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I have a person on my team that has been a solid contributor to the team and company on an area that the organization has no relevant experience in. While this person has done everything within their means to support the organization's objectives in this area, we are approaching a point where we have minimal work available for them in their area of interest.

The concern here is that we work in a highly competitive market for their skillset, and that if this person were to become bored or aware of this issue, then I am afraid they can easily leave for another company. While there is only a small amount of baseline work required, losing this individual would be extremely difficult for us as no one is even remotely close to this person's skillset, and it will adversely impact our ongoing support for associated projects.

In my position, I am limited with what I can do (I have no power over compensation or career trajectory), but I would like to support those who can with ways to keep this employee engaged.

As an aside, we have begun an effort to have the employee help upskill others, which they have been very supportive of, but other employees are less receptive of, or woefully unprepared for.

One update. When we began the process to hire this person, it took us approximately six months to find this person. Based upon previous experience, and the competitive nature of our local market, simply being prepared to hire a replacement is a non-trivial effort.

What options can I consider in order to keep this employee engaged and motivated?

Personal note:

I just wanted to add that a key part of my asking this is I lack the experience in dealing with issues like this. I was approached by my manager recently about how to work on this, and felt that reaching out here could be useful. I appreciate all the comments and questions as it is helping me think through this, and will hopefully help me improve going forward.

7 Answers7

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This might actually be an opportunity in disguise

Instead of worrying, "How do we keep them engaged?", flip it around. What do they want to do? I mean, if I had to distill your position down to a few sentences, it'd be "We want to have Alice Awesome on our staff - and even though we'd be happy paying her a competitive salary for only 10 hours/week of effort, we're worried she'll get bored and go elsewhere."

That's reasonable. And it's also putting you in a very powerful position: you've got 30 hours/week to play with that are essentially free. So if I were in your shoes, I'd brainstorm with Alice Awesome about things you could do.

  • Maybe she gets to work on experimental proof-of-concept ideas to improve user experience, with the goal of churning out a mock prototype of an idea every month.

  • Maybe she gets to develop a training course and is responsible for upskilling.

  • Maybe she gets to do architecture planning/review, to plan out future designs?

  • Maybe she gets to lead RedTeam/BlueTeam engagements, and is responsible for security.

  • Maybe she gets a revised contract where she goes to part time but is still paid the same salary-wise.

  • ... etc, etc.

Sit with Alice and figure out: what's something that be interesting to her? If she could snap her fingers and change her job to whatever she wanted, what would it look like? And then see if you can arrange it so that those 'extra' hours are aligned along that axis.

Edit based on comments I think there might be a misunderstanding. I'm definitely not saying to "tell them to investigate X and Y and tell us what you find". I'm not saying to assign them anything specific at all. What I'm saying is, ask them what they would like to do in their ideal dream job.

Let me put it this way: if your company had a choice between:

  • A) Alice leaves the company entirely
  • B) Alice works 10 hours/week on the critical stuff, and then lays back in a hammock sipping wine coolers the other 30 hours/week

... you'd rather have B. I'm not saying, "Let them Hammock!" - but I am saying, if your company would already be happy with the 10 hours output, why not find out what would make Alice happy to do, and let her do it? If she says, "I'd love to just do GUI enhancements on all our existing programs" - then let her do GUI enhancements to the existing programs. Who cares if it's not 100% perfectly optimal - you're not paying her for that, you're paying her for the core 10 hours of critical work, and those GUI enhances are just a cherry on top.

And for what it's worth? The times I've had the absolute maximal value for my company were ones where I was doing "dink around" time - doing stuff that wasn't on my proper priorities list, on a lunch break or a lazy friday afternoon.

