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Comment by mordrax | Hacker News Reader

"It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t."

I want to add to this by saying, it's terribly difficult to keep yourself motivated in a team with unmotivated people. I left my last job because all the team cared about was money, job security and doing their 9-5. At my current place, we could fire half the staff and the company wouldn't miss a beat. Sadly, there is no management, leadership or clear direction. We are self managed and so it's very easy to spot the handful of proactive staff because they usually end up picking up all the tasks which eventually causes burnouts and reduced motivation etc... I've tried to motivate my team mates but how do you motivate someone who's comfortable and secure in their 9-5 and don't really care to achieve any more than mediocre? Nobody gets fired and everyone's on pretty good pay for the job they do.

So I really do agree with this point. Find people who are not satisfied with the status quo. You can't change everyone, in fact, you can't change anyone. All a manager can do is hope to keep these people accountable if they do not hold themselves responsible.

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Is there really anything wrong with the fact that some people don't care to achieve anything more than what's required of them at their job? I think it's unfortunate that you're in an environment you don't enjoy, and I hope you can find other people you relate with.

I hope I don't offend you, but it feels a bit selfish to try to change them to be more motivated. For many people, a job is just something they have to get through to survive and there's nothing wrong with that. In a way you are lucky because these people will likely never enjoy their jobs as much as you do.

Don't forget that they may very well have other things besides work that inspire them, but those things might not pay the bills.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that kind of person. The problem arises when you mix the two types of people in a demanding environment where more than the status quo is expected (e.g., at a startup). If you want to coast, stick to defense.

The problem arises when managers have unrealistic expectations. If you hire someone to do 9-5 job and you expect them to do more than that, it's your fault if that fails, not theirs. Different people have different priorities in life, some will be ready to work more to finish more tasks, others will be ready to work just 8h but will be more productive in that timeframe. Or will produce better quality of code during that time or solve harder problems. Not all tasks are the same, nor all programmers produce equal quality of code, so the number of closed tickets in a unit of time is not a very good metric and definitely shouldn't be the only one that matters for an IT company.

> If you hire someone to do 9-5 job and you expect them to do more than that, it's your fault if that fails, not theirs.

I think the biggest teller of an unmotivated person is a generally negative, problem-focussed attitude. No matter the hour of the day, "We can't do x, because..." will destroy nearby "We can do this, if...." people, eventually.

Startups can operate just fine with 9-5 workers. The real limit is startups are generally spinning there wheels on unimportant crap.

The idea that working 9-5 is ipso facto "coasting" is absurd.

If you actually need people to work long hours, then ... you aren't doing it right.

It feels a bit selfish to do the minimum you can at a job because you too afraid to actually try for something you enjoy. Of course, if what you enjoy is doing nothing, then I guess I don't have much sympathy.

But if you are passionate about making a change in the world, or even just doing an amazing job at one small thing you love, then you are in the right place. Be in the right place. Don't treat others and yourself poorly by being in a job you hate.

Who was asking for your sympathy?

    It feels a bit selfish to do the minimum you
    can at a job because you too afraid to actually
    try for something you enjoy.

Maybe I have other things outside of work that are far more important to me than trying to ensure that the company that I'll have a 0.025% equity stake in in four years becomes the next unicorn. Honestly: why should I care about my founder/CEO becoming a multi-millionaire? What's in it for me?

Job/income stability ?

What makes you think your CEO's income is a guarantee for job security?

There are a lot better ways of ensuring that that than working yourself silly. Ensuring you have significant savings, skills, connections, being prepared to switch jobs, and being good at negotiations will result in far better results. All of which require time outside of work.

Theres nothing wrong fullfilling your agreed work hours, with a reasonable expected work amout and spending time with family.

I think this is where the mission driven bit comes in. If you don't care what the company is doing and their only mission seems to be to make the founders really rich then they've probably screwed up.

If knowledge that you're changing the world is making up for inequitable financial compensation, I'd say you as a worker have screwed up.

I find that view to be a little harsh. It demeans all those people who choose to work for organisations that can't/don't generally pay as much but are driven by other purposes (eg NGOs).

Well said. I've volunteered regularly prior to having kids because I was truly giving back to society. At some point, having more money loses it's meaning.

You bring up a valid point. I should have stipulated that I only feel this way about normal for-profit businesses. But I think I covered myself a little with "inequitable" if we take that to mean compared to others at their organization.

