In the changing world of work, the way of negotiating salaries is also changing.
(Photo: action press)
Dusseldorf Anyone who is serious about New Work quickly realizes that the usual remuneration models with their management allowances and lone fighter bonuses on an annual basis no longer really fit. After all, to whom exactly can the success be attributed, for example when a cross-departmental team solves a business problem or develops a new product in an agile manner? And who knows whether, in a dynamic market environment, the goals set may not be a thing of the past after a few weeks or months?
In addition, under the premise that “responsible employees always do what is necessary to fulfill the company’s purpose out of their own conviction, the role of an individual changes frequently,” says Jennifer Rolle. A developer, later a product designer, then a team coach: “Adjusting salaries every time in a setting like this – that’s not practical,” says the HR Pioneers expert, who advises employers on agile organizational issues.
And so it is not surprising that remuneration expert Dirk Sliwka from the University of Cologne has observed that the number of companies with individual bonus payments is decreasing. The number of companies, on the other hand, is increasing that are experimenting with new salary ideas.
Whether a standard wage or everyone determines their own salary – in times of a shortage of skilled workers, start-ups and medium-sized companies in particular think about how to fairly reward the talents of the new world of work. However, corporations such as Metro or Deutsche Bahn are also discussing “New Pay” models for individual areas that are already organized in an agile manner.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Stephan Fischer, Professor of Personnel Management at Pforzheim University, says that these discussions revolve primarily around questions of justice when the proportion of work and performance can no longer be measured because projects and products are in the “permanent beta state”. The main question has recently been: “Is it fair how it is distributed?” And no longer: “Is it fair how much I earn?”
The example of Bosch shows potential for conflict
This requires transparency. This was the result of a survey by the career network Xing among 170,000 employees before the outbreak of the corona crisis: According to this, eight out of ten employees in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are demanding more salary transparency in their companies. A good 70 percent could even imagine setting their own wages themselves. And every second would like to have a say in the remuneration of direct colleagues and superiors.
But this is exactly where one of the greatest difficulties lies, as the example of the electronics company Bosch shows: An 18-person group from human resources switched to self-administration. Without the official team leader that is otherwise usual at Bosch, the group was supposed to develop innovative remuneration extras for employees – such as the leasing of company bicycles. But self-administration led to conflicts, observed Uwe Schirmer, Bosch department head for personnel policy issues.
Especially when the group was about to set their own pay increases, it got hooked. Schirmer: “We assumed that the team members can best judge among each other how the performance of each one of them is doing and can agree on a fair distribution.”
More on the subject:
A fallacy. Conclusion after a two-year test: “Colleagues find it difficult to assess each other in the group,” says Schirmer. Regardless of whether or not they are former managers who are now considered regular team members again. “Many colleagues didn’t get along well with this,” observed Schirmer.
Bosch is now thinking about how to do it better in the future. For example, a single team member could judge everyone else’s performance.
Schirmer is skeptical of the idea of a fixed salary for everyone. The manager suspects that this could work in homogeneous start-ups. “But a large corporation needs a more differentiated salary determination, based on the assigned task and performance.”
Uniform salaries would also be expensive for corporations – because in case of doubt, one would have to orientate oneself to the previous upper end of the salary range for a role. “If you don’t do that and orientate yourself towards the average, you would have to cut team members’ salaries,” says Schirmer. This is a problem in terms of labor law and personnel policy. Nevertheless, the Bosch manager is convinced: “There is no getting around new compensation ideas.”