The Catch 22 - Hourly Employees

[Anonymous]

My company Junior Accountants, auditors, IT, operations etc are all on the clock, a 40 hour work week. They do get OT if asked to work late. Around 75 percent of company on the clock and they are remote 3 days a week.

Career wise most get stuck. How do you motivate them. For instance o asked one staff to supervise other staff while I was on vacation, she said she wanted to be manager. But she did zero. She seems not to want to manage if not paid as a manager. Hence the catch 22. I can’t promote her unless she at least tries a bit. I don’t care if mentoring.

We also have events like Xmas party, BBQs once in a while and they seem to ask am I getting paid? I don’t care if skip 99 percent but some do zero. Management like me forced to go to nearly all these things.

The other thing they stop working the second they run out of work. They go well you need to assign work. I get that but this is not McDonald’s.

How do you motivate them? I mean o was on clock fresh out of school o busted butt to make manager.

But we seem to have 35-55 year olds on clock which to me is strange. It was a under 25 year old thing my first few jobs, not a 55 year old accountant

[Anonymous]

Have you shared these concerns in a very open way with them? Or are you expecting mind reading?

[Anonymous]

Hi J1/J2!
Why do you need to motivate them? Assign them tasks and have them do them. Pay them for those tasks. If you want them to do more, pay them. Seems like you want a "free trial" of what they'd do if they were paid more.

[Anonymous]

Are these not salaries positions?

[Anonymous]

$ is the best motivation!

[Anonymous]

A blue collar mentality is hard to break. You listed young professional staff though accountants etc. Don’t they want to get promoted? I can see a 50 year old riding it out doing the bare minimum late in their career. The 34 year old is hard to fathom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are these not salaries positions?

+1
what industry is this? Seems very strange for the US.

[Anonymous]

They should do nothing all day like you, my dude. That's what being a manager is.

[Anonymous]

You don't do anything to motivate them. Promotions should go to those who are inherently motivated. Some people are born to never be promoted.

[Anonymous]

If you want to give people trial balloon tasks at a higher job level, give them an ad hoc bonus.

My old job has structural bonus for X hours per year for special/experimental project work above my main job.

[Anonymous]

You've posted this before.

[Anonymous]

Why are you expecting work at a higher level without compensating them for it? We had an acting role go unfilled because nobody wanted more responsibility without the extra pay that usually comes with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you expecting work at a higher level without compensating them for it? We had an acting role go unfilled because nobody wanted more responsibility without the extra pay that usually comes with it.

This it’s crazy to expect that people will do more work because money may be coming to them

[Anonymous]

Didn't we have this exact conversation a year or two ago?

[Anonymous]

Found it:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1131116.page