[原创] 如何留住优秀的测试人员（How to keep good testers in testing positions）

如何留住优秀的测试人员
How to keep goodtesters in testing positions

原作者：Vijay Kumar

译者：黄启鲁, Testone, Maurice, Wally

原文地址：

http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/how-to-retain-employees-and-keep-low-attrition-rate/

日期：2009-10-24

【E测中国翻译团队作品】

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http://download.5etesting.com/questions.php?parentID=182&typeID=184

几天前Teresa问了我一个有趣的问题。
“我被你的网站深深地吸引了，因为我发现你真的对测试充满了热情和兴趣。在我的公司里，我们发现留住优秀的测试人员非常困难。许多真正有能力的测试人员总是在寻找机会，出于某种原因想脱离测试工作。我非常希望能听到您对于如何挽留优秀测试人员的建议。”

Teresa，首先我谈谈为何所有公司都存在员工高流失率的问题，然后再回过头来谈“怎样留住优秀的测试人员”。

没有员工流动在当今充满激烈竞争的世界上是一种幻想，是不切实际的。一定程度的人员流动是正常的。然而，太高的流失率在任何公司来说都预示着一些严重的问题。

尽管不是减少人员流失方面的HR专家，我仍会从员工的角度给出一些常用的措施将人员流失减少到一定的程度。这些措施适用于任何公司和员工。另外，由于我们正从事软件测试，所以我会更多地关注如何使得优秀的测试人员坚守他们的岗位。
我会对如何降低人员流失率的解决方法进行逐一阐述。所以，坐好、放松，这将是一篇很长的文章。

谁将从这篇文章中获得帮助呢？

这篇文章将对以下人员非常有帮助：公司管理人员，经理，开发和测试的TL们，当然还有有志于成为Leader的出类拔萃的测试人员。

高人员流失率对公司的影响：

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可能会失去业务-客户对高流失率不满意
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公司承受财务负担
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招募新员工的成本的增加
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新员工培训的成本的增加
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新项目磨合期的时间的开销
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现有员工的工作量加大
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不稳定的工作和加班造成的员工低工效

这是一些高流失率带来的严重的问题。

如何降低流失率？

首先来看一下员工离开公司的根本原因。主要原因是“努力工作却得不到赏识”。我的意思是，如果公司不关心员工，他们为什么还要留在公司？
记住“高薪”并总不是解决方法。现在，员工更关心（注重）生活的质量和家庭的需求。

这里有一些应对高流失率的解决方法：

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雇用合适的人员从事合适的职位
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知道员工所需并满足他们
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尊重他们
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总是赏识出色的工作
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定期地要求员工付出并采取适当的措施
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为员工提供培训机会使其获得更高级的知识
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要以员工为本
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提供愉快的工作环境
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职位晋升的机会
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重视员工的创造力
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工作保障

最后一条非常重要。你的员工应该对他们的工作有安全感。如果你没有提供工作保障或者员工内心最基本的工作安全感，那么你的公司将会面临高流失率的危险。

这是一些教科书式的解决方法。让我们再看看一些实用的方法。

动机：

任何一个软件团队都应该由具有极大的动力和高超的技能的人员组成。强大的动力来自卓越的领导。TL和经理领导得法，可以降低流失率。我在我的职业生涯中看到很多员工就是因为老板而离开了公司。一些不切实际的要求或者缺乏动力、领导力会促使员工仔细考虑他们的职位和事业。

所以领导应该在员工们失去所有希望的时候，激励他们，激发他们的能量。

更多的薪水：

给他们更多的报酬和津贴。

工作中的乐趣:

我说过金钱不是万能的，工作中充满乐趣同样重要。如果你的公司没有一个轻松愉快的文化，仅仅靠更高的薪水是不能鼓舞这个团队的。我相信“疯狂的工作，尽情的娱乐”的文化，这样的活动有很多，所以安排一些体育活动、户外旅游、不同团队间不同的竞赛等等。可以让员工们感到精神振奋。

帮助安排员工的生活：

这里，我的意思是帮助员工们获得稳定的生活。我知道这不是一个简单的任务，但是公司可以为员工提供医疗保险、医疗设施等。住房是大多数员工首先考虑的事。所以帮助他们获得良好的住宿条件。

Teresa，你问到如何将测试人员挽留住。那就让我们来看看测试人员的问题。

测试人员通常的抱怨有哪些呢？

“有时候开发人员自我标榜比测试人员强。”

“测试人员对每个错误都要负责。”

“由于测试人员计划脱轨。”将项目进度的落后归咎于测试人员

“测试人员不受尊重。”