I greatly respect people that work for less than they might in the case of non-profits.

Having the satisfaction of doing a good job ? Not everyone is working simply in order to become richer, there are some which also wants to have a meaningful impact on society.

I like when my clients says the tools I've developped are extremely useful to them, and sometimes it means sticking my neck out and not doing the bare minimum.

This has nothing to do with founders making or not making money. It's simple matter of respect for the people you do business with. Consider a simple example of someone hiring you to build them a wall around their garden.

Sure, you could take their money and do the worst possible job you can. Do you think this is a good idea? The owner ends up with a crappy wall and you end up with a bad reputation.

Everyone has things outside of work, like family, that are more important than work. That's not justification for doing the minimum you can do.

> Maybe I have other things outside of work that are far more important to me than trying to ensure that the company that I'll have a 0.025% equity stake in in four years becomes the next unicorn

Sadly, you're not that important to the success of the company. You can quit tomorrow and they would find a replacement in due time and continue on.

Also, it's highly unlikely that the founder and CEO is going to end up a multimillionaire even if you were a high performing software engineer.

> What's in it for me?

How about not wasting your life? I mean dude, you're spending at least 40 hours a week working. Why not find something you love doing?

    How about not wasting your life? I mean dude,
    you're spending at least 40 hours a week working.
    Why not find something you love doing?

I do. But I enjoy what I do outside of work much, much more than I do offering my employer unpaid overtime. So, I make those 40 hours count. I work extremely hard, and then I'm done.

Sure, there's the occasional night or weekend that I'll work; I'm not going to leave my project in jeopardy, or my coworkers in a lurch...But, I don't owe my employer anything more than they owe me.

> But if you are passionate about making a change in the world

For most, a job is about surviving in this world.

True there are many who take a job to survive. But I think you are confusing "passion" with motivation. A motivated team member would not sit back while her teammates are passionate about the work.

Isn't that just a recipe for self-exploitation? I'm motivated to do my work. But if you discover "passion" and start putting in 80 hours a week, don't expect me to run myself into the ground alongside you.

I guess it's about doing the best you can within your comfortable time frame. For e.g last week, a colleague of mine was trying to execute a statically compiled program like an executable i.e. ./myprogram.go and then raised hell over how bad Go is and we should rewrite everything in Python. That's the kind of attitude I am talking about.

>>Is there really anything wrong with the fact that some people don't care to achieve anything more than what's required of them at their job?

If you are trying to build a company of any scale at all, yes, everything, if these are the people you hire. For those individuals, there is nothing wrong with this attitude towards work, but over the long run it will most definitely affect their job security and lifetime earnings. If that's the price they are willing to pay, then that's perfectly fine.

> If you are trying to build a company of any scale at all, yes, everything, if these are the people you hire

i take offense at this sort of attitude, because it implies that the employees are beholden to make _you/the boss_ successful. I imagine that they aren't doing more than what's required because that's what they are paid. I imagine they don't get shares of the company, nor reap the profit if it was successful (and also don't take the risk when it's not).

If a boss tries to make me do more work, but don't offer the equivalent in rewards (which, in my eyes, must be some form of equity and/or profit sharing scheme), then either i won't do it, or will just get by. Unless the company is truly doing something i believe in, or i have something personal, it's not worth it.

> [employees] also don't take the risk when it's not [successful]

This line, which always seems to come from founders, is to my mind pure and utter bullshit. Taking a job with a company that may fail soon is absolutely a big risk, particularly if it's paying below market. Even more so if this person is "passionate" and spends every waking moment thinking about that company's problems, as so many founders love to encourage employees to do. I fail to see how this is any less risky than spending someone else's money (investors) to pursue the creation of a new company. The fact that employees don't share in that reward is just a matter of who was able to get their names on the paperwork, and it has nothing to do with who takes on more risk.

>>This line, which always seems to come from founders, is to my mind pure and utter bullshit.

I'm a founder of a bootstrapped start up, and I agree with you 100%. Early employees take on a ton of risk, and high level employees take on a ton of risk as well. Both tend to be compensated additionally with stock options offering additional upside reward in the marketplace compared to other jobs available.

