{"id":1426,"date":"2008-02-19T15:48:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-19T21:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/compensation-in-a-task-based-economy\/"},"modified":"2008-02-27T17:33:11","modified_gmt":"2008-02-27T23:33:11","slug":"compensation-in-a-task-based-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/compensation-in-a-task-based-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Compensation In A Task-Based Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now this is a provocative article from BusinessWeek.com titled <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/managing\/content\/feb2008\/ca2008027_674655.htm?campaign_id=rss_null\">Defining A Job<\/a>.\u00a0 The article is quite thorough in it&#8217;s reasoning and well worth the read.\u00a0 But let&#8217;s start with this explanation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In a nutshell: how do you define a job? For most organizations today, it&#8217;s based on the unit of time\u201440 hours week, for example\u2014but I believe that definition is rapidly reaching the end of its useful life. Going forward, many jobs in our economy will be better defined by and compensated according to the task performed, regardless of the time spent achieving the desired outcome.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, the switch from time to task takes us back to the way most workers were compensated for centuries. In both agricultural and craft-based economies, rewards were directly related to output created: the amount of farm produce, the number and quality of pottery pieces, and so on. Even in the early days of the industrial revolution, workers were paid by individual piece rates, in most cases with no guaranteed base pay. As late as 1920, 80% of all workers in the U.S. were paid on a piecemeal basis or in some other way that linked pay directly to the quantity of results produced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This approach is no revelation to those of us from the sales world.\u00a0 The purest form of selling is straight commission.\u00a0 As we say, &#8220;you eat what you kill.&#8221;\u00a0 The thought of switching to a performance-based compensation structure makes complete sense to me due to my sales focus.\u00a0 But here is a well-worded explanation from a macro perspective:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The majority of workers of the western world are now employed in service industries\u2014and already more than half of those are knowledge workers, paid for writing, analyzing, advising, counting, designing, researching\u2014and countless related functions, including capturing, organizing, and providing access to knowledge used by others. Time-based jobs make little sense for these workers. Who&#8217;s to say how long it will take an individual to write a report, conduct an analysis, or produce a piece of software? Why not specify the outcomes that each individual is responsible for producing, and let each knowledge worker determine how much time is required to do the job well? Task-based makes sense in a knowledge economy.<\/p>\n<p>And the reality is, many corporations are there already\u2014but just haven&#8217;t acknowledged it. The move to telecommuting is essentially trusting that the task will be accomplished, although in most cases the job is still stated in terms of an expectation to work a specified number of hours from home. As virtual work continues to spread, the logic of confronting this slight of hand, of making the stated expectation fit the operational reality, grows.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Brilliant.\u00a0 I couldn&#8217;t agree more with the author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now this is a provocative article from BusinessWeek.com titled Defining A Job.\u00a0 The article is quite thorough in it&#8217;s reasoning and well worth the read.\u00a0 But let&#8217;s start with this explanation: In a nutshell: how do you define a job? For most organizations today, it&#8217;s based on the unit of time\u201440 hours week, for example\u2014but I believe that definition is rapidly reaching the end of its useful life. Going forward, many jobs in our economy will be better defined by and compensated according to the task performed, regardless of the time spent achieving the desired outcome. Ironically, the switch from time to task takes us back to the way most&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/compensation-in-a-task-based-economy\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,2,5],"tags":[1764,327,121,328],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compensation","category-hiring","category-trends","tag-compensation","tag-employee-compensation","tag-sales-compensation","tag-task-based-economy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-n0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":711,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/communicating-your-sales-strategy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1426,"position":0},"title":"Communicating Your Sales Strategy","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From Managesmarter.com's Crystal Clear Communication: To hear Scott Glatstein tell it, as much as three quarters of American companies \"do not broadly communicate their sales strategy\" to their sales teams. The result, not surprisingly, is a breakdown in the sales process. Aligning the sales compensation plan with the desired business\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1135,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/08\/raises-for-results\/","url_meta":{"origin":1426,"position":1},"title":"Raises For Results","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This CareerJournal.com article can only be categorized as good news - More Employers Are Basing Raises, Bonuses on Results.\u00a0 Of course, none of this is surprising for salespeople since the vast majority are compensated based on their successful selling.\u00a0 For other positions, this may be a bit of a surprise:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2516,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2012\/08\/overpaid-jobs\/","url_meta":{"origin":1426,"position":2},"title":"Overpaid Jobs?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I grow tired of these comparison articles that look at pay for positions based on the median.\u00a0 It is almost impossible to compare roles across companies, markets, industries, etc.\u00a0 However, there is always one position within a company that takes the main blow\u2026CEO.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been fortunate to work with quite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1676,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/compensation-consternation\/","url_meta":{"origin":1426,"position":3},"title":"Compensation Consternation","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I know, lame title, but I couldn't resist. ManageSmarter.com offers up this article - Compensation Complexity Hinders Sales - regarding current compensation plans.\u00a0 Here are some numbers they quote within the article (my editing): Only 41% of sales leaders were satisfied with their current compensation plans (down from 59% two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2204,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/12\/good-for-nothing-compensation\/","url_meta":{"origin":1426,"position":4},"title":"Good For Nothing Compensation","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Great article from Yahoo Finance.\u00a0 I think I have worked with some salespeople in the past who had this same compensation program: Anthony Armatys is facing up to six years in prison for his dumb move. But he's not the only dummy in this story. Armatys accepted a job in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Anecdotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Anecdotes","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/anecdotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":414,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/11\/full-employment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1426,"position":5},"title":"Full Employment","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, the latest unemployment numbers are in and they indicate that, as a nation, we are basically at full employment. The new unemployement number is 4.4% - a drop of .2% from last month and a 5-year low. Sourcing is going to be even more of an issue for companies.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Compensation&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Compensation","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/compensation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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