The other day, I got to thinking about the various techniques companies/departments/managers use to motivate their employees.

When I was at Hayes Microcomputer, they set up some sort of deal where employees who excelled (as judged by their peers) were given a $50 gift certificate to a restaurant (a system, by the way, the I consider extremely unfair and biased). On one particular project, they advanced the deadlines (under agreement from the programmers), and set a monetary reward system up for making the accellerated deadlines.

Now I'm curious as to what motivates different people, for work. I described my basic take on work in (jcwren) RE: Why do monks put up with it?, so no point in rehashing all that mess. It does, however, form a little foundation for the below.

The company I currently contract for has what I call 'enforced fun' days. These are days when the engineering department, or entire company, is forced to go do something that someone, somewhere, perceives as 'fun'. I generally despise events like these, and as a contractor, I am exempt. If I was full time, I'd prolly pull a sick day. I usually like the people I work with, but I don't want to hang with them, especially after work.

I figure if a company wants to show me how much the love me, give me the day off. Coming in, being forced to socialize at an activity I probably don't much care for, is not my idea of fun. Nor is being given a gift certificate to a restaurant not of my choosing, or, worse yet, being given tickets to some silly "sports" event that's 40+ miles from my home.

I figure if I ever make it over to the Dark Side (management), and have the opportunity, my peoples will be offerred various choices as "rewards". Sometimes, this may be me being purely arbitrary, and telling everyone to go home after lunch. Or, if everyone likes the idea, a "contest" for a gift certificate or somesuch. Maybe a romp at Book Pool, or Amazon.com (no flames, please). At any rate, something that everyone has an equal chance at, regardless of skill level, personality, gender, religion, or alcohol tolerance.

So what kind of techniques are people trying to motivate *you* with, what's your repsonse, and what would you prefer?

Me, I value my free time. I've got a project list a mile long, and a stack of books that never shrinks (and a book bill that reflects it). And the important thing about free time, unlike money, is that once's it gone, you can *never* get it back. Time spent with the wife & dogs is far more valuable to me than being forced to do something someone else considers 'fun'...

--Chris

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In reply to Motivations by jcwren

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