Interesting note from David Sims, President of FluxCorp: he says that FluxCorp is hiring, and dangles - as a benefit of two years of employment - an all-expenses-paid, seven day trip for two to anywhere in the world. One employee hit France, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, and the Czech Republic, as an example. TSS has seen some really cool benefits for employment, but that absolutely rocks. FluxCorp supports a job scheduler (Flux) and a BPM product (Flux BPM); no word on whether the employees know Ada or not, as suggested by the professors referred to by "Professors slam Java as 'damaging,'" but we're pretty sure they know "the new COBOL," Java. It'd be interesting to see what other benefits employers are offering to attract top-flight talent. Anyone else want to show some love for potential employees?

My top three incentives (may vary to some extent, in particular if you move from single to married with children) - Interesting things to do. - Interesting people to work with. - A good pay check And on the bottom of the list is stuff like - Reward schemes - Company cars - Mission statements

My top three incentives (may vary to some extent, in particular if you move from single to married with children)

- Interesting things to do.
- Interesting people to work with.
- A good pay check

And on the bottom of the list is stuff like

- Reward schemes
- Company cars
- Mission statements

I went from single to married to parent. For me, your top three is unchanged. If you have to do the job every day, more money(unless it's some crazy amount) gets old. Interesting work with interesting people make that 40hrs bearable and makes you more pleasant when you get home.

My top three incentives...

- Interesting things to do.
- Interesting people to work with.
- A good pay check

Completely agree. I know that's always motivated me. Probably most people here would agree. Question for all: what about bonuses? I think everyone would rather take the "sure thing" of a good paycheck versus a variable bonus, if it's a question of one or the other. You're reminded of your good salary every payday, instead of waiting until the end of the year (or bonus period). We're not stockbrokers. We don't make commissions on trades. How do you think bonuses ought to be structured? For example, a share of the company profits, depending on your own contribution to the bottom line? No profit, no bonus. Little profit and you did well, little bonus. Large profit and you stunk, no bonus. Large profit and you did great, large bonus. If you received a bonus, would it incent you? What kind of bonus structure would incent you most? Cheers, David Flux - Java Job Scheduler. File Transfer. Workflow. BPM.

When things become sure thing, they also becomes boring. Paycheck is important, because you have to live and pay your bills. But bonus is what keep people motivated and alert. :-)

My top three incentives...

- Interesting things to do.
- Interesting people to work with.
- A good pay check

Completely agree. I know that's always motivated me. Probably most people here would agree.

Question for all: what about bonuses?

I think everyone would rather take the "sure thing" of a good paycheck versus a variable bonus, if it's a question of one or the other. You're reminded of your good salary every payday, instead of waiting until the end of the year (or bonus period).

We're not stockbrokers. We don't make commissions on trades.

How do you think bonuses ought to be structured?

For example, a share of the company profits, depending on your own contribution to the bottom line? No profit, no bonus. Little profit and you did well, little bonus. Large profit and you stunk, no bonus. Large profit and you did great, large bonus.

If you received a bonus, would it incent you? What kind of bonus structure would incent you most?

Cheers,
David

Flux - Java Job Scheduler. File Transfer. Workflow. BPM.

The company I recently started work for have the best bonus scheme I've seen so far. Every 12 months: - There's a profit related bonus which is shared pro-rata. - A pay rise in line with inflation (not associated with performance) - Performance related bonus (not related to profit) Plus I like to think I have a good salary and excellent benefits as well (private healthcare for me and my family and a generous pension contribution). This is the best package I've been on for ages, though I have to say it was pretty much exactly the "My top three incentives..." list that was really the deciding factor for me, not the benefits/potential bonus. As for your holiday thing, in the UK that would just end up hurting the employee's monthly take home indirectly as it would have to be listed as either a taxable benefit or a bonus (which is also subject to tax). A recent Mastercard advert I saw summed it up for me... After showing a bunch of kids "sacking" their parents for working at home or working late, or whatever, it ends with a dad taking his son fishing (or something). The kid goes "your hired" and then shows the tag line "Who do you really work for?". That hit a spot with me for some reason.

