In spring 2021, we did desk-based research and spoke to various groups/organisations. Most of whom were fairly small (up to 60 people), but they actively identified as working outside/trying to change the status quo and evolving their pay structures. We came across various other groups of a larger scale exploring some earlier shifts towards pay, such as teams within larger orgs getting better at discussing salaries more transparently, developing fluency in relational skills, and setting precedents for their wider organisations.
We noted that, in larger groups, pay innovation is more likely to be a change that follows a longer process of change (once preconditions are established). Therefore, we have focused this research more on smaller groups and their learnings from more radical experiments.
Among the people we spoke to, the changes in pay reflected the wider changes that were taking place in the group, its people and the culture. For those ‘successfully’ rethinking pay, it was part of a transformation of the collective culture already underway.
We started to see factors that intersect with pay which we have roughly mapped out in the image below. You can interact with the map on Kumu.
"I think because there's such a strong alignment of people within your organisation to do the work that we collectively want to do, that it's not so much a reward for doing that work. It's like what we're paying people to give them the capacity to do that." - Andy Reeve, Civic Square
<aside> <img src="/icons/pencil_blue.svg" alt="/icons/pencil_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Simone Cicero’s blog makes reference to adopting a ‘pilot-to-scale’ approach in larger settings, embedding two partially and temporarily co-existing structures to exist while the new approach is being tested, which is another approach to this in larger groups.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/pencil_blue.svg" alt="/icons/pencil_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Spill’s experiment with flat pay gives us an idea of what might come up if we look to change pay without transforming some of the linked factors to it
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A map diagram showing factors that intersect with pay.
Pay intersects across multiple layers at a personal, social and group level., how much pay can be a tool for transformation heavily depends on the factors that it links to, such as how deeply the people in the group are questioning and considering their personal desires and financial situations; how willing the group is to consider what genuine fairness might look like, and to discuss stories and agency in a caring way; and how the situated societal lock-ins play a part in preventing some of the opportunities for change.
Considering alternative pay systems might mean:
Questions that might be raised may include:
“Challenge of recognition in the system, a pathological problem in social enterprise, when you take money off the table, social recognition can very easily become the incentive, ego becomes the thing that drives the system.” - Indy Johar, Dark Matter Labs
https://airtable.com/shrXoO8QgFPwukZbs
It is important to note here that compensation usually goes beyond the basic monetary pay and these can themselves go a long way in identifying needs and discourses around compensation within the group. These might include areas such as:
Different kinds of work suit or require different ways of organising. What kind of work is being done within a setting places specific needs and demands on people and structures, so there is no singular blueprint or right approach to a pay structure, only divergent and plural ways of approaching it unique to the context.
The work of Cognitive Edge and their Cynefin framework provides some guidance on acting in complex systems, where there is not best practice but exaptive/emergent practice that is developed by probing the systems, sensing the impact and responding to that.
“You have to live the journey to gain a contextually appropriate solution.” - Dave Snowden
We have come across various ways that groups have started to reimagine and restructure pay in their settings.
Some case studies focused on creating formulas based on needs, some on the value/ performance, some with hybrid approaches, and others with flattening. The specifics of the actual pay structure are contextual and can be less important than the process and the considerations that have gone into them.
So here we explore some of the sites of experimentation and probing from the group level that led to those specifics (these are of course only some types of intervention that we came across, we welcome your additions and suggestions of others that are included here). Pulling these strings unravels others along the way and can activate a process of transformation, whatever the end result of pay might be.
A map diagram showing factors that intersect with pay, highlighting probes acting on key leverage points.
The probes are shown in this map in orange (interactive map on Kumu), somewhat like ‘trojan horses’ into the existing system that make new things possible (noting that these probes are at the group level, and what is possible is also influenced by the personal and societal conditions).
While innovating pay we need to remember that money and pay have a breadth of social and cultural connotations for different people, which influences each individual’s relationship to pay. It is a deeply emotional topic that can be associated with trauma. As people we need to be heard and understood when talking about pay.
Pay also influences relationships to our colleagues, and their roles and responsibilities and sits within a wider context of relational dynamics.
Groups can facilitate situations which support each other to share, listen and hold differences; creating safe space to explore some of the dynamics and contexts that might be in place, including assumptions and narratives held. The optional and equal nature of this is important, where it’s agreed that no one can morally police life choices (and the baggage and contexts that come with them) and that it isn’t obligatory or requested for people to share their experiences.
Some groups use conversations around pay as vehicles for clear, considered communication, which unlock conversations about care and responsibility and a better understanding of each others’ drivers and needs.
Ongoing discourses shape the meanings people attach to their experiences in the world. Shifting how we make sense of pay through reflection on the discourses we take for granted can help unlock fresh thinking across a group around what pay means to people and where it might make sense to probe an alternative together.
<aside> <img src="/icons/search_gray.svg" alt="/icons/search_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Example
Transition Town Network has spent time working on their Relationship Agreements with each other about how they want to interact together. As part of discovering their approach to pay, they held a workshop about people’s relationships with money in the team, not as a decision-making process, but to help surface the difference that was in the team. It invited people to speak from three perspectives, their personal perspective, the group, and the organisation. Peter LeFort described how the workshop highlighted that “the way they see and experience money might be completely different to someone else in the team above and beyond certain things that might be obvious or assumed, or kind of explicit, and I think that helped that process a lot in terms of how to navigate the difference in in people's initial suggestions of where we should go with this.”
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For Saran McAdam, it settled the idea that “we're going to probably have to go for something simpler here, because actually the complexity of the difference is certainly feeling beyond me to try and design an algorithm to respond to it.”
The conversations led the team towards agreement on a pay structure, in this case flat.
In summer 2020 when Dark Matter Labs explored pay options across the team, people were asked (anonymously) what pay meant to them, and some of the answers provide an interesting insight into the varying ways that pay holds meaning: