<aside> <img src="/icons/info-alternate_blue.svg" alt="/icons/info-alternate_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Outlandish was established in 2011 and became a co-op in 2016. They have eight members, very little hierarchy, high transparency and openness on finances, which can make pay - and valuations of worth - tricky conversation topics.
By lifting principles from sociocracy and applying them to pay, Outlandish are able to quickly and frequently hold frank, sophisticated conversations about pay and money. They currently operate a 1:5 ratio (approx.) between the lowest and highest rates of pay.
We spoke with Abigail Handley about the pay journey at Outlandish, this case study is compiled from that conversation and includes excerpts from it.
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A live case study of Outlandish approach towards distributing pay in teams
As they grew Outlandish struggled to have honest conversations about what people really wanted to be paid and what they thought they were individually worth.
They started setting pay using proposals and consent, but this required individuals to be brave and propose their own pay rises, which biased towards more confident individuals.
Outlandish introduced the requirement of a sponsor to support your proposal, but again this biased towards confident individuals.
These awkward social processes often prevented anybody from talking about pay; nobody got a pay rise.
With scoring systems in various fields, which would give an individual a sense of their pay band, worked well in theory but was ultimately too open to interpretation. A junior team member hugely overvalued themselves, which was exposing, and complicated.
Outlandish were using sociocracy for other decisions, and the team understood it’s principles, so continued applying it to pay and found its structure helpful.
Outlandish have used sociocracy (circles and consent-based decision making) as their governance structure for 7 years.
“Consent based decision making is a way of making decisions that requires people to not have a problem with the change, rather than them having to agree with it... it might not be the best solution or the one that they most want. but there's not a reason to stop it. The philosophy is that some change towards your goal is better than arguing forever to try and get the right sort of solution, when there probably isn't one. It grows trust and understanding as a group because you have to bring in what you're most concerned about.”
Collectively, the group looks at Outlandish’s performance, and from that calculate a surplus, and determine the size of the pot from which they can each be paid. The surplus is spent subsidising additional work that Outlandish want to support or take on.