I am interested in current best practise regarding incentives for non-graduate and graduate level IT development staff.
This concerns two areas:
– reward/compensation for overtime
– incentives/bonuses for special projects
If anyone can point me at a current paper on the topic please do so. Otherwise online comments regarding some of the following will be helpful:
– ensuring there’s fairness in both directions (employers getting their pound of flesh, employees not being abused)
– avoiding staff burnout
– avoiding “If you don’t pay me overtime I’ll work 8-5 with a hour for lunch thank you”
– maintaining motivation
– staying in credit with your staff so they’ll put in the extra effort when required
– avoiding ongoing expectation of extra pay for work
– “aren’t they just doing their job anyway?”
– “overtime etc. comes with the IT territory”
– “unpaid overtime comes with the territory of being a professional” (where’s the line drawn above which this becomes the case?)
– getting the balance between rigid measurement rules versus less formal monitoring and rewarding of overtime
– motivating/rewarding stars outside of annual salary reviews
– using incentives to meet challenging deadlines
– “measure me on results / I can manage my own time … don’t make me keep rigid hours”
– importance of keeping office hours (availability to peers and customers)
I have always tried to avoid incentives and overtime pay unless it is an exceptional circumstance that is difficult to compensate for in other ways.
I prefer a more informal approach to measuring and rewarding effort; and also one that is non-specific. i.e. I avoid if possible relating rewards to specific work or extra hours (“I worked til 7 last night therefore I’m entitled
I favour ad-hoc non-monetary rewards such as individual time-off, team activities, fun stuff etc., but what is the current best practise?
