Do you expect your employees and co-workers to keep themselves up to date?

Question

I'm a little shocked to see how some developers don't care at all about anything besides the bare minimum of what they need to do their jobs.

They can use what language they learned at school, but have no idea of what other languages there are. They have no clue at all about the current buzzwords. They read nothing that could be relevant to developers. No blogs, no books.

What expectations do you have for your employees/co-workers to keep them self informed and up to date on current trends and knowledge?

As a delphi developer, I do not expect my co-workers to know c#, python or ruby, but I do expect them to recognize these words as languages, and know that c# is associated with .net, and the other two with scripts and web. As a win32-developer, I expect my co-workers to know about the future release of Windows 7.

Is this unreasonable?

Answer 1

That kind of a minimum standard seems to me unreasonable. Unreasonably low.

Answer 2

No, you are not unreasonable. I think is it expected that a basic level of competency be maintained in any workplace - for example: doctors have to re-take their board exams every 5 years or so.

Answer 3

I don't know, maybe I'm working at the "wrong" place, but all my fellow developers at my company are competent and pretty much "up to date". Maybe it's time for you to change jobs?

Answer 4

No, it's not an unreasonable expectation, but it's not an uncommon problem either. Many people in our profession see professional growth as an unnecessary evil, or the employers responsibility.

Of course it IS necessary and it is the responsibility of each individual.

Answer 5

The question that you should be asking yourself then is: what are they learning that you're not?

Answer 6

That question is... open ended.

The minimum requirement should always be that the programmer is up-to-date on everything which directly effects his work. Web programmers should know about the next generation of XML, CSS/HTML, and the way that browsers are being developed. Aside from that, well, it it does not effect them, then it really is an intellectual matter.

Just think of your team in terms of OOP. You have a widget builder. He is REALLY good at building widgets. He does not need to know about sprockets or the factory in general. Now, if it can be foreseen that he will have to use sprockets for his widgets or that a new type of widget is coming out, he will need to account for that in his widget implementation, but beyond that, nothing is really needed.

The important thing is that he is able to do his job and do it well.

Answer 7

You're describing a pervasive, persistent problem that's never going to go away. Yes, it turns out there there are people out there who have very little interest in IT in spite of the fact that they work in this industry. I think there's been so much talk of this on SO and elsewhere already that even my responding here feels like a drop in the pond of IT tears.

Fact is, some people never have nor aspire for proficiency or talent, and some companies (bureaucracies) are so utterly clueless about what 'professional programming' is that no matter how much you run around, shout, or post on StackOverflow, these places will continue to suck summarily, and so will their employees - because technical proficiency never was, and never will be their priority.

Answer 8

I am of the opinion that it is the individual’s responsibility to continue their own professional development however, the business should be open to facilitating the development of their employees.

For example, if I wish to develop a better understanding of Agile Database Development techniques so that I may produce superior quality deliverables for my company, then I believe it is a fair expectation that the company subsidise the cost of a few text books to support this. The responsibility to digest the content is my own and done so in my own time.

I also believe that businesses should be accommodating with regard to allowing time away from the office so that employees may attend conferences/seminars/events. These events can of course be expensive but it is not essential to attend say all five days of a given conference. Such events are beneficial to both the employee and their business and I would encourage employees to attend at least a couple of these each year.

In short, the responsibility of your professional development is your own however a good company will ideally support you in this pursuit.

You will only ever be as good as you aspire to be.

Answer 9

I've worked for both the private and public sector and found folks in both that are just skating by, essentially buffered from advancing themselves by the infrastructure and bureaucracy or the corporate culture. I've had bosses that weren't all that interested in learning anything new and as a result tended to not expect much growth out of their employees. In that sort of environment it is essential that the expectations are kept low by all involved lest someone get the idea in his head that more could be done or that new technologies could improve things. One project I worked on briefly was specifically handled like this and wanting to do something different was akin to heresy. Pretty pathetic, really.

At my shop, everyone is expected to stay up on current technologies to some degree and we each have our areas of particular interest and expertise. The culture is one where we don't rule out new ideas and will invest some time in learning and prototyping solutions using newer technologies to see what sort of benefit we can gain by doing so. If you are in a competitive environment like we are, you end up sinking your own ship if you rest on your laurels. My personal goal is to be considerably better than the guy in the next office and I believe that is a common goal among our employees. Corporately, our goal is to provide better solutions than the 'competition'. You can't do that, typically, if you don't keep up with the changing world around you. Doesn't mean that you go into 'magpie mode' and chase every 'shiny' technology that shows up on the radar, but it does mean that you spend some time making wise technical investments.

Personally, I don't want to ever hire or work with anyone who is satisfied to be mediocre. I have to deal with enough folks like that in life. I certainly don't want to depend on them personally or have my company depending on them.

So it is a corporate culture thing and it is an expectations thing, really. If you set the bar low, you'll get low-jumpers. To be the best, you've got to invest, right?

Just my two cents.

Answer 10

It seems to me that the craft is ever changing and anyone at least not peripherally aware of technologies outside the scope of their current project or even their professional experiences is cheating themselves out of growth.

There is too much out there to know to ever be complacent and "satisfied" with what you already know. Take a look at the questions and discussions on this site alone. It humbles me to see how much there is I don't know (I'm not claiming to be a supergenius, mind you, but there is a LOT of stuff).

Answer 11

Maybe they aren’t learning the technical skills that interest you but are now learning managerial or other useful skills.

Don’t assume that everyone is at the same stage in life as you. It takes significant effort and time to learn new skills and keep up to date. That time and effort might not be appropriate after having kids or just getting married. Sure, you can do it, but frequently at the expense of being a crappy mom/dad/husband/wife.

Since the advancement route seems to be blocked at your job, even if they did at one time have motivation, that motivation may have been sapped from them by the circumstances of the work environment. Maybe you should consider leaving before it happens to you.

Plus, not every office needs superstars at every software position. Who is going to do the more mundane work and not mind it?

Answer 12

What I expect from my colleagues is for them to be able to do their jobs effectively and be good team players.

What I desire from my colleagues is a passion for their field and self-advancement. Keeping themselves up to date above-and-beyond what their job requires follows on from this.