  • "Hmmm. I wonder if I could program my own version of X" ... only to find out, I'd saved the company 30k/year in maintenance fees.
  • "Ya know, it'd be cool if the users didn't have to do all these steps and could just click a button on the toolbar. Is it even possible to add a toolbar icon in this application?" ... only to find out, I'd just programmed the prototype of the add-in that everyone in the company has now been using the last 15+ years.
Kevin
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  • This is actually a bit of what we are doing right now, where we farm out the "investigate this and tell us what you find" projects to them. Thus far, the person has been receptive to them, but we have begun to notice what appears to be a noticeable change in enthusiasm, which led to initial concerns. One item that I learned today, is this person is paid roughly 25% above market rate for their work, so compensation is considered extremely competitive and may actually be difficult to bump (he manager and I are trying to have them promoted). –  Mar 08 '21 at 21:52
  • But to add on the compensation, this person can perform at the next level and can likely be hired on by one of dozens of companies in the area at that position and with a corresponding increase in pay. –  Mar 08 '21 at 21:53
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    @VillageIdiot - I think you misunderstood me a bit - so I added a large section at the bottom to explain myself a bit better. – Kevin Mar 08 '21 at 22:07
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    Thanks for the clarification, I did misunderstand the difference of "Try this for us" vs "Go forth and improve things". To be a bit more specific, the employee mentioned self learning ML concepts recently, but our company does absolutely nothing with it. This could be an area for us as leadership to explore. –  Mar 08 '21 at 22:36
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    @VillageIdiot - one last thing to think about: you're really illustrating this company as a top-down, command-and-control entity. Why does leadership need to dictate direction on this? Why can't Alice? Say to her, "You want to pick up Machine Learning? Awesome! Tell you what, what I'd like you to do, every month, prepare either a small proof-of-concept on a ML idea, or a proposal for some way we could use ML to help improve some facet of how we do business. If it's good, I'll try my hardest to see that you get what you need to launch it as a project." – Kevin Mar 09 '21 at 03:25
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    This is part of a good solution, particularly if some of those thing AA is interested in spending the time on are potentially valuable to the company in the future, but you also need to address the "single point of failure problem". AA leaving to work for another company is not the only way this matter could become inconvenient: the workload in that area could unexpectedly balloon so you need more than just AA working on it for a time, AA could be more temporarily unavailable (due to illness or annual leave) at a time when work in the area is urgent because something has broken, and so forth. – David Spillett Mar 09 '21 at 11:48
  • @DavidSpillett - agreed. Main reason I didn't go into detail on that was because it wasn't the direct question OP asked (and my answer was already getting long enough before the clarifying edit.) – Kevin Mar 09 '21 at 14:14
  • @Kevin Today happened to be a day where the organization planned out our upcoming roadmap for the year, and despite attempts to allocate time for R&D into new products or features, we were soundly shutdown due to meeting existing customer commitments. Two major deliverables align with work that AA is currently supporting, and it was made clear these take precedence. The manager and I will still see if we can provide cover for the kind of goals you suggested. –  Mar 09 '21 at 18:43
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    @VillageIdiot - I'm getting more and more confused. Your question was "Alice only has a small baseline amount of work that's required of her - how do I keep her engaged?", and now it sounds like "Alice has too much work in the next year to spend any time on ML." Does her 'support of the two major deliverables' take 40 hours/week, or much less? – Kevin Mar 09 '21 at 18:48
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    @Kevin My fault, I hope this clarifies it. The two products AA supports are tasked as high priority, but they are both to reach production status in the next 3 months, at which point AA's time requirement for them will drop to minimal support as they go into a regular cadence of quarterly updates. AA would be responsible for validating contractor work, which now takes approximately 5-10 hours a week for AA. The goal of the manager and I is to provide cover for AA to seek other tasks. My poorly stated point was that management does not support AA trying new things, out of fear of distraction. –  Mar 09 '21 at 18:53
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    @VillageIdiot - quick question: how many hours would it be for a 'regular dev'? I take it those 5-10 hours are for Alice; how long would it take a typical/standard dev to do them? – Kevin Mar 09 '21 at 19:40
  • @Kevin That's a difficult one to answer. Part of it is that AA is aware of what to look for, whereas before AA arrived, we had two people on a different team review it and they always signed off (that's an entirely different issue). We did ask the junior who AA mentored and the response of the junior was a long, awkward silence. AA did a presentation early in their tenure illustrating common items that were found and outlined AA's process for identification / corrective action / resolution. Making this available to another dev would ideally cut down on the time. Sadly, I cannot answer ATM. –  Mar 09 '21 at 19:48
  • @Kevin Given your answer though, I will ask that the next task be shared with the junior and compare time invested as well as coverage (does Jr. find the items AA finds). –  Mar 09 '21 at 19:50
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Kevin Mar 09 '21 at 19:57
  • brilliant answer, though I would add that before asking them, ask yourself. Maybe you already know what they enjoy. Some people can't state clearly what their intrinsic motivation is, so asking them is not always the best option. – Tom Mar 10 '21 at 09:25
  • @Kevin There was a conversation with AA following this where we returned to an earlier suggestion of theirs and have worked to develop a proposal for a small PoC. –  Mar 11 '21 at 17:01
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What options can I consider in order to keep this employee engaged and motivated?

