Did you hear about the one where Yahoo! forced it’s employees to work unpaid overtime on the failed Panama advertising system then gave them a $50 holiday bonus for their troubles?

This went to court and a settlement was reached. Now plaintiffs are getting between $10,000-$12,000 for their troubles! Now that’s what I call a bonus.

If Yahoo wasn’t so cheap then they could have afforded more phd’s to work on their algorithm so they can steal some of Google’s thunder.

Comments

• December 28, 2008, Shekhar Mehta writes: good punishment to yahoo as they deserve it.

Leverage is what rich people and large busiesses use in order to expand at an explosive rate. You will notice that the average Joe that works 40+ hours per week seems to live paycheck to paycheck. Even the middle class seem to overlook leverage and their entire life is spent paying off credit card debt.

As a business, your leverage starts when you hire people to do the daily tasks that take up so much of your time. A company should have a complete sales force to bring in and close leads; a team of developers (or workers) to get the actual work done; and customer service people to handle client relations and general questions about your business.

In addition to leveraging your time, it is necessary to manage the entire team with a weekly meeting. This will allow you to make sure everyone is on the same page and are no less motivated than they were when they started working for you.

While a team is an important thing to have, it means nothing unless you can treat your employees with respect and compassion. Your employees need to know that when they go to work for you they will not be bored out of their mind. Your workforce should remain strong and efficient.

Resources:

• GoToMeeting – A virtual conferencing solution to bring your virtual staff in for regular meetings.
• Craigslist – A good place to search resumes and a starting point to building your team.

Does your company use all in-house developers, or are some of them freelance? When you are working with freelance developers you have to make sure they provide the same quality product and have strict rules for meeting deadlines as you would expect from your in-house staff.

Finding a good developer or a development team is not an easy process. You have to get as much portfolio work from them as you can, then decide on the quality whether you want to work with them. Once you made the decision it is best to test them out on a small-size project first. If they meet your quality criteria then send them out on a larger project.

If your developer starts lagging behind, it is best to immediately replace them. By allowing them to continue to work on the project, you are risking the stability of the relationship with your client(s). It is best to make sure that the project gets done by any means necessary, including replacing the developer who worked on the project from the start, and having a new development team knock out the project in time without any bug delays so your client comes back for repeat service.

If you just started your web development company, the above may not be something you know. You can end up learning the hard way. But if you are reading this then I hope you take these rules to heart. Your success depends on how effecient your team operates.