Hello Friends,
 
I represent a software company where in we are keen to start a practice of  bonus for people working on Maintenance  Based project. Any one of you ,if you have such practice going in your  organization, I would be glad if you could share the policy document  pertaining to this incentive scheme as it will help us draft a policy  document to that effect. 
 
Hope to seeing positive response from fellow colleagues.

Regards

Vishal Bachani

First, please be specific about what you expect from the Maintenance Employees- i.e. how to quantify the maintenance performance.

Usually the uptime (availability) of a machine or p.c. or a system is one of the measures. Though the failures are random in nature, we need the system to be up and operational when we need it.

You can maintain Health Records (Maintenance Records) for each P.C. and try to find out the "mean time it was available" in the previous year or quarter. Please check, Whether this mean available time has gone up in the present quarter. Based on the percentage it goes up, you arrive at an incentive (call it bonus or incentive points or whatever).

Another measure is to determine cost of maintenance due to failures and whether there is any reduction in that cost. Such cost reductions can be suitably rewarded.

Another possible method is find out the Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of the P.Cs and measure the performance of Maintenance crews, by checking how much is the increase in MTBF compared to the previous time period.

The incentive system for maintenance people in s/w firms is not yet well established, as such functions are outsourced.

Dear Sumitha,

When I say Maintenance Project,. What we mean in Software Industry is some projects which have been implemented , get into a mode where there is not much work but some enhancements or queries coming the client on some problems they face using the installed package or application.

Generally such projects run for a year or two depending on the terms agreed for maintenance post implementation. Now it is difficult in such projects to retain people as there is not much new work but maintaining the work done. So to ensure retention and interest & motivation going, we are planning to introduce this bonus scheme.

IN software industry it is known subject , therefore if any of our Hr friends have such projects running I am sure they might have such scheme running , of which I wanted the policy document. The document would help us to draft the policy document better as we have done the workings of payments For the scheme.

Hope I have cleared the doubts..

Regards

Vishal Bachani