I even had one assignment where management expected the IT department to be furniture movers.

The biggest issue I see today is the steady lessening of purchasing power. We all know the hours are long, expectations are never inline with capabilities, and hiring managers are typically just copying and pasting requirements from elsewhere, but we should have all known that, or learned that in our careers.

At one point in time, being in IT ( and actually being good at IT ) meant you had the purchasing power to acquire goods and services at middle or upper middle class level. Right now, that's not the case for the majority of IT staff. Granted there are those who live extravagant lifestyles but I can't believe that's the norm. As IT workers generally have experienced less purchasing power, they've been driven lower on the hierarchy of needs, thusly making the job satisfaction paradigms of yesteryear irrelevent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

What really motivates people? Work your way up the hierarchy and tailor your motivational incentives to the tier the person is actually in. Not everyone has the same motivational needs, so why try to use a singular approach? If someone can't meet their basic needs ( hard to imagine, but it happens ), whether or not they feel engaged in their work becomes a secondary concern to base needs.

It's fairly obvious that the leaders in industry have forgotten this. If they can't seem to remember it on their own, perhaps it's time for a wake-up call.

Everyone comes to IT to solve every single problem they have with their day to day work. They expect that IT has the answer, and they forget about the ton of stuff that is already running under the hood.

The problem is that, over the years, IT has been loosing some of it's credibility. Many business users are already expecting the "we don't have resources for that", "it will take us at least 3 months", "that's outside the company policy" answers.

There are several causes for this. One of the main ones is that IT doesn't have the budget nor resources to be able to maintain what is already there (hardware and software), let alone budget and resources to come up with new stuff!

As a result, many IT departments (and professionals) are always in reactive mode, fighting many fires at the same time.

The only way to motivate IT professionals is to make IT work well for the business, again!
IT departments need to find a way to get their legacy under control, reduce operational costs, and free up time and budget to work on the new stuff they need to deliver.
This will put IT in a proactive mode, and will start being looked at as efficient, reliable and valuable for the company. At the end of the day, employees will be motivated and life in IT will be as good as life in any other department.

Morale is an individuals state psychological of well-being so in order to increase it you need to use other positive mental techniques. For some people it may take a manager coming into their office, closing the door, and telling them what a great job they have been doing lately. Something that takes 30 seconds can drastically change the way someone feels about themselves.

So next time you have a shitty day ask yourself what would make you feel better mentally, a $500 bonus or a simple 2 minute positive chat with your boss.

"Ok. Fine. You've made it known that you aren't giving pay raises to anybody this year.That's ok. I've bought it. Don't go and blow lots of money on bad investments or gadgets for executives that they just gotta have. The cost of that iPad was about the pay raise I got... 2 years ago before a budget crunch."

Growth & Development -- provide money and time for training and opportunities to advance.

Recognition -- this is more about appreciation for completed milestones and extra hours, not awards.

Trust and confidence -- workers must both trust their leaders (ethical, keep commitments, etc.) and have confidence that their company and industry will thrive in the future.

GReAT IT managers focus on Growth, Recognition And Trust.

Jason - I can totally relate to the ridiculous expectations. I've been in situations where IT was expected to take care of anything with electricity or moving parts!

okie - "If someone is so stupid that they are calling and bugging your IT people all of the time and infuriating them, then get rid of the annoying person."

I think we've probably all wanted to be able to get rid of a user or five.

Let us do our job!

I also would like to test out ROWE ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE ) someday. Seems interesting and disciplinary.

you want to improve IT worker morale, do the following:
- Reprimand, move, or fire those who are in IT who don't do their jobs. IT is just like everywhere else, where the 80/20 rule applies. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. managers should constantly be working to change that ratio. there are a lot of guys who sit and play games or do nothing all day in IT instead of taking initiative and working hard. light a fire under them or get rid of them.
- Figure out how to hire good people. If a job opens and you put out a request for someone who needs 7 years of ASP.NET and SQL Server experience, you're a moron. you exclude a lot of excellent programmers by doing that. what you want is someone who has 3-5 years of experience, but completely understands how to program. do they know the fundamentals of programming? do they know the fundamentals of IT admin? it will all carry over.
- Give people their own offices. Flat out improves moral and productivity.
- Don't let your IT people be used as helpdesk support. Hire helpdesk people for that.
- If someone is so stupid that they are calling and bugging your IT people all of the time and infuriating them, then get rid of the annoying person.
- Provide good hardware and software. Companies & orgs are known for giving other dep'ts new hardware and making the IT dept run on the hand-me-downs. it should be the other way around.
- Don't waste time with stupid training and meetings. I have a deadline to meet on a piece of software. Don't make me sit through your stupid awards ceremony for people in HR and other departments.
- Respect. Respect the fact that most IT people can pretty much do everyone else's job (and often do), but everyone else can't do what IT people do. yeah, remember that it was IT who set up the software, created the scripts and formulas for the accounting department to increase efficiency. bonuses should be steared accordingly.
- Get rid of any manager who hasn't worked in IT. he/she has no clue what is going on.

Boom, do all that, you've got a happy group.

2 mlomb:

Some people are really fond of state of urgency. That's the only state when they feel good when going home at night.
Other people want to know their tasks for whole year, to be able to plan everything - and hold the control of everything.
Internally, we use such things as pair programming to make people learn every day. If you don't learn - you slow down.

Regarding the expectations. When they're tracked nicely for, say, couple years, everyone knows what can be really achieved. And then there's no hurry, but constant work on the tasks.

Alex

And not every IT worker is a specialist in everything. Don't expect your network engineers to be able to program SQL databases or your programmers to be able to manage Active Directory. Oh, and then expect them to do the job of 10 different people for the salary of 1.

Management dumps everything onto IT with no real idea about what we do and then wonders why we're burned out and unhappy.

My advice to IT people. Get out of there. It ain't worth it and you will soon be replaced by technology and Indian workers. Sure, you will have to learn to actually be social - as opposed to thinking you already are - it is worth the effort. This advice goes to both managers and non-managers.