If you received a bonus, would it incent you? What kind of bonus structure would incent you most?

I never liked bonuses unless they are either totally unrelated to your own performance or are related to something that you do have some control about. I know a lot of consultants who get their bonusses based on goals. These are typically their billable days or based on going on a course and learning something and teaching it to others that they actually do not need and are not interested in. I like a scenario where a company at the end of the year says: We did x% better than expected, so we throw some of the money at the employees. Still, more than hoping for a bonus at the end of the year, what always kept me on my toes is an interesting problem I can figure how to solve with interesting people. I also think most incentives like cars, travel, computers etc. are fairly stale If a company wants you to perform, they will give you good hardware, a means to travel and enough money to pay for your holiday anyway. If the company is bigger and they have to much money to spend, for god's sake: Supply a decent kindergarten that matches actual working hours and a free staff restaurant where food is served at the table. And wine is on the house.

My top three incentives...

- Interesting things to do.
- Interesting people to work with.
- A good pay check

Completely agree. I know that's always motivated me. Probably most people here would agree.

Question for all: what about bonuses?

I think everyone would rather take the "sure thing" of a good paycheck versus a variable bonus, if it's a question of one or the other. You're reminded of your good salary every payday, instead of waiting until the end of the year (or bonus period).

We're not stockbrokers. We don't make commissions on trades.

How do you think bonuses ought to be structured?

For example, a share of the company profits, depending on your own contribution to the bottom line? No profit, no bonus. Little profit and you did well, little bonus. Large profit and you stunk, no bonus. Large profit and you did great, large bonus.

If you received a bonus, would it incent you? What kind of bonus structure would incent you most?

Cheers,
David

Flux - Java Job Scheduler. File Transfer. Workflow. BPM.

I have no problem with performance based bonuses. It makes you push harder. I don't like Project manager bonuses. My last job had, IMO, great bonuses, paid well, and I had interesting technology to work on most of the time. But I ultimately grew weary of how the developers were treated. Especially compared to the PMs and BAs who caused most of our problems. I would have given up my bonus if they'ed sacked all PMs and BAs.

Bonuses always piss me off. They're invariably awarded to the hacker in the bunch. There's good software engineering, which takes time and effort and doesn't produce immediately-visible results (except for, ya know, easily maintainable, flexible code with fewer defects in the long run), and then there's hackery. The hacker comes in to a good code base and does something horrendous. It's easy to know what the code is doing, so they can get right to work. The horrendous thing is inflexible in itself, or makes the existing code base inflexible (because any future changes will now break the hack), or it's fragile and breaks if not used in just the right way (which is, of course, not documented). One thing about the hack approach: it's faster, especially if you're starting with a clean code base. Who gets the bonus? Who gets to clean up the mess much later? Does the janitor get a bonus?

A good pay check is very important, but benefits may be the only way you have to increase your incomings, as companies also have benefits (mostly fiscal benefits) by paying in goods (trips, cars, ...) instead of money.

My top three incentives (may vary to some extent, in particular if you move from single to married with children)

- Interesting things to do.
- Interesting people to work with.
- A good pay check

And on the bottom of the list is stuff like

- Reward schemes
- Company cars
- Mission statements

I agree on your top three items but can have different combinations: Combo 1: - Interesting things to do - No interesting people to work with (this could mean I am on my own) - A $120,000+ pay check Reason: Simple, I just focus on work with minimal human interactions but I could still have social life, just not in the same company. So lower pay check comparing to other combo is okay. Combo 2: - Not interesting things to do - Interesting people to work with - A $160,000+ pay check Reason: This could be very serious to me. I am talking to people with my left hand holding coffee 6 times a day and no matter how many times you bug these people they are always smiling to you. Finally I may learn something from them but I am not doing interesting things, what's the point of my life if not to increase the salary?! Combo 3: - Not interesting things to do - No interesting people to work with - Definitely a $200,000+ pay check! Reason: I guess this is very clear, enuf said. For the bottom three, I wish I have the following: - $50,000+ annual bonus instead of reward - $60,000+ annual bonus instead of company car - $5,000+ quaterly bonus instead of mission statements I think mission statements are defined in business level, ask your CEO or President and they should be more than welcome to tell you. I don't look at micro-mission statement when I work, I only look at the big picture. ... The bonus is just a joke, I actually would like to have a good career path in the company.

