HACKER Q&A
📣 donnie12345

How to motivate team to go beyond the job given that budget is limited?


After recent layoffs your team is not taking the ownership of the product.

How will you convince them to do overtime and come on weekends? Similar to Bezos and Musk's hardcore style :)

How will you motivate to go beyond the job and deliver for the project? But the catch is that budget is limited.


  👤 inductive_magic Accepted Answer ✓
Great/inspiring leadership and VSOPs come to mind

👤 tiledjinn
Significant equity or extremely green staff. And those will only work for a short period of time.

The only other plausible reasons that wont lead to massive attrition in the short term are around political extremes (eg Ukranians signing up for high risk jobs with long hours and little pay to defend their country) or some sort of legacy (you're a medical company with a plausible cure for cancer).

If you're in this situation, find funding to for the team you need or start winding down. Asking the question implies your staff will be better off if you shutter the company.


👤 throwaway751
An unannounced budget/headcount cut with no change in scope and no budget for overtime (not that I think overtime compensates)?

A mighty recommendation letter, list of contacts at other employers and personal introductions on request.

If the captain decides to sink the ship, I'm having out life vests. I care about my people more than petulant vision.

I would add however that Bezos and Musk aren't that similar. And that your question scenario is completely different from "In X months, you will have layoffs if you stay like you are, what can you do?"


👤 JohnFen
I suspect that, in that case, you can't. There have already been layoffs, so any employees that were already the "above and beyond" type are probably feeling very demotivated. Those who aren't already the "above and beyond" type can't be talked into providing free labor for more than perhaps the occasional fire.

I think that the best bet is to recalibrate the project. Scale it down to meet the budget, or extend the deadline so it can be accomplished without relying on people working beyond their commitments.


👤 simne
You remembered me, founder of startup where I worked talking with cofounder:

Co: "what we can do, we a really close to be bought!"

F: "understand me right, I have not additional money to pay, so when cash will end, I will immediately tell people to not go to work next day. Yes I seen guys, who don't tell anybody and just hide, but I don't want this, I want to live as normal person".