Have you always struggled with keeping your MEAN stack development team motivated? Whether you are in the tech industry or any other industry, workers are always grappling with different life situations and shifting through moods. Consequently, they end up losing focus which affects the overall productivity of your entire workforce.
Today, employee satisfaction among development teams goes beyond the monetary benefits. More and more developers are having to weigh between tangible vs. intangible motivation before taking up a job. And with the emergence and consequent explosion of remote work, most of them are looking for a work culture that will offer them both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, plus the freedom to work from any location.
With that said, we cannot downplay the fact that a good mean stack developer salary can motivate a software developer. After all, they still have bills to pay.
In this article, we are going to look at effective methods of motivating your MEAN stack development team and what entails good motivation practices.
Definition of MEAN Stack Development
MEAN is a collection of user-friendly JavaScript stacks that are mainly used to build dynamic websites and apps. Being free and open-source, MEAN stack is designed to allow developers to rapidly create prototypes or fully-fledged MEAN-based web applications.
Basically, MEAN is comprised of four distinct technologies namely:
MongoDB
MongoDB is an open-source database management system (DBMS) that utilizes a document-oriented database model to support various data forms. Given that it doesn’t require any predefined schemas, MongoDB can store multiple data types without any hitch.
Express JS
Express.js gives JavaScript explicit back-end functionality which allows your development team to build the software’s server-side using JavaScript. Combined with Node.js, the two facilitate the building of “pure-bred” JavaScript websites. As such, your development team can build the server-side using Node.js and then deploying the app with Express.
AngularJS
AngularJS is a structural framework used to create dynamic web apps. It allows developers HTML as the primary template language and extends the HTML syntax which optimizes the application’s components. Moreover, the dependency injection and data binding eliminate the possibilities of repeating the code.
Node.js
Node.js is an open-source development framework used to execute server-side JavaScript code. It is useful when building real-time applications that require a constant connection between the server and the browser.
Benefits of MEAN Stack Development
In today’s intensely competitive business world, every company – whether small or big, start-up or long-established, needs to maintain a strong digital presence. And although there are multiple ways to realize this, Mean stack is one of the most popular approaches.
Here are some of the benefits of MEAN stack:
Easy to Navigate Between Client-side and Server-side
One of the primary benefits of MEAN stack is the single language approach which is JavaScript. This means that your MEAN stack developer is capable to cover much by seamlessly switching between the client-side and server-side. Moreover, they won’t be requiring 3rd party servers as Node.js allows them to directly open the app on the server.
Best in Creating a MVP
Minimum viable product entails creating a web app with a preliminary set of features and deploying it to a small group of customers for initial reactions. With the reduced turn-around time that MEAN Stack development offers, you can get a minimum viable product in the shortest possible.
Highly Flexible
Flexibility in the context of MEAN stack development means that this framework allows your team to accomplish more stuff compared to working with other development platforms. For instance, MEAN allows our development team to host the app on a cloud server just in case you are looking to test it after development.
Furthermore, MongoDB which is the database used in MEAN is cloud compatible. This means that it allows for cluster support between servers and automatic sharing.
Thriving Online Community
Mean is a highly acclaimed framework that has managed to impress developers all over the world. Many MEAN developers working with the framework has formed an enthusiastic and equally helpful online community which helps improve it. A simple Google search concerning any major or minor issue will be met by a host of comprehensive solutions making it easier for new developers.
Isomorphic Coding
Another great attribute of MEAN lies in the fact that developers can interchange from one framework to another without affecting the functionality of the code. This is particularly important for the uninitiated developers who would have to deal with a myriad of challenges in case the code decided to snap.
Now that we have seen the benefits of MEAN, what compelling things would you do to your MEAN stack development team to motivate them to produce the above results?
Effective Motivation Factors For a MEAN Stack Developers
As a business owner, it’s always important to recognize that different people have different motivational factors. You need to first determine their motivation level and needs before deciding what to offer them.
Basically, there are two major categories of motivational tools namely tangible and intangible tools.