Hmm .. that makes our Mac Book Pro offer look pretty stingy ;-) Peace, Cameron Purdy Oracle Coherence: Data Grid for Java and .NET

Hmm .. that makes our Mac Book Pro offer look pretty stingy ;-)

That's so wrong, to make me jealous of every Coherence developer.... (signed) a dumb ol' editor in an apparently thankless job

I had the pleasure of interviewing at Tangosol before the Oracle buyout. Cameron has built a great team. If the commute wasn't a 2 hour drive into boston, I would have loved to work for tangosol. I would highly recommend working for oracle in the coherence team. They're doing stuff that's really leading edge. peter

Hmm .. that makes our Mac Book Pro offer look pretty stingy

I take it Coherence doesn't run on Java 6? ;)

Hmm .. that makes our Mac Book Pro offer look pretty stingy

I take it Coherence doesn't run on Java 6? ;)

Autch! ;-)

What about extra paid leave ?

Having gone from single to married in the last 5 years and parent within the last 2, what I look for in a job has certainly changed. 1. good health/retirement benefits 2. short commute 3. standard work hours unless telecommuting and flex time are available The price to pay for these benefits is uninteresting work.

It's good only for people who have no children. And for people with good imagination regarding destinations and health that allows them to travel there. As the benefit probably does not really mean "anywhere in the world" (South Pole?), but only more or less typical holiday trips, it's even somewhat cheap. Why not just hand in the money? I don't know where this FluxCorp is located, but at least where I come from you have to pay income taxes also for benefits like this, so it's not "free". If the country, for some strange reason, allows tax-free benefits, this looks like tax avoidance. Next the company will offer free food, house and car, all as tax-free benefits? Salary could be zero.

Now I can't say I'm not interested in their freebie. That beats the pants off a laptop or a car. And yea, there's far more to work than freebie perks such as the team, culture, political climat, and faith in management. However I think this gets the attention of the cream of the crop developers or at least the ones who sell themselves well. If the pay, people, and management were in check, I'd definatley check that out.

One thing I've found with offering these trips in the past is that: 1) WITH the trip option, people actually get out there in the world and have fun. 2) WITHOUT the trip option, sure, people could do it on their own but they usually don't. The structured nature of the trip benefit gets them to plan for their trip, look forward to it, have fun, take lots of pics, share the pics afterwards, and have nice memories. They also get to hear about all the other peoples' trips, so it further motivates them to actually get out there and do that trip. (So far, everyone here who has been eligible for a trip has taken it.) Think of it this way: some on this thread have expressed interest in things that make their lives easier such as onsite day care and food & drink provided at work. You could take care of those things on your own, but it's easier and flat out nicer if the company does it instead. The trip is the same thing. Just in a different category. It doesn't make your daily life easier (we have those benefits too), but it's more in a kind of "big bang" category. And obviously, it means more to some people than others. Diff'rent strokes for different folks. ;) Yes, we're trying to be different. Stand out. Make it even more fun to work here. Attract awesome talent. :) Cheers, David Flux - Java Job Scheduler. File Transfer. Workflow. BPM.

One thing I've found with offering these trips in the past is that:

1) WITH the trip option, people actually get out there in the world and have fun.

2) WITHOUT the trip option, sure, people could do it on their own but they usually don't.....So far, everyone here who has been eligible for a trip has taken it.

If the alternative is a) Take the trip b) Take nothing I'd probably vote for the trip (well depends if it is a huge taxable benefit that would inhibit me from paying my rent or mortage). And maybe it motivates some people to take vacation at all. Would not argue with that. Then again, the question is, if such an incentive is adding to the motivation of the employees to work harder, quit quitting thoughts and so on. I really doubt that it makes a difference in that respect. But then again, it is an interesting question why people are interested in other peoples holiday pictures anyway :-).