Pizza won't motivate your developers. Beers won't motivate your developers. Ping-pong won't motivate your developers. Your developers don't need motivation. They are already motivated to work in tech. You just need to stop demotivating them. Throwing pizza and beers at problems doesn't fix it. Instead, - ditch micromanagement - remove everything that slows them down - focus on dev experience The goal is to have an environment that doesn't demotivate them.
It's not just about motivation, either increasing or decreasing; it's also about facilitation. What you might categorize as demotivating is often better characterized as ridiculous, often insulting obstacles to doing what could be the simplest of things. Fixing a typo requiring multiple code reviews by carefully identified subject matter experts who are all on vacation, for example; which is not the end of the world until you multiply it by 10 every day. We hear so much about carrots and sticks, but you can motivate the life out of the donkey and it's not going to make much difference until you put the wheels back on the wagon.
Developers don’t need gimmicks—they need an environment where they can do their best work. I’ve seen firsthand how removing blockers, trusting the team, and investing in developer experience make a bigger impact than any perks. A motivated team thrives when leadership enables, not controls.
Food brings people together, so from cultural perspective: have meals/snacks together. It doesn't have to happen constantly, but it should happen. Micromanagement, condescension from leadership, not treating colleagues and employees and 'underlings' with respect -- and not listening to their professional opinions -- nor treating them as fellow human beings, not providing growth opportunities, nor higher pay, nor time off as needed,... using devs as scapegoats instead of reviewing processes to determine root cause... When these types of problems persist in work environments, organizations will lose quality employees. A friend once said: money is the love language of business. I agree 100%, but also think that mutual respect plays a giant role between employee and employer. Add pizza and ping pong (or your fun not-work activities with teammates) to this business love and respect... and you have the makings of an amazing work force and business culture.
I Disagree! 😂 Our firm has a fantastic work life balance plus a fantastic work / play balance, to the point that the average worker retention is 6 years. We all have many who come back to the company after leaving. However we know it’s about working damn hard. Our returns and client retention illustrate that it’s not all Beer and Pizza that motivate us. It’s all about balance, to prevent one area of our lives becoming too much to handle. Of course we are a Nordic company, so attitudes to work / life / play culture are more pragmatic than the extreme of throwing oneself into the abyss of work without respite. We are also aware that with the benefits comes the need of trust and an employee roi. Yes we get remote working whenever we want but we are aware of needs and demands of the job and the client , so we don’t take advantage of it. We also are lucky to have a fantastic office atmosphere which actually encourages remote workers to come in regularly, and yes sometimes this includes Beer and Pizza. We’re not google, nor try to be, end of the working day is end of the working day. Sure things don’t run on beer and pizza alone , but don’t forget, if a company values its employees, employees will value their company
Completely agree. Nothing helps more than providing developers with freedom and supporting our ideas. The best managers I had did just that, at the end of they day, I could always buy my own pizza and beers. But you know what's super nice? When you get the things that create a great environment and THEN they give you free pizza and beer. That's the dream
In practice, hands off management is less effective. It helps some folks, highly autonomous folks, and those folks are less than 5% of the overall population. There's nothing wrong with an engaged manager and community/culture building as long as it's authentic. It's far more effective than LinkedIn wants you to believe... because in practice *most* people will actually go above and beyond for their *friends* - as long as it's a genuine mutual interest and not just transactional manipulation. People thrive in a friendly "everybody wins" environment with lots of support. Believing these things don't work is just wishful thinking - like believing that advertisements don't work on you.
One of the most demotivating aspects is working under a micro-team manager who lacks sufficient skills and knowledge yet tries to dominate team members by interfering in every minor detail. Additionally, they are not open to feedback from junior team members, considering only the opinions of their leads or seniors. While there could be countless reasons for feeling disheartened, these are among the most common challenges that impact motivation and team dynamics.
IDEX Corporation•11K followers
1yI completely agree. Developers thrive on autonomy and meaningful work, not just perks or freebies. When leadership focuses on removing obstacles, eliminating micromanagement, and fostering a frictionless environment, motivated teams naturally follow. Trust is far more powerful than pizza.