Ideas to motivate mainframe team

mc77in · New User Joined: 29 May 2018 Posts: 1 Location: India

Hi All

Looking for some good ideas on how to motivate the mainframe team & make them feel proud that they work on mainframes.

It could be a floor event in the office which is mainframe centric etc, make a presentation in front of all employees (even non mainframe) about the relevance of mainframe in today's world etc

Please share your thoughts

Thanks

expat · Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 5:50 pm

Free food and beer usually works

Willy Jensen · Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 6:36 pm

Don't do teambuilding exercises. Allow them to go on courses and conferences where they can talk to other mainframers. 'expat's advise is also good.

Rohit Umarjikar · Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 7:12 pm

Promotions/Good appraisals/Salary hikes/Bonuses/Vacation trips/Organize events with cash prizes (at least twice a year)/Recognize what they do/ Reward and Award them/Have them showcased themselves to the management and at the least take them out for Team Lunch/Dinner once every quarter.

These things don't happen so often hence try it what can be afforded and it should work.

RahulG31 · Active User Joined: 20 Dec 2014 Posts: 446 Location: USA

Nothing motivates as much as money do. If the Mainframers are paid equally as others in best of the technologies then they'll definitely feel proud. A simple example would be a Java programmer, which is usually paid more than a Mainframe guy although there is an abundance of Java programmers out there.

As per my experience, I can tell you that No floor event, no presentation, no team activity, no lunch/dinner can help motivate a person unless they are paid equal to their peers.

What demotivates/frustrates mainframe programmers is when they see people half the experience are getting paid more just because they happen to work in a different technology.

Another thing that I have noticed is that, mostly, there is only low level work in Mainframe (especially the work that goes to offshore countries like India). How can a person be motivated with low level work when his peers are talking about the advancement in their technologies, especially something related to web?

According to me, one of the best thing to motivate a Mainframer is to start making him become a Non-mainframer. That is, include the Mainframe programmers in learning some other technologies, conduct those sessions for Mainframe programmers only, so that they can understand and be utilized in other technologies when needed. Simultaneously, ask the same Mainframe programmers to conduct sessions to make others learn mainframes especially to the entry level programmers. In that way, there will not be dearth of Mainframe programmer even if some senior Mainframe guy decides to leave after learning other technology.

I believe, doing a rotation on the technologies people work on, will keep them motivated (they have to be paid fairly though).

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Rohit Umarjikar · Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 9:25 pm

Very well said. If what you said happens in real world then that would be my dream company