This is all good. But AIM is still a very young organisation. The experience of 99% of successful businesses throughout history is that performance-based salary increases are one of the best long-term motivational tools.
It’s not all, or mostly, about the money! Pay-rises are seen as the one tangible, non-bullshit validation that you are growing your impact over time.
People who put more in get more out, and everyone finds that fair.
I wonder if your model is sustainable for long-term employees. Yes it’s very liberating, but it also means you have to self-motivate every day, even on days where you’re not feeling altruistic … It may work for some people, maybe for young, highly idealistic people without kids. If you are human, there are days when you feel less motivated, where you need a little push.
This is especially true in non-glamorous roles where there is no tangible number you can point at as a measure of what you’ve achieved.
And in most companies, part of the push thst motivates people comes from the annual performance and pay review. It’s a game, you want to score more. You want to win. Countless research shows that “gamification” increases effort and performance, causing people to achieve more than they thought possible.
It is also a quite clear way for people to judge what is reasonable commitment to their work. Is it right to skip football practice to complete an urgent project on time? It it right to re-schedule a family vacation to travel to a project site? (stupid examples)
You are deliberately de-gamifying performance, at least in terms of salary. It is an ambitious objective. I really hope it works, but a part of me wonders if this won’t lead to some more ambitious (and that’s in your name) employees moving on after a few years—I hope I’m wrong.
An alternative might be to give performance-related raises but with the option to forego them, or to take only a % of your salary in a given year, based on need.
This is all good. But AIM is still a very young organisation. The experience of 99% of successful businesses throughout history is that performance-based salary increases are one of the best long-term motivational tools.
It’s not all, or mostly, about the money! Pay-rises are seen as the one tangible, non-bullshit validation that you are growing your impact over time.
People who put more in get more out, and everyone finds that fair.
I wonder if your model is sustainable for long-term employees. Yes it’s very liberating, but it also means you have to self-motivate every day, even on days where you’re not feeling altruistic … It may work for some people, maybe for young, highly idealistic people without kids. If you are human, there are days when you feel less motivated, where you need a little push.
This is especially true in non-glamorous roles where there is no tangible number you can point at as a measure of what you’ve achieved.
And in most companies, part of the push thst motivates people comes from the annual performance and pay review. It’s a game, you want to score more. You want to win. Countless research shows that “gamification” increases effort and performance, causing people to achieve more than they thought possible.
It is also a quite clear way for people to judge what is reasonable commitment to their work. Is it right to skip football practice to complete an urgent project on time? It it right to re-schedule a family vacation to travel to a project site? (stupid examples)
You are deliberately de-gamifying performance, at least in terms of salary. It is an ambitious objective. I really hope it works, but a part of me wonders if this won’t lead to some more ambitious (and that’s in your name) employees moving on after a few years—I hope I’m wrong.
An alternative might be to give performance-related raises but with the option to forego them, or to take only a % of your salary in a given year, based on need.