Motivation

Lots of people work in order to have enough money to live. We are lucky in tech - we can often choose a job based on more than just money. Employers have had to find other ways to convince us to choose them: free food, remote work, foosball tables, etc. Sometimes they just try to pay us more than other companies - which frequently works.

Turnover in tech is high right now. Many reason for this have been offered: lack of qualified candidates, a boom in hiring because of the pandemic, having to change jobs for a significant pay increase, aggressive recruiting / poaching of talent, impatient Millennials. But I believe, from both my own experience as well as the experiences of devs I have talked to, that the main reason for job changes is motivation.

Short Term Motivators

Most of the benefits we are offered are short term motivators - they convince us to get the things done that need to be done today. "If we finish off those bugs, we can shoot each other with nerf guns for 20 minutes or so on Friday" (this actually happened at a previous job I had). I imagine most of us have had a long night (or weeks of long nights) where our boss provided dinner for everyone so that we could get that pesky release out the door. The problem is that these motivators have nothing to do with the long term health of the product, the company, or ourselves.

Short term motivators get us through the day. The help us focus on a particular problem that we have so that we can solve it. But they miss the forest for the trees. When I am given a ticket that says "Make this dropdown show these options from the database, sorted and filtered just so" I get a bunch of short term motivation. I think things like: "I can list one more ticket as done in stand-up tomorrow", "I have a small challenge for my brain to solve", and "I'll create something that we can use again in spots like this".

There is nothing wrong with these short term motivators - its an important way to keep us focused on solving problems step by step. But many employers only focus on these things when trying to convince a potential employee to join (or keep an existing one). Signing bonuses, high salaries, interesting technical problems, remote work, catered lunches - these are things that companies think will keep us around long enough to get a product shipped, even if we have to work a ton of extra hours. Sometimes they work, and a product is shipped on time and on budget. Most of the time they fail, and the ones writing the checks are left to wonder why giving everyone all these benefits didn't get the result they desired.

Long Term Motivators

Long term motivators are what keep us coming back day after day. They guide us through the grind, helping us remember why we are doing this in the first place. Sometimes, short term motivators play into our long term motivation - "I want to have a high salary so that I can make sure my family has the things they need to live" or "I want to work on this hard problem so that I can grow in my career". The long term motivation must be there in order for the short term motivators to mean anything to us.

The best companies are realizing that short term motivators are just that - short term. No employee gets out the bed in morning excited to work a long day because they are going to get pizza for free! Was working with that talented jerk in order to get the project done faster enjoyable? In your own career, have you ever noticed the reasons you stayed at a job for an extended length of time?

Hierarchy of Motivations

Nearly every developer I've worked with eventually has some long term motivation related to their career. Companies provide these in order their employees desire them, and it usually looks like this:

1. I want to make enough money to provide for myself / my family.
2. I want to learn new things to grow in my career.
3. I want to bo on good terms the people I work with.
4. I want to do work that I believe in.

As tech workers, our employers usually do a good job at number 1. We are paid well for our work, most of us are not severely overworked, and we are able to provide for our family. This is the basic level for most decent tech companies nowadays - if you can't pay well, you are likely going to end up with poor talent and a bad product.

While a little harder to provide, number 2 is getting more prevalent in the industry. Companies realize the fast pace of technological progress, and want to make sure that employees can keep up. Getting training, attending conferences, and spending time trying new technologies are all things that most tech companies do today. A company at this level can make good products and can be profitable, but likely still has higher turnover than they would like.

Number 3 is where companies can really stand out. Many employers will tolerate high performing jerks because they produce a lot of output - nevermind the fact that they reduce the output of those around them. Many a co-worker will quit or change teams just to avoid being around this person. The best companies realize that the teams that work better together create the best software. They also realize that the best workers don't want to put up with someone that annoying, so it isn't worth it to keep them around.

The last of our motivations - working on something you believe in - is where the great companies separate themselves. To keep you engaged over a long career, you need to believe that what you are doing is helping the world. What that means to different people is obviously different, but no one wants their work to be unused. We want to feel that we are contributing, in some small way, to making the world a better place to live. Are you helping someone do something that they would not otherwise be able to do? Are you helping others learn something, like a valuable skill? Providing us with the means to improve those around us is a great way for companies to keep us happy, engaged, and motivated workers.

Conclusion

If companies are wondering why they are having hard time attracting and keeping talented workers, they need to look in the mirror. Are they providing enough long term motivators that keep workers spirits high? Or, are they focusing on the short term to get software out the door? Are they listening when their employees tell them what they want, or do they think more money and pizza will solve the problem? I think a big shift is coming, and employers who provide these long term motivators are going to be much better off - in both the short term and the long term.