I don't think you can nail down a specific solution to your anecdotal problem. I suspect if only a few engineers on the team actually enjoyed games and they were forced into a "gaming company" atmosphere they likely would have started putting in resumes after feeling like they were part of a "bait and switch". You hired them to do one thing, and now it has become something else. There are other factors around the gaming industry that might cause them to jump ship (it's well known amongst engineers that gaming companies are typically high turnover and low chance for long term success). Those engineers wanted to work on embedded systems and firmware, and have no desire to learn about gaming, so forcing them into it might backfire as "just more bullshit from the manager".
I think forcing engineers to do customer support is a bad idea as well. You're using something that should be seen in a positive light (helping the customer) as a punishment.
In both of these cases it seems like the solutions to things are to try to excite engineers about doing things they were not hired to do. Hire customer relations people to fight with the engineer FOR the customer. Bring in consultants to help plan what and how the gaming console should be done, and let the engineers code it. But of course there are no real "rights" or "wrongs" in any of this. It's all opinion of whatever the real boss (the manager of managers) can be convinced to do.
Your first paragraph is full of really bad assumptions about the situation.
> I think forcing engineers to do customer support is a bad idea as well. You're using something that should be seen in a positive light (helping the customer) as a punishment.
Not necessarily. Sure some engineers dont want to do customer service at all and would view it as a punishment, but then they shouldnt work there. Creating a good culture doesnt mean making everyone happy. Creating a good culture means finding the people that will thrive in that particular culture and only those people. In the customer service case, that means finding people who enjoy it or at least don't mind. And if someone hates it, then they should leave. It is not good for the person or the company for them to stay just for the money or benefits.
> It is not good for the person or the company for them to stay just for the money or benefits.
That's a bit short sighted. It might be perfectly good for the company to keep people with skills XYZ employed. Not everyone is going to do customer support. I'll be pretty sure even where some CEOs do actual 'customer support' (in whatever capacity) the janitors and CFOs and in-house legal counsel aren't also manning the email support desks.
So then we're left with "well... some people should be doing customer service along with all their other duties". It's an arbitrary line.
I do agree that having most staff do some support work in many companies (or, at very least, shadow support staff for a week or so) can have a lot of benefits - you see things from different perspectives, you get to know what the real problems are, how people are using your product and how people view your company, etc.
> Not everyone is going to do customer support. I'll be pretty sure even where some CEOs do actual 'customer support' (in whatever capacity) the janitors and CFOs and in-house legal counsel aren't also manning the email support desks.
I think forcing engineers to do customer support is a bad idea as well. You're using something that should be seen in a positive light (helping the customer) as a punishment.
In both of these cases it seems like the solutions to things are to try to excite engineers about doing things they were not hired to do. Hire customer relations people to fight with the engineer FOR the customer. Bring in consultants to help plan what and how the gaming console should be done, and let the engineers code it. But of course there are no real "rights" or "wrongs" in any of this. It's all opinion of whatever the real boss (the manager of managers) can be convinced to do.