Regarding going above and beyond a given job description, it's not about working insane hours, nor is it about 'passion', whatever you define that as. It's about gaining a level of trust between employer and employee. At scale, top-level employees don't have time to do consider every single aspect of a job and outline it in a job description before hiring someone, and they need to be able to trust their team to step up when the unexpected occurs.

On the other hand, employers need to earn the trust of their employees that they will fairly compensate them when they do go above and beyond what is asked. Sadly, all too often this doesn't happen, or the employee doesn't stick around long enough to see the payoff. The payoff doesn't always come in terms of stock options either. Sometimes it's just a promotion or a bonus.

Either way, my point was that, as a founder, if you want to be able to grow your company, you need to surround yourself with people you can trust, and that trust is earned when dealing with the unexpected. As an employee, if you want to move up to higher levels in a company and earn more money, you need to take risks and prepare for the unexpected. If you don't trust your employer will compensate you for this, then leave and find one who you trust to do so. If you don't want to step up and help out when things go wrong in your company, don't expect the marketplace to reward you with higher pay, a bonus, or stock options.

We are not talking about asking people to do work for free. If you agree to work for some number of hours per day in exchange for a salary, then you should work those hours and not try to find ways to do less. The latter is straight up dishonest and unprofessional. If you don't think you are getting paid enough, then don't agree to work for the rate offered.

It's astonishing to me the number of people here that feel entitled to try to abuse their employer. Being motivated doesn't mean working more hours than you are paid for, it means trying to do a good job during the time you do work vs trying to do as little as possible while not being fired for poor performance.

"Is there really anything wrong with the fact that some people don't care to achieve anything more than what's required of them at their job?"

It's not an issue as long as your top-tier performance is recognized and rewarded on consistent and equitable basis.

However, we don't live in such perfect world. In a world of stack-ranking and office politics, you will never get top marks year after year, and get compensation that is inline with your contribution.

Slowly, it becomes a mentally toxic environment for high achievers, which is a real shame because I think it's possible for them to co-exist happily.

Chances are though, management itself is also complacent if you have department full of 9/5 ers.

When you're managing a team, contributors can be in one of three positions: 1) they require constant monitoring and adjustment to stay on task, 2) they stay on task as long you keep handing them a task, 3) they understand what is needed for the project to succeed and take initiative beyond their own tasks. The first needs time from me, the second doesn't, the third saves me time. Being a 2 is fine, but don't expect promotions or recognition.

VERY well said

I like the way this is worded because it's fair and it captures the idea of good contributors actually adding value and not just "giving 110%," working extra hours or generally "wearing more than the minimum flair." [1]

That said, this is simple and eloquent, but in practice it's not always this straightforward. The question is, can the 3's expect fair and consistent promotions and recognition, and do they feel that you understand what is needed for the project to succeed? Your superstar 3 may be a single "we know you've done great work here but we just can't get you on that project/we don't have the budget for a promotion/there's no one else available to do this maintenance work right now" from becoming a middling 2 or a no-longer-works-here, and those situations may not always be in your control.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtrLKGZZFg

Personally, I didn't take "motivated" in the original article to mean just how many hours are worked. One person can spend an 8 hour workday taking the initiative - spotting gaps and proactively jumping in to pick up the slack, learning new concepts when needed, suggesting new product ideas, etc. Another person can spend the same 8 hours passively doing only what was assigned to them and passing the buck whenever possible.

I worked on a team at one point where someone sat on a high-priority bug for a couple weeks without saying anything. Someone finally asked if he was making any progress, and his response was just: "Well someone else wrote that code, so..." He hadn't even tried to look at it. His response after that conversation was to start emailing other people asking if they could fix it, instead of trying to learn that part of the code base. You can spend hours doing that sort of thing, but it's not time well spent.

This. There's also the assumption being made that unmotivated people are just lazy or don't care about their jobs. What if they were people who used to be motivated, but burned out?

"Unmotivated people" come in all shapes and sizes. A few examples:

Your coworker who is just like you, except she's now two or three or five years into her job at your company. She used to be super motivated, and wanted to do all of the same things that you do, but that's all been beaten out of her as the company and the team ignored her efforts are rewarded other behavior.

Your coworker who is super motivated by something that the company values. Assuming you're a programmer, perhaps you're motivated by building features fast, and not worrying about technical debt, whereas your coworker is motivated by going slower and making sure technical debt is kept to a minimum. The company rewards stable easy to fix code, and doesn't care about moving out features quickly, so your coworker looks like a hero to them.