“管理层不将他们和开发人员同等看待。”

这些都是测试人员通常存在的牢骚，这使得他们对工作没有安全感，影响了他们的日常工作并可能导致高流失率。

管理层需要早在测试人员离开公司之前妥善处理好这些怨词。解决方法是——有效地组织你的团队，促进（加强）开发人员、测试人员、管理层之间的交流。这会更好地理解和定位测试人员的需要。

下面是留住优秀的有天分的测试人员的详细步骤：

给他们提供培训：

培训你所有的测试人员。为他们提供免费的培训，不可行的话可收取少量的费用。提供一些远程课程、研讨会和书籍等供他们学习。倡议和帮助他们获得软件测试证书。

赏识出色的工作：

不要盲目追求bug的数量。要看到bug的质量和欣赏测试人员为发现bug而付出的努力。定期表扬团队中出色的工作。

奖励那些发现高质量bug的测试人员。开展每周的或每月的类似“本周bug”的竞赛来奖励测试人员。这有助于组建一个成功的QA团队。

为所有的事情制定界限：

你的目标应该有明确的界限和完成标准。没有明确结果的目标会是一个乏味的任务。不要让你团队感到测试任务遥遥无期，没有一个明确的目标。

把每一个bug看成一个学习的机会：

不要拿遗漏的bug抱怨测试人员。把这些bug当做一次学习的机会。让他们知道为什么他们没有发现那个bug。他们会从中吸取经验教训，以便于在今后的工作中不再犯同样的错误。

不要把测试安排成重复性的工作：

有些时候我们一次又一次地重复做同一件事情就会感到厌烦。测试人员的工作涉及到重复性任务。所以需要特意安排你的工作，不要让任何测试人员在任何项目上反复地执行同一个测试用例。随机安排测试任务，这样一来每个成员都会了解整个项目的情况，有助于他们发现更多的bug。

一个避免重复工作的有效解决办法是让有经验的员工轮流参与不同的项目。

测试人员和开发人员之间建立良好的关系：

测试人员需要鼓励和支持来发现更多的bug，使得最终发布的产品没有bug。建立一个测试人员和开发人员组成的优秀团队。平等的对待每一个人。

别忘了庆贺：

庆祝每一个胜利的时刻。这有助于培养良好的团队精神。举办产品发布宴会见证团队的成就。

结论：

对工作努力的员工表示赞赏。这是企业成功的法宝之一。在你的员工面前表现出你正致力于满足他们的各种需求。

最后：

这是我对如何留住优秀员工（测试人员）的个人的一些想法。我不是一个HR专家，我在这里提到的一切都是从一个员工的角度考虑的。

我想知道你对“什么使你坚守在岗位上”的看法。你可以分享你个人的想法、你作为一个员工的经历或者这方面的个人的任何经历。

Few days back ‘Teresa’ asked me an interesting question.
“I was intrigued by your website because it seems you are trulypassionate and interested in testing.
Inmy organization, we’ve found that it’s really hard to keep the GOOD testers intesting.
Many of the really skilledtesters are always looking for change and want to get out of testing for somereason.
I would love to hear if you haveany ideas on how to keep the good testers in testing?”
Teresa, first I will address this highattrition rate problem for all employees and then I will come back toaddressing “How to keep good testers in testing positions?”

