can't treat them like normal people". For example, the owner liked to drop into people's offices to say hi - he was very reasonable about it, probably dropping in just a few times a week for a minute or two. However the developer yelled at him for it because "developers are different". Specifically the developer didn't want to be interrupted while in the zone as it might ruin his productivity. The owner was new enough to developers to believe him and stay out of his office. | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 11:54 | comment | added | hmakholm left over Monica | @ConorMancone: What is "this line"? | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 10:58 | comment | added | Conor Mancone | @R.Schmitz It's hard to relate the details here, but I once started a new management role and had an employee who used this line frequently. I was still new enough to management that I didn't call BS like I should have. Turned out that he had one foot out the door before I joined and he was using the line to hide his lack of motivation and productivity. He left on his own just a few weeks after I joined, so it at least resolved itself quickly. Now when I hear that line it immediately provokes my dubious face. | |
| Jun 4, 2019 at 9:36 | comment | added | R. Schmitz | @ConorMancone It's a bit weird about this answer, because that part indeed sounds over-the-top. However, the practical advice given fits very well: Accepting off-hours and working from home are things that are a huge morale plus, while not giving you a lot of disadvantage when it comes to development work. "Listen to them", well that's a more universal thing; if your accountant has an idea about finances, you should probably also listen. | |
| Jun 3, 2019 at 15:37 | comment | added | Conor Mancone | RE: "They don't think like normal people do. Don't expect them to behave like normal people do. If you insist that they do, don't expect them to be happy." I mean, let's not go too crazy. As a developer and someone who has managed developers, they are still just people. Yes, the job is different and sometimes requires flexibility (aka sometimes the most productive part of my day is when I leave the office to get a snack), but developers are still "normal" people and many rules of management still apply. | |
| Jun 3, 2019 at 15:31 | history | answered | Wesley Long | CC BY-SA 4.0 |