You coworker who really doesn't care too much about doing more than the minimum required to keep their job. They've got lots of other things in their life that keeps things interesting, and if work is a nice steady routine that's a good thing.

etc.

There's a reason that the team is the way it is: The company values what they're providing enough to keep rewarding their current behavior. Don't project your values onto management and assume that they agree that your team's behavior is sub-optimal. If you can't figure out how to either (a) provide the same value that your coworkers do or (b) deliver your value in a way that the company recognizes and appreciates, you should consider changing companies.

This may sound weird, but you were probably the one with motivation problems in this scenario, not them.

Don't believe me? They're comfortable and secure. They're happy with their output. They're apparently paid well.

You were unhappy with your situation - you want things to be different than what they are, and it was grating on you (and may or may not have led to burnout from your description), until eventually you left.

I've been in a very similar scenario:

I joined a "corporate" that had been running an Internet site for a decade. They had not built a new system in years, and had a massive monolithic ancient app with hundreds of hardcoded rules for individual accounts, where every change required tons of effort and they maintained a QA team at least the size of the dev team. Very few of the dev team seemed interested in things like learning new technologies, trying out different development methodologies, finding ways to make the system better as opposed to the task list of feature and bug requests. (I'm not even sure it had revision control.)

Short version - I get annoyed quickly at, for example, rules about arriving at 9:00am (my train schedule meant I tended to arrive at 9:10am, or at 8:30am, and I didn't want to hang out at work...). I'm told that even though I'm being productive, I'm setting a bad example, and they don't want others to start doing that. (I'm thinking: "Why don't you just deal with bad performance, whether the person arrives on time or not?", as well as "Yeah, and I leave the office at 6pm, so I'm at the office longer than them!")

Slightly longer version - I work with my manager to get my team (also not happy with the status quo) together in a room somewhat separated from the dev team, and we pump out code for several months a lot happier, until ultimately we all got better offers.

There's a much longer story, but the point is that _I_ was the one unhappy with the situation, and this affected my motivation to the point of the occasional debilitating day of non-productivity. The original employees were happy with their situation, and many probably still work there doing the same job they were doing nearly a decade ago now.

Sounds like we worked the same place, had abou the same issues as your guys only with a limited QA team and we were starting to build up a second product brand for ourselves with new blood that basically had the same people in charge as the old. Hiring talent was a nightmare and learning selfimprovement were set very low on the list. Me being just the admin but having written code in more languages at various degrees of difficulty, topic and necessity ended up making me more mad than the people directly affected by it.

Holing myself up for a month and working towards a new job paid off and I'm now in a better place as a developer and person.

"It gets better"

Why would someone put more than 9-5 if they are not paid overtime and they don't have shares at the company? I don't get it. Also, working 9-5 absolutely doesn't mean that person is unmotivated.

Maybe it's an American thing but here in EU most people won't work for free.

Exactly. When I work a 9-5, I am motivated by money. When an employer or manager says I should be motivated by something else, it's usually because they want me to work overtime/weekends/crazy hours for no extra pay.

I actually did this in my early years and the outcome was never positive for me: I worked nights, weekends, many more hours to help the team, get this great product or project done. In the end? We were let go and upper management got a nice payout and moved onto their next company.

This has happened so many times to my friends in the tech industry, it's crazy. As a result of this behavior, I started my own company and never looked back.

""It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t."

But it is your job to figure out why you got unmotivated people.

* Is your hiring process borked?

* Is there something wrong inside your organisation that's regularly breaking motivated people?

… and so on …

Hear, hear.

Terrible management and/or micromanagement is one of the key reasons a dev can lose motivation. It also doesn't do anyone's morale/motivation any favors to see colleagues get fired. If a manager has had to fire people, and do so repeatedly, then the fault is not so much with those getting fired than the organization/management/hiring process.

One of the key reasons why I've seen dev lose motivation after joining a company is lack of investment on the part of the manager in the employees future goals. I've been in situations during my entry-level days when my manager always made me draw the short straw - did wonders for my motivation.

Exactly, I have seen this at a few companies where the management isn't clear about the responsibilities with the candidate at the time of hiring, only to find out later that the candidate and company has different priorities. I will also add that this is the job of the company to find out the whether the candidate is right fit and not the candidate. The hiring company should be completely transparent about the job responsibilities and work.