The only answer is to find other work for this employee that they would consider engaging and motivating. That may or may not prove to be successful.

Meanwhile, you must work as hard as possible to find a way to replace their expertise, even if there is only minimal work to be done. If you can't hire someone to fill the minimal need, then train several others to be ready. Perhaps you can pick up the skills.

It's always a mistake to be overly-dependent on a single individual's expertise. That's even more of a mistake if hiring a replacement is extremely difficult or time-consuming.

Joe Strazzere
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  • Thanks Joe. What has been challenging is that the main work they handle is validating work done by third party contractors. Prior to their arrival, no one knew what to make of the work and assumed it was well. After they arrived, we were made aware of quite literally hundreds of deficiencies in their work. This person literally tracked every one down, noted a corrective path and ensured it was remediated. While finding someone with similar technical skills is feasible, we really value their soft skills. –  Mar 08 '21 at 20:38
  • To the training point. Our team consists of five other developers, who aside from one person, are quite junior. The experienced developer is heavily loaded because of this and cannot take on a new skillset. The other developers, are simply maxed out trying to grow in their specific field. We did have one work with this person for a period of time and saw a huge improvement, but this was our most junior developer so the bar was extremely low to begin with. –  Mar 08 '21 at 21:14
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    You are correct and I think that very last comment was exactly what needed to be said. Thank you. The best I can do is to pass this up and hope others feel the same. –  Mar 08 '21 at 21:21
  • "you must work as hard as possible to find a way to replace their expertise" - I would however be careful not to be seen to work too hard, or expend too much resource, as that can undermine trust and security, and divert both the firm's resources that would be available for retention, and divert the employee's resources into cultivation of marketable skills beyond the current employment. The software industry is already vexed by this problem. – Steve Mar 08 '21 at 22:04
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    @JoeStrazzere The employee themselves has even alluded to "the bus factor", and has increased mentioning this since the beginning of the year. Putting on a tin foil hat, we just had bonuses paid out this month, and they may be legitimate red flags. –  Mar 09 '21 at 18:45
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    @VillageIdiot someone talking in first person about the bus factor is about the biggest, reddest flag you can get. For people who intend to make career in the company, it is beneficial if they are irreplaceable - nothing gives you more leverage in negotiations than knowing that walking away isn't an option for the other side. People who are loyal but shopping around are the ones who mention the bus factor. You don't want to hurt the company, but you don't see your future there anymore. Been there, done that. – Tom Mar 10 '21 at 09:31
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    Oh Joe, What would we do without you? – Strawberry Mar 10 '21 at 09:59
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    I wonder if we're overly dependent on a single individual's expertise – Strawberry Mar 10 '21 at 15:42
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I have no power over compensation or career trajectory

Then talk to the people who do.

