原创 Importance of hygiene to employee motivation

Keeping the team motivated and enthusiastic about an entrepreneurial company could be the difference between success and failure. It is also an aspect of the job for a founding CEO that can be puzzling.

It seems like every high-tech executive I talk to has the same lack of appreciation for "human resources" issues. Their sentiment can be best summarized as, "Employee problems are the most frustrating."

The goal is to keep employees motivated so they are fully engaged and productive. To the manager who is committing his or her life to a new startup, it appears that the opportunity is so exciting that even the most cynical employee with a toxic attitude could be turned into a top contributor.

How does the management team go about this? Most of us learned how to solve complex technical problems but feel ill equipped to tackle employee issues.

Here are a couple of things I picked up along the way that might help.

One concept is fundamental to managing the workforce and creating a stimulating work environment. Team management issues can be divided in two main groups: Sources of unhappiness or dissatisfaction and the opportunities to create motivation.

The key is that those two sets are distinct. The former, sources of dissatisfaction, must be eliminated. This process is what was described to me by the late Phil Kaufman when I worked for him –– accurately, I believe –– as taking care of corporate hygiene.

On this list would be making sure the office is clean and well-lit, engineers have the tools to perform their job and are not hindered by "stupid" rules, and competitive pay and benefits. More important, management must take care of toxic employees.

For a tech startup, the list would include stock options as well. A word of caution here: The management team must plan properly the allocation of stock options to be equitable and to ensure the pool is not depleted before the full team is hired.

Perhaps the more important point is that taking care of this list gets executives back to the ground floor in terms of employee management. Getting employees motivated means addressing a completely different set of issues. To get into positive territory requires that the management team give employees autonomy and ownership of projects, which often requires a different approach with each employee. As managers, executives need to take the time to understand what motivates an employee and what his or her strengths are.

To put this further in context, managers should look at expanding the responsibility of their employees vertically, not horizontally. That means, not increasing quantities of the same repetitive tasks, but more ownership, including objectives and deliverables.

An important corollary of this division is that not every employee problem can be solved with compensation.

So much of keeping a team or individuals motivated rests with the first-line manager. A good manager knows how to give an employee all the authority and responsibility he or she can handle to get the job done, along with the tools and resources. The manager will let them make mistakes, learn from them and not micromanage, unless that’s required and, sometimes, it is. At other points, the manager will need to help clear the path to get a project completed or a roadblock cleared. Without a supportive and responsive boss, the cycle of discouragement begins.

Employees, especially engineers, like to understand the problem they’re solving and be able to put it into a context. Executives can and should encourage developers to interact with customers, participate in customer meetings were appropriate and, if needed, send developers to help the customer on site. When the company’s exhibiting at a trade show, engineers should be encouraged to take a shift or two of booth duty to meet prospects and learn more about the industry. It will give them first-hand knowledge of customers’ challenges and enable them to problem solve, a great motivator.

More than 20 years after I heard the concept of “hygiene” in employee motivation, it continues to help me understand the difference between clearing up dissatisfaction and creating motivation.

Michel Courtoy is a former design engineer and EDA executive who sits on the board of directors at Breker Verification Systems.