In reading this thread I am reminded of two lessons gleaned from my own
management experience which can be found in _Managing_for_Dummies_ (Nelson,
Economy & Blanchard; John Wiley & Sons, 1996):
(1) Raises are not tied to your reviews. Your raise should be keeping your
pay in line with what you and your skills are worth on the job market; while
your review tells you how well you are performing at that job.
(2) Money is rarely a long-term motivator. It can often be a de-motivator
and is a nice short-term motivator or reward, but is hardly the only factor in
determining an employee's happiness.
I know that can be a little hard to swallow, and this economy certainly doesn't
help convince your management to pay what you are fully worth. My approach is,
basically, if it's a good job, pays the bills, allows me to learn something new
each week, and I still like who I am when I get home each night, I'll stick
around. Otherwise it's just a stopgap measure until I find something better.
(Disclaimer: Yes, I know some of this is psychobabble that middle management
wants you to buy into because that's what they've bought into. My advice is to
read the books and try to understand them. Either you're in this game, or
you're not.)
Good luck and/or happy hunting,
-Bill
"tell it like it is
'til there's no misunderstanding"
--Peter Gabriel, "The Tower that Ate People", _Ovo_
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Sep 18 2002 - 14:09:34 PDT