Retention is not the responsibility of the tech lead, it's the responsibility of the manager. Your job is to make sure that your team is functional and that your projects are running well. If a potential departure makes this impossible, you need to bring it up with the person's management. Make it very clear that your goals & deliverables are at risk if that person leaves. If you have seen any actual signs of a real flight risk, share them. The manager owns the master plan: you can certainly help and support but this needs to be consolidated effort with all relevant tools being available. And yes, this includes compensation and career trajectory.

Hilmar
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  • Thanks, I am (belatedly) trying to do the part of bringing this up with management. Our direct manager is aware and has tried to find ways to keep them engaged. You are correct about using all tools, but due to corporate imposed restrictions, we cannot take any action until July (all employees know this). With respect to projects running well, this person has single handily carried one across the line that would have imploded were it not for them. We are definitely concerned about the impact of their loss. As for flight risks, we have not seen anything visible but WFH is tough there. –  Mar 08 '21 at 21:11
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    @VillageIdiot given "we cannot take any action until July" you have a problem - it does not matter that employees know this - in fact it makes it worse as they have another incentive to leave. – mmmmmm Mar 09 '21 at 12:05
  • @mmmmmm Agreed. It was announced in a company-wide event by the CEO, so I could not really muzzle it. It has been made clear to the employee that we wish to have them promoted, and the employee does seem keen on it. However, their workload already aligns with what the new title would include, so there would be no real changes in the engagement, aside from a 20% raise in pay. –  Mar 09 '21 at 18:47
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    Flight risks can be very tough to spot. I have myself left at least two jobs where everyone was utterly surprised if not shocked when I announced it. People with a bit of meta experience in the job market know not to let their current employee guess that they're checking other options. – Tom Mar 10 '21 at 09:27
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    @VillageIdiot don't take that July deadline as gospel. For the right people, rules can always be bended. – Tom Mar 10 '21 at 09:28
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    @VillageIdiot Your problem with "corporate restrictions" is that they are a powerful reason for people to leave in their own right. You say they've got a 20% payrise coming in July though. If the manager promises to backdate that in July, effectively giving them a bonus for staying, that can work. Of course the employee has to believe that the manager will stick to their word though, otherwise you can cast-iron guarantee they're out the door in July! – Graham Mar 10 '21 at 09:59
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    @VillageIdiot "cannot" is an artificial, imposed restriction, so it's up to you to speak directly to the person who imposed this restriction (the CEO) and explain that it causes a strongly undesirable side-effect to your area of the business that you need their cooperation to avoid. Many CEOs would love to have feedback from the trenches on the impact of their decisions - if it's delivered constructively. – Tom W Mar 10 '21 at 10:29
  • The manager spoke with HR and was informed that will not play favorites. We also spoke with the SVP for IT & while sympathetic to the situation, views AA as replaceable. Yet we are in month 6 of attempting to hire for a far more junior position. SVP is aware of the hats that AA wears and knows that AA is basically operating as a 1 person team across many disciplines (dev, UX, QA, marketing, support). –  Mar 11 '21 at 17:04
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I was that employee at one point, and saw the situation coming. I asked to go part time, rather than cross train. Maybe a possibility here?

kpollock
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  • What if I want a full time income? – gnasher729 Mar 09 '21 at 14:58
  • Well, obviously that then does not work. But to some people, time is WAY more valuable than money, and they can easily live on half income. I was one. Not the most common situation, but it is a possibility, which is why I mentioned it. – kpollock Mar 09 '21 at 16:38
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    @kpollock Thanks, but I do know this employee is the only income in the family in a high COLA city (we are in a top 3 US tech market). They do value time and work a pretty strict schedule, so I also suspect taking up a part time contract while working elsewhere is not an option. –  Mar 09 '21 at 18:49
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    well if empoyee gets full pay for par time, that could be a strong motivation to stay. – akostadinov Mar 10 '21 at 12:59
  • not sure how others will take it if you pay someone full-time when he/she works 20% of the time... regardless how skillful she/he his – Jean-François Fabre Mar 11 '21 at 13:58
  • I mentioned this higher up, but we still need the other tasks performed by this person, so if they went part time, we would still have to hire 1 FTE. –  Mar 11 '21 at 17:06
  • "well if empoyee gets full pay for par time, that could be a strong motivation to stay. " @akostadinov It's also a great incentive to leave. If I had only 1 day/week of work for a prolonged period of time, I would assume that was top candidate for a layoff. – Barry DeCicco Apr 11 '21 at 16:06
  • I for one, will be happy to have 2-3 days workweek if money are enough where I live. i.e.getting an USA salary for 2-3 days and live where I live will be nice money for where I'm living and will have time for my other projects. Not everybody is like that. Just saying that one can be more creative with the solutions and communicate with the individual their needs. – akostadinov Apr 13 '21 at 08:31
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I was the subject of this question