Also some management people have completely unrealistic expectations from a hire whose job they hardly understand and with whom they never really talked openly.

And what is this person's definition of unmotivated? Is only doing the work and not beyond what stated in your contract unmotivated? Is having a life outside of work considered unmotivated?

I would imagine that people motivated mainly by money are among the easiest to manage. There's no guesswork there. Give them clear, measurable performance goals, with dollar signs attached to each one. Done.

In my view, money also is a good fallback motivation, if you can't figure out exactly what it is that someone wants out of his job, or you can't provide it. Truly, I've probably had only one job in my life where I honestly thought "I wouldn't stay here NO MATTER WHAT they pay me!"

I'd say I'm not a money oriented person. E.g., looking at the income statistics of my city I think that my chances are >50% if I find any other job.

But I think what you say would highly motivate me anyway. People like numbers and making numbers bigger. That's why people feel bad if they don't get enough Facebook likes. So if you give people clear numbers and a path to increase the numbers they will be motivated to do it, even if they don't care what the numbers stand for.

  I've probably had only one job in my life where I honestly thought "I wouldn't stay here NO MATTER WHAT they pay me!"

What was this job?

I've been on both sides of the fence, and as you get older you'll also probably end up on both sides at times too (No idea what age you are).

As everyone mentions sometimes there is other stuff going on in peoples lives, or they are just not that interested in building the same CRUD app for the umpteenth time that has you terribly exited because it is your first go at it and you want to prove yourself.

That being said, when on the motivated side of the fence, I want to offer you some advice that was given to me by my manager some years ago: You can't keep a good man down. Eventually management will see you put in extra effort, don't drop the ball and is constantly pulling the project out of the fire, and that will result in rewards be that promotions or freedoms or whatever. It might not always be as quick as you want, but you can't keep a good man down...

I hope that helps.

That's dangerous advise. I worked at a company for about 3 years and did some amazing things, was diligent, etc. but couldn't get ahead. In some companies you just can't: I'm not bitter, but jumping ship was a good move for me.

The same thing happened to me. I worked for a mid-sized company with a small development team. We had 2 managers and after senior developer, that was pretty much the only place to go (and get a raise).

I left 8+ years ago and last I heard, those 2 managers are in the same position.

You can't keep a good man down but like the two replies, my boss chose to ignore my effort and results to keep costs low. He's a great guy but when it comes to recognition and pay negotiation, he's a real bastard hehe.

Perhaps if we add that a "good (wo)man" will leave if that's what it takes to rise up.

if you don't mind me asking, how many hours do you work a week?

Entry-level here, and I'd say i'm the 9-5 type, but don't consider myself "don't really care to achieve any more than mediocre" is it possible to be motivated but still work at a reasonable hours? If it's not, then I'm kind of discouraged

Yes, absolutely. Everyone should be paid for the time they put in. Being motivated means being great at what you do, not working for free.

Almost 15 years here and I work 40 hours. Very rarly I'll put in 41 or 42 and that's mainly to help out the people that work under me put in only 40.

The secret is to learn how to say "no." People think it's a dirty word, but as and industry we're terrible at estimation and "no" is your most powerful way of fixing that situation.

Thanks for the reply

> we're terrible at estimation and "no" is your most powerful way of fixing that situation.

This is also my problem half the time, and that's what made me wonder if I keep realizing my estimate was off, and it's taking me more time to complete my original estimated work, does that make me a "9-5, unmotivated worker"

When I was entry level, back ten years ago, I used to do 8-10 hrs solid work being on the critical path alot and doing weekends sometimes. My manager was very supportive and gave me room to take responsibility of my work. It empowered me and brought out the best in me. I was paid peanuts but it was one of the best job I had.

Now, I try to take that attitude wherever I go. When I say 9-5, too many people took it to literally mean 9am-5pm. I do a task until it's done, a 9-5 person would do it until 4:59pm. If I'm done, I'll leave early or late, a 9-5 person would be on Facebook and leave at 4:59pm. It's pretty depressing to be in the middle of some design, be interrupted and turn around to find my colleague gone because it just passed 5pm... happened a few times...

