Ask HN: Do productivity posters do anything for you? What works in your office?

We have a tv per desk (we have wide u shaped desks in an open-office) above our desks in my office with chromecasts in them. Presumably these tvs are for showing things off, or displaying things should we ever have a meeting in our production area, but for the past 3 months I've been here, I've just seen beautiful sunsets, waterfalls, cats and many other relaxing images.

Just walking into the office, or taking a break from a frustrating problem and seeing these 30second (or however long) stills has done infinitely more than any motivational poster could or would ever do for me.

Motivational posters have become such an annoying cliché that you can make a successful business out of parodying them:

http://despair.com

You're kidding, right? Being surrounded by empty platitudes with the expectation that they'd motivate me would serve only to demotivate.

Try giving your developers responsibility, autonomy, trust, and respect. You'd be amazed how far a little self-determination and native pride in ones work can go.

And if your developers are incapable of handling autonomy or have no particular desire to take pride in their work, your problems run way deeper than motivation.

The only thing that has ever worked -- for programmers anyway -- is a quiet, roomy office with a comfortable chair, plenty of desk space and a solid door.

And very few interruptions.

The posters that boost productivity for me are usually reference ones may not be specific to the field - i.e. http://www.unihedron.com/projects/spectrum/

Makes me look at big picture and think of possibilities

I'm sorry that you've been tasked with improving productivity in your office haha.

Here are some things that you can try that will actually have a positive effect:

-Better pay

-Better hours

-The ability to work remotely

-More vacation and sick time, with the encouragement to actually use it

-More autonomy in the jobs that they're doing

They sometimes make me giggle with their bombastic promises of teamwork and winning. Posters are just another kind of wallpaper.

Only thing I've ever seen work to raise productivity and motivate the workers is a sincere and firm handed bit of support from the higher ups. Leads, managers, and the rest that would act like regular people, make sure you had what you needed and could feel free to complain. Also higher ups that protected all the workers in the trenches from Client crazyness and subsequent fallout emotions.

The only kind of wall coverings I've seen that made a difference to the people working there was art from people working there, prints, paintings, photographs. Many people have side projects and they'd love to get some viewers.

I found most of them a bit meh but this one resonated enough that I put it up in my office.

Apprently it's quite popular amongst industrial designers but I think the advice is relevant enough to most industries.

http://goodfuckingdesignadvice.com/collections/prints/produc...

Productivity posters might spark motivation for a a short moment, but after that motivation leaves, you're back to relying on your regular patterns / habits

On a small team, most of our productivity comes in the morning after we've said hello and settled in. Gets real quiet and we all just get in the zone. As the day winds down we loosen up. It's a very pleasurable way of working, for us at least.

I never thought the posters actually did any sort of motivation. I always saw them as decorations, and wanting to give a certain feel to the space.

In 8th grade, I was in the band, and at the end of the year, for the last 3 weeks of school, the 8th graders would go practice with 9-11th graders of the high school band to perform at graduation. In the high school band room, there were a bunch of home-made motivational posters on the walls, and you know what? They did work then and they probably helped inculcate some enthusiasm into me. Of course, that wasn't an organization trying to make money off of me, and I was 13.

Back during the dot com days the joke was the only motivational poster that did anything was the whiteboard that had the current stock price on it.

I don't think I've ever heard someone say "Wow I really like the motivational posters" but I have seen some that went pretty wrong (and as a result were ineffective).

So my guess is the have high downside and little upside.

That said, nice artwork (no pithy saying), seems to always make the space feel more inviting and comfortable.

They do - not posters, but those wall stickers. They make me feel more productive, and make the space seem like something more than a collection of white walls. Seeing a motivational quote when starting your day is a good affirmation and even tho they might be a cliche they bring a good vibe and I think everyone is acting a bit "holier than thou" by shitting on them.

More than mere posters what really works is getting the team to do exercises which improve mindfulness like a yoga etc, inter personal relationship is the key to an individual engaging himself fully in his work , this is what works for us

For me, no.

What works in our office, obviously this is personal, but we use an open office space so the fact that others are here and working motivates me.

We have no posters, but if we did I would prefer something comical