As we think about transitioning pay from the dominant system designed for the contexts of the 19th and 20th centuries, we are invited to make visible these assumptions, narratives and rules and to draw them into versions appropriate for the context of 21st century.

<aside> <img src="/icons/light-bulb_yellow.svg" alt="/icons/light-bulb_yellow.svg" width="40px" /> It asks us to think about the very macro assumptions that we might need to embed into our work, for example:

</aside>

<aside> <img src="/icons/light-bulb_yellow.svg" alt="/icons/light-bulb_yellow.svg" width="40px" /> It asks to to make visible the narratives that we wield to shape how we do that work, such as:

</aside>

<aside> <img src="/icons/light-bulb_yellow.svg" alt="/icons/light-bulb_yellow.svg" width="40px" /> And it invites us to explore how we organise for that work, including at the macro level, for example:

</aside>

In the alternatives suggested, pay might play a function to unleash the unique creativity of every human in symbiosis with the living world, to create the conditions to thrive. People might not be ‘managed’ but perhaps unleashed, and supported with security and care, with functions to enable their shared learning and mutual accountability.

Pay might support a platform to free people to choose their commitments of time and care; a means of security through times of difficulty, and to provide the facilities for them to unlock their full agency. Pay might provide a function for longitudinal equity.

Creating ‘public good’ and the role of mutual care could not be a bounded responsibility of the public sector, not-for-profit organisations and voluntary care work at home but, perhaps, the purpose of work. Reward might be linked to the furthering of this purpose, where measurement of value might be linked to our journey, say, into the doughnut, the “safe and just space for humanity”.

What are some of the narratives that you see as being critical to the future of how we structure pay?

Without a wider shift in societal assumptions and narratives around value and how we align economic value to that (and the organising principles, structures and mechanisms that are built upon those assumptions) - we have, at a micro level, within our groups, organisations, and settings, somewhat limited movement in how we transition pay or indeed many of our structures and mechanisms. Nonetheless, pay is an arena within our realm of agency and possibility where we can reevaluate and change what we consider valuable and how we fund it. Many people are already doing just that.

← Back to Reimagining Pay portal