I don't count the hours that I put in anymore. It's either getting a task done, doing something with the family or learning to improve myself or having some down time. I do take work home, wouldn't recommend it to everyone, I also take home to work. Somewhere between 20 and 30, I realised that spending 1/3 of my life just 'having a job' to survive isn't living so I seek out roles that align with my personal mission and go for it!

It used to be about money. Why do you want this job? Because I need the money to start my life, family, etc. But I've since realised that if you're hard working, frugal and sensible, moneys the last of your worries, it is more of what have you accomplished in life.

Sorry, getting a bit heavy here hehe, but having alot of key people die around me made me question what it was that I was doing.

So to bring it all back to your question, don't be discouraged by my views of work. When you're motivated, do whatever it is that interest you, forget about 'reasonable hours', just enjoy what you do.

thanks for the reply

> I don't count the hours that I put in anymore. It's either getting a task done

how do you define task? if you have a task estimated at 1 day, and by the end of the day you're not finished with it, do you finish it or count it as wrong estimation and finish it later?

For much of my career, I worked a normal 40 hours a week or so schedule - I did do coding outside of work, but on open source work or projects I wanted to do. Those outside of work activities were only when I was interested in doing so, and had no effect on work.

I became a senior frontend engineer in about 1 1/2 years.

that's pretty impressive! how do you make sure you're not getting too specialized within the company and are actually advancing your cs knowledge instead of the product knowledge?

I make sure to focus on a high level understanding of problems, and learning from my mistakes as much as possible.

I am extremely efficient at problem solving - I still have a lot more to learn I find each day though.

This is a really big problem in startup-land when a company starts hiring lots of staff before the business has actually grown. You get lots of people sitting around not doing much, and a few core people driving all the work forward. If the business never picks up, then it can turn into a caustic environment.

This true of any group of people you find yourself around for very long periods of times. Humans are social animals and have built-in mimetics. That's why its important to be around people with aspirations and goals; who believe in possibilities. I didn't believe this until much later in life, but I agree now that it's important to select for high-performance colleges for this reason alone.

It's shocking to me every time I encounter this. How do those unmotivated people expect to keep their jobs? How do they expect to get the next job, and references for the next job?

I'm less surprised by out of touch management once in a while and more surprised by individuals so confident in their demotivated lifestyle and their ability to maintain it long term with no consequences.

It find it out that the entire blame is put on those people.

One or two demotivated people? Well, okay, they're probably to blame.

But when you have a company full of them it's a toxic company and poor management that caused it.

Those people become experts - they get incredibly attuned - at navigating risks when it comes to getting fired. It's like people that don't work hard consistently, and then cram as much in at the last second right before getting in trouble. They develop an almost sixth-sense like ability to know when they have to do something, and then they do just enough. A lot of times in my observation, persistently unmotivated people don't know what they want, either out of work or life in general; so it does them little good to quit and go find a job they want to do, because they have no idea what they want to do.

It's the classic rhetorical: why not just work consistently, and not have to worry about cramming? Why do people behave that way (in either school or work)? In my personal experience, I've found the only time I cram, is when I'm stuck doing something I really don't care about (happened constantly in school).

Depends what you mean by motivation?

I don't see anything wrong in working agreed work hours, and completing a reasonable expected work amout and that's it. I think that's just recognising you have family and other responsibilities.

A lot of companies think your not motivated if your not doing 80+ hour weeks, for little added gain. Your not a founder, or have little or no equity and so have a limited upside. I don't why companies expect founder level commitment for non founder level upside.

In this case your biggest duty is probably to your loved ones and family. And not sacrificing that over some misplaced sense of duty. I'm sure a lot companies would not do the same if the positions where reversed. They'd probably fire you pretty fast, if you had issues effecting work. Keep that in mind.

The thing is that motivation is not something people compare to some known value, but rather between people. If you hear that people were unmotivated from an enthusiastic/workaholic person it doesn't mean that they really were unmotivated. Just less motivated than this person.

Some of us are happy with working at a steady pace without many external symptoms of exctitation. I even believe this is better in the long run, people don't burn out and are better-rested.

How do those unmotivated people expect to keep their jobs?

Perhaps by doing their job to a satisfactory standard and abiding by the conditions of their employment?

If that's not good enough, the contract should make it clear just what the job really entails.

Well, good money and job security is also a strong motivator.

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