[agentultra]

Responsibility is key for me. I'm motivated when I can make a decision and the team is relying on me to follow through on my word. It's a matter of professional pride.

Give them ownership over their work. Give them responsibility and accountability. Give specialists control over key components and more generalized people doing design, issue management, and supporting the specialists. I find that I perform better when I feel like my reputation is on the line.

On the contrary, I've been on projects where the responsibility and decisions were made by the managers. Any criticism, idea, or suggestion I had to contribute didn't really matter. We eventually did finish these projects through, but not without a lot of resentment. In these types of situations its easy (and justified) for employees to blame management when things start to go wrong. They had no say and therefore have no reason to feel accountable. If you're a manager and you start firing people in this situation, the rest will just end up quitting. Those who stay will have nothing good to say and are probably only there because they have dependants. So good luck with that route.

Telecommuting generally isn't the issue. It's only an issue for people inexperienced at it: they don't realize that the wife may ask you to do chores in the middle of the day or that their pets will continually break their attention. Experienced people know to keep a separate room as their office and let the people they live with know that they're not to be bothered during working hours and especially when the door is closed.

So obviously I recommend shifting the balance of ownership and accountability to the team. If there are still people who continually fall through on their promises or whose decisions continually fall short of their expectations, then you know who to talk to and possibly fire; and so does the team -- so if the axe does fall, everyone knows why. This will go a long way to protecting morale.