0% employee turnover is just aimagination and unrealistic in current competitive world. Employee turnover tocertain extent is ok. However increased turnover in any company indicates someserious problems.
Though I am not a HR expert toreduce the attrition rate, I willsuggest some common measures from employee perspective, which can minimize thisturnover to certain extent. These measures will be applicable for everycompany and employee. Also we are in context of software testing so I willconcentrate more on how to retain good testers in their positions.
I will address each and everysolution we can try to keep low attrition rate. So sit back, get relaxed asthis is going to be a long article.
Who will get help from this article?
This article will helpful toCompany management, Managers, Team leads in development and testing and ofcourse to the emerging testers who are tomorrow’s leads.
What are the effects of high attrition rate oncompany?
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May lose projects in hand - asclients are not happy with high attrition rate
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Financial burden on company
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Cost to recruit new employees
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Cost of new employee training
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Time for ramp-up in newprojects
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Workload on existing employees
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Low employee productivity dueto unstable work and overtime
These are few importantdrawbacks of high attrition rate.
How to reduce attrition rate?
First let’s go to root causeof “why employee leave the company?”
The main reason is “lack of appreciationfor their hard work”. I mean if company is not caring about employees thenwhy would they stay in such company?
Keep in mind ‘more money’ isnot always the solution! Nowadays employees are more concerned about quality oflife and their family needs.
Here are some solutions on high attrition rate:
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Hire the right people in rightpositions
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Understand the employee needsand provide it to them
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Respect them
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Always appreciate good work
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Regularly ask for employeeinput and take appropriate action
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Offer training opportunities togain advanced knowledge
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Better to become employeeoriented
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Pleasant working atmosphere
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Career growth opportunities
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Value employee creativity
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Job security
Last one is very important.Your employees should feel secure about their jobs. If you can’t provide jobsecurity or at least feeling of job security in employees mind then yourcompany deserve for high attrition rate.
These are some one liner solution. Let’s take some practicalsolutions.
Motivation:
Any software team should consist of highly motivated and skilled people. Good motivation comes from good leadership.Good leadership provided by team leaders and managers can bring down theattrition rate. In my career I observe employees leave the company just becauseof their boss. Some unrealistic demands or lack of motivation and leadership canmake employees think over their position and career.
So leaders should motivate andenergize colleagues when they lost all hopes.
More Money:
Give them a good compensation and benefit package.
Fun at work:
As I said money is not always the solution, fun at work is also important. Onlymore money can’t motivate the team if you don’t have fun culture in yourcompany. I believe in “Work hard, Playhard” culture, so plan some sporting activities, outdoor trips, differentcompetitions between different teams etc etc… There can be so many suchactivities, which can act as refreshment for employees.
Help to settle employee life:
What I mean from this is to help employees providing stability in their life. Iknow this is not going to be a simple task but company can help employees byproviding medical insurance, medical facilities to employees. Housing is thefirst priority of most of the employees. So help them getting good accommodation.
‘Teresa’, you asked about retaining testers in good positions. Solet’s come to testers problem.
What are the common complaints from testers?
“Sometimes developers ego asthey are better than testers”
“Tester is responsible for every fault”
“Schedule slips due to testers”
“Testers are not getting the respect”
“Management don’t consider them equally with developers”
These are some commoncomplaints from testers and this makes them feel insecure in their job,affecting their daily work and may result in high attrition rate.
Management needs to addressthese complaints early before testers leave the company. The solution is -organize your teams effectively, improve communication between developers,testers and management. This will lead to better understanding and addressingof testers needs.
Below are the baby steps, which can retain good talented testers in theirpositions:
Provide them training:
Train all your testers. Provide them training for free, if not possible thenwith cheap cost. Make available some remote courses, seminars and books tostudy. Sponsor and help them to get the software testing certifications.
Appreciate the good work:
Don’t go behind the quantity of bugs. See the quality of bugs and appreciatethose testers working hard to find it. Regularly comment positively on goodwork from the team.
Reward testers for finding good quality bugs. Keep some weekly or monthlycompetitions such as “Bug of the week” to reward the testers.
This will help to build a successful QA team.
Set finite boundaries to everything:
Your goals should have clear boundaries and completion criteria. Setting goals,those not having end can become a boring task. Don’t let feel the team thatthis testing work is going forever without any insight goal.
Take every bug as a learning opportunity:
Don’t bother testers about the bugs that slip through. Make these bugs as alearning opportunity. Let them know why they overlooked that bug. This way theywill learn from their mistakes and will not make the same mistake again at lestfor the same bug.
Don’t make testing a repetitive task:
Some times we get bored doing same thing again and again. Testers job involvewith repetitive task. So take care to distribute your work so that no testerwill execute same test case repetitively on any project. Randomize the testingwork in team, this way team will get knowledge of whole product, helping tofind more bugs.
Good solution to avoid repetitive work is to rotate the experienced employeesinternally in different projects.
Create good relation between testers and developers:
Testers need encouragement and support to find more and more bugs so that thefinal release is bug free. Build a good team of testers and developers. Treateveryone similarly.
Don’t forget to celebrate:
Celebrate each and every success moment. This will help to build good teamspirit. Host product release parties to recognize accomplishment.
Conclusion:
Show your appreciation to those employees who work hard. This is a key tosuccessful business. Show your employees that you are committed to fulfilltheir needs.
Over to you:
These are my personal thoughts to keep good employees (testers) in theirpositions. I am not a HR expert but I have mentioned here everything what Ifeels from employee perspective to stay on the job.
I want your views “What keeps you on the job?” You canshare your personal thoughts, your expectations from employers or any personalexperience in this matter.
If you are not yet the regular reader of this site, I recommend youto subscribe with us so that you won’t miss any single article on software testing.Click here to get new articlesin your inbox!

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