Tangible Tools
Tangible motivational tools are rewards that can be assigned a financial value. They include a bonus, gym membership, or even a salary raise. But for purposes of this article, we are going to look at the salary.
Salary as a Motivative Factor for Developers
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, salary is the most amusing hygiene factor simply because it mostly used to try and motivate people even though it isn’t a motivator. In fact, the only time salary becomes an issue is when an individual (in this case a MEAN developer) perceives theirs to be considerably lower compared to that of their peers.
Once this is corrected by increasing their salary, the dissatisfaction disappears– but the motivation remains stagnant. This is because people will never get satisfied with their salary and will always yearn for more.
It is also important to note the most MEAN developers have the internal desire to continue performing. But what happens when you try to actuate them with money? Their internal motivation is crashed so they will not put enough effort to continue performing.
So, this monetary reward reduces their overall performance and output plus that of your company. Moreover, they will be expecting a reward again every time you ask them to do something. Otherwise, they won’t perform as expected.
Intangible Tools
Non-financial rewards can be a good motivation pack as their traditional financial counterparts. Employees that feel wanted and given positive recognition have been shown to improve their productivity and company loyalty.
Here are some good examples of intangible/non-financial motivational tools:
Need for Autonomy
With the skyrocketing demand for MEAN stack developers, it would be lackadaisical to pin a talented engineer under an irrevocable 8 to 5 schedule. As earlier indicated, a need for autonomy is one of the first considerations for most (if not all) millennial workers before taking up a job.
Creating a successful MEAN development team means appreciating that creativity doesn’t follow a schedule and that true innovation can easily happen on a comfy couch or in a coffee shop.
One major company that has become a model workplace where greater freedom and autonomy is the order of the day is Google. The design of the entire working environment has been manicured in a way that would positively impact employees. Moreover, they do allow workers to work remotely which is why it’s one of the largest innovation hubs globally.
Access to Latest Tools and Technologies
Have you ever seen chef Gordon Ramsey working with dull knives? Or Sebastian Vettel competing with a 1960 Chevrolet Impala? The same goes for a MEAN stack development team.
You don’t expect your development team to produce exceptional results if you provide them with rudimentary tools. You may be lucky if they stick with you, but eventually, they will disappear (tagging along with their peers).
As a general rule of thumb, you need to give your development team the freedom to choose the tools they would like to use to get the work done as effectively and efficiently as possible. No developer wants to deal with crippling tools in the middle of dealing with a hectic code.
Leadership Opportunities
Good MEAN developers clearly understand their roles and work towards achieving their goals accordingly. If you have spotted a potential team leader amongst your team, why not let them assume a leadership role in the next upcoming project to them?
Small things like delegating will help motivate our team members as they will continue working knowing that there is always the team for growth and that their efforts are appreciated.
Staff Motivative Events like a Company Party
Employees burnout is real and can happen to anyone including you as the business owner. And in such a scenario, it is very hard to push your development team to produce quality work.
You can host a company or department party where everyone can have fun and unwind. Such parties also help to build team morale, which is a critical ingredient to the success of a project.
Tangible vs. Intangible Motivation: Which One Works Best?
It is clear that tangible tools don’t work well in MEAN stack development and other jobs that require creativity. In particular, salary as a motivator can kill the inner drive, crush creativity, encourage egoism, and short-term thinking, all which lead to decreased performance.
With that said, we cannot entirely discount salary as a motivation tool. Under some conditions, the salary can be used to motivate your team although the stint will be short-lived.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, the advantages of MEAN stack developers are many. They help businesses establish an online presence at a rapid rate and efficiently. But when it comes to motivating these professionals, it’s important to carefully consider the individuality of a person and what it is that you want to reward them with.
MEAN developers are generally proud of their technical aptitude and their opinion matters over anything else. Rather than drooling over your salary increment, MEAN software engineers would rather bond as they debug the code together. But most importantly, you should respect their unique talents and individualism. After all, you could be working in what’s considered a prestigious and well-paying industry, but if your efforts aren’t recognized, that won’t matter.