The OP deleted his account after he got outed in the office for posting it ‍♂️

Anyways, I wound up quitting for many of the reasons cited by the OP and figured I could at least speak to some of the answers.

The only answer is to find other work for this employee that they would consider engaging and motivating. That may or may not prove to be successful.

The SVP of engineering told me point blank that hiring me was a mistake.

Meanwhile, you must work as hard as possible to find a way to replace their expertise, even if there is only minimal work to be done. If you can't hire someone to fill the minimal need, then train several others to be ready. Perhaps you can pick up the skills.

The team had no one who was available and interested so I basically walked out the door with no meaningful handoff ‍♂️

instead of worrying, "How do we keep them engaged?", flip it around. What do they want to do? I mean, if I had to distill your position down to a few sentences, it'd be "We want to have Alice Awesome on our staff - and even though we'd be happy paying her a competitive salary for only 10 hours/week of effort, we're worried she'll get bored and go elsewhere."

There was a major disconnect between my manager and his. My guess is his boss tired of me correcting him on the regular because he did not understand the tech as well as he thought he did

Retention is not the responsibility of the tech lead, it's the responsibility of the manager. Your job is to make sure that your team is functional and that your projects are running well. If a potential departure makes this impossible, you need to bring it up with the person's management. Make it very clear that your goals & deliverables are at risk if that person leaves. If you have seen any actual signs of a real flight risk, share them. The manager owns the master plan: you can certainly help and support but this needs to be consolidated effort with all relevant tools being available. And yes, this includes compensation and career trajectory.

They were able to roll a half baked solution out the door but now they have no ability to provide support. The solution turned out to be “we can no longer support these projects so we will just stop trying”. It has… not gone well.

On the flip side, I did net a 100% TCO raise

AliceAwesome
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Can you promote this person to a team lead or managerial position. If so, would they be a good fit, and would this appeal to them?

This way you still have their expertise for the times it is required, and you get to hold on to the person.

vikingsteve
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  • They have discussed a promotion to lead of the relevant platform, a position this person is wholly qualified for. The issue is that their work would really not change much, but this would be a title bump & associated pay raise. As mentioned upstream and further elaborated on, we cannot process this until July at the earliest. –  Mar 11 '21 at 17:08
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If career path or compensation can't be done (but you should exert any influence that you have, obviously), the only thing that remains is social skills.

Appreciation is one of the things that really work.
Just make sure how much you appreciate that work. Encourage the person. Ask him/her what you can do to help. This kind of stuff goes a long way to keeping people happy, and happy people tend to stay where they are.

It's also a question of motivation. What is motivating that person?
Talk, or ask others about their perception of that person. Find out what that person really wants, and see how much of that you can provide, or make happen.

toolforger
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  • This person is definitely feeling the love and was even singled out in an org wide event for their contributions. While they have not asked for any specific assistance (they are asked on a weekly basis), they have signaled a key frustration that was resolved this week. As to motivation, I would describe this person as someone who enjoys making things work and mentoring people. Their effective combination of the two is actually extremely rare in our organization and is what leads to them being as valuable as they are. –  Mar 11 '21 at 17:12
  • Then you probably can't do much more :-) – toolforger Mar 12 '21 at 11:44