As many of you may or may not know I have always been a big fan of the way Google motivates its employees and I would like to copy that as much as possible. In addition, I think one of the fundamental differences between me and some managers in other companies is that I tend to trust people and I believe that this trusting attitude towards employees has been passed down to all managers atEging. I really believe that trust is one of the most important elements in the employer-employee relationship.
On the one hand, the company trusts that its employees will work hard and be honest. On the other hand, employees trust that the company will treat them fairly and reward them for their efforts. In other companies there are plenty of systems in place that are meant to monitor how hard employees work, everything from time and attendance systems, to systems that count how many hours they spend working on their computer, to full scale monitoring of all web traffic that goes through the company’s network and blocking certain domains, to name a few examples.
At Eging, like at Google, we’ve gone the route of trusting employees and so far I believe that it has worked out well. I believe that there is an unspoken deal at Eging. You are expected to work hard and get the job done, which means staying late and doing everything you have to do to make sure we get our projects back to our clients in as timely a fashion as possible and with as few errors as possible.
The flip side of The Deal is that when there is less work, we understand if you need to take care of your personal business on the internet, have a chat with your colleague or have a good game of foosball. By the way, let me take this opportunity to formally let everyone know that we are the proud owner of a foosball table, which will be placed in a common area where everyone can play. So get your Foosball shoes on!
Now there is one thing I must point out here which is a challenge to some managers in some departments. Unfortunately all departments do not have the same type of work. There are two types of departments. Proactive and Reactive.
In some departments the work is proactive. This means that employees of these departments need to create their own work. The sales department is an example of such a department. There is an unlimited amount of work to do in the sales department. You can always look for a new client or make another telephone call. The second type of department is a reactive department. The Localization department is a good example of a reactive department. Our clients determine how much work this department has. If there is a lot of work coming from clients, then the L10n department needs to work very hard and manage all the projects and stay late if necessary. If there is less work coming in then our Loc guys have more free time.
As a result, it’s perfectly acceptable for a manager of a proactive department to make sure that his/her employee is working as efficiently as possible. This means monitoring or getting reports on the work of such employees . What makes it even more difficult is that an employee from a proactive department might look at someone in a reactive department and say, why do they get such long breaks, how come every time I go to their room they are doing non-work related stuff on their computer, why do they go for long lunches, etc. Well the answer is quite simple. These same people will have to stay on the job until it gets done, they can’t just go home and finish the job tomorrow.
So what does this all mean to a regular employee at Eging?
Whether you are proactive or reactive, all that we really care about at Eging is performance. Basically since we are one big team if you are doing your job well then everyone at Eging benefits from this. Thus, if you are working hard and doing a great job then Eging encourages you to take a break. Play a game, talk to a colleague. We created a chill out room and hopefully someday soon there will be games and other distractions there to help employees unwind.
Of course, this is only available to those who work hard and perform well. Sure, it will be possible for employees to abuse the system, but we trust that that won’t be the case. However, if you are not performing well and you are playing or fooling around a lot you can fully expect your manager to have a talk with you. But I guess this is obvious. It’s part of the Unspoken Deal, which I believe makesEging a stronger company and a more appealing place to work.
