Software development is a competitive field that requires time, effort, and energy. It demands lots of thinking and concentration from developers. Hence, they need to have brains in good shape.
But, the dark side is that the tech industry can be a challenging place to focus on wellness. Since developers are very much immersed in their jobs, it mainly goes unnoticed.
In this article, we will be diving deep into developers’ well-being. And how Typo is helping to resolve this major issue. We will be covering the three aspects of developer well-being – Why, What, and How. So, stay tuned!
Google defines well-being as ‘The state of being comfortable, healthy, and happy.’
Developers have a lot on their plates. From coding and maintaining software systems to testing them at various stages, they are usually busy with day-to-day activities.
It can cause burnout that further impacts their productivity and performance level. As a result, it can hinder the stages of the software development life cycle. The lack of motivation and creativity obstructs the planning process which directly affects the quality of the coding process. As a result, more errors delay the product to the end-user.
Developers are affected by both technological and sociological aspects of their job. Hence, these need to be evaluated in concert to deeply understand developers’ well-being.
Burnout is also one of the major factors in high turnover rates in the workplace.
If neglected for a longer period, It can further deteriorate the physical and mental well-being of the developers.
Hence, it is crucial for engineering managers to always consider developers’ well-being. It may seem to be an invisible factor, but there is a way.
In the next section, we will be discussing in-depth what Typo offers to developers and engineering managers.
Through Typo, we aim to help engineering managers take note of their developers’ well-being. Our framework is an outcome of intensive primary and secondary scientific research into the key drivers and elements that impact experience and engagement at each tenure and the organization as a whole.
Below are the 7 EX drivers:
Further, these EX drivers have 29 unique elements that provide a comprehensive and in-depth measure of mood, engagement & experience at every stage.
There are various ways to calculate the above-mentioned focus and sub-focus areas.
As mentioned above, Burnout is the main reason for mental and physical health issues among developers. Hence, it is necessary to not ignore the signs and take the necessary actions.
The burnout signs may vary, but common ones include:
And so on.
Although, these signs could be due to other reasons as well or may go unnoticed. It is important to monitor them through the engineering platform.
Typo tracks the work habits of developers across multiple activities, such as Commits, PRs, Reviews, Comments, Tasks, After-work hour commits, and Merges, over a certain period.
If these patterns consistently exceed the average of other developers or violate predefined benchmarks, the system identifies them as being in the burnout zone or at risk of burnout. These benchmarks can be customized to meet your specific needs.
When the system flags a developer, it is advisable to review their work logs to gain insights into their workload distribution and take appropriate action. These pointers are important to help you drive effective conversations & remove blockers proactively.
Step 1: Pulse Check-ins and Dev NPS
Pulse Check-ins is a brief and concise survey that helps in understanding how your developers feel at the organization. It contains a short set of questions related to employee satisfaction, work environment, job role, coworkers, and communication.
These short surveys are anonymous so that developers can be open and honest about their opinions. Pulse check-ins are usually done continuously to gather real-time insights and feedback from them.
Dev-NPS is a way of measuring how your developers feel about the organization. It is a survey-based method that gives a holistic view of developer experience (along with other key metrics). To calculate Dev-NPS, here is a quick formula for it:
Promoters % – Detractors % * 100
A few of the rules you need to keep in mind for writing good surveys are:
While our Typo platform covers features such as engineering insights and real-time visibility into SDLC metrics. It also lets engineering managers take note of developers’ well-being in one place.
Below are the five elements that the Typo covers to help engineering managers in pulse check-ins and Dev-NPS.
But this is not all! Engineering managers need to take note of them and further, communicate accordingly with developers.
And, this is how one-on-one meetings come into the picture.
Step 2: One-on-one meetings:
You now have a holistic view of how your developers feel working at your organization. Let’s move on to another step i.e. One-on-one meetings.
These meetings are a great way to communicate with your team on a personal level. It allows you to understand the need and challenges faced by the developers in the organization.
Ensure that you don’t confuse it with regular sync-up meetings. Keep the work aside and discuss their honest opinions about the workplace. Ask them about the key strength areas and blind spots in-depth. Know how the organization is aligned with their personal growth and so on.
There are many software available in the market such as HuddleUp, Notion templates, and ClickUp that let you create agendas, add talking points, and schedule meetings. As a result, making your work easier and let you focus only on the latter part.
Step 3: Create an action plan:
Based on Pulse Check-ins, Dev-NPS, and One-on-one meetings, create an action plan.
When identifying action steps, know what are the pain points and trends within your organization that need to be addressed.
Let’s assume that on the Typo platform, the three main parameters that have lower ratings are: Compensation, open and honest communication, and work-life balance. Further, to get more information about it, you conduct one-on-one meetings with your team. Hence, based on it, you have in-depth insights into what really the problem is. Now, you can create an action plan accordingly.
Make sure that you set a SMART outline to set the right goal.
Besides this, make sure there is a timeline for smaller tasks.
To get more benefits from the action plan, you can create a template for the same. This reduces rework and saves your time and effort.
Don’t forget to monitor your progress after a specific period. Keep track of the improvement and where more attention is needed.
This step may seem to be a daunting task but it has benefits that help in the long run. A few of them include:
Let’s assume three developers worked on:
They not only made the tasks easier for other developers but made sure that everything is done smoothly. It may seem that this is what the developer’s job is for, but their efforts deserve acknowledgment and recognition.
Recognition and appreciation are one of the overlooked aspects of the workplace. You assume they already know that you love their work but this is not the right approach. Everyone, including developers, wants to get acknowledged for their work.
It doesn’t mean that you need to give them a gift but a simple thank you goes a long way too! All you have to do is let them know their presence is valued and matters a lot at the workplace.
A few of the advantages of recognizing developers at the workplace include:
One of the ways to acknowledge developers and the engineering team is through the kudos (or donut) feature by the HuddleUp Slack app. Best for engineering teams to gamify the conventional recognition methods. As soon as someone did an outstanding job or does anything that needs to be done urgently, give them kudos.
Another way of doing so is to recognize them with the tags. Such as Developer of the Month, Job-well Done, Backbone of our team, and so on.
Although there are many ways to encourage developers’ well-being. The above-mentioned ones are the most important.
To understand what’s going on in your engineering team’s mind, pulse check-ins, Dev-NPS, and one-on-one are the best ways to do so. As it not only allows you to know the blind spots but also figure out the reason behind them.
Burnout is the root cause of mental and physical health issues among developers. Hence, it is crucial to know about it before it gets too late.
Since recognition and appreciation are the underrated key factors to drive engagement and productivity, it needs to be taken into consideration too.
Make sure that you implement them and monitor the progress continuously so that your team is happy working at the workplace.
All the best!
Implement DORA metrics, gain dev visibility & drive success in your teams.
Try Live Demo
