Shonzilla, a pattern-seeking animal

How companies keep their employees motivated

This short options menu is short but pretty much sums up the options for Google which is suffering from the biggest brain drain so far in 2009.

Its worth emphasizing: you can replace Google with company X (say, your company’s name) and Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL with A, B and C (i.e. competitor companies’ names).

How does Google continue to keep the troops motivated and excited about their career prospects? A few options spring to mind:

1. Endorse title inflation in Google: This is the Yahoo route — if you can’t make all those managers into directors and directors into VPs based on numbers, at least do some social promotion so people think they’re moving up, even if their span of control hasn’t changed. Senior Engineers can become Architects in droves. They’re all smart people who in any other company would qualify, so who are we hurting here? The main thing that limits this is the peer review process. Prisoner’s Dilemma here.
2. Throw some money at training away the problem: This is the Microsoft route. Don’t tell people no, tell them they need to complete some complex multi-stage training program, and let that program lead them around in circles for a few years. During the process, pluck a few people left and right to keep the rest of the herd motivated, but effectively keep the misdirection up long enough so people feel they’re making progress even when they’re not. Bonus: some of that training might help mature the culture some.
3. Get radically honest and accept the fallout: This is the AOL route — we’re telling the overachievers that they’re not going to get to be a SVP soon and probably ever, and if they quit they quit. Backfill as appropriate with less driven, more status-quo people who can keep the peace and won’t be agitating for promotions you can’t give them. Sound harsh? Remember, the business is growing slower, and shuffling out some of the edgy risky people might be appropriate. There are plenty of A talent who’ve had a family and don’t want to work 80 hours a week any more who might be happy to be a Director for 15 years if it meant they could take off to be at their kids T-ball game. Hire those people to replace the guys who want a shiny new title every 6 months.

Thanks to the pseudo-anonymous commenter Sam Southie. I’ve quoted his comment and also an answer posed in the article from BusinessInsider - “How To Stop The Google Brain Drain”:

[via BusinessInsider]