[luiscleto]

> employees themselves has to be responsible for their output in such a way that higher output leads to more money for them

But what metric would you use to measure output that solves the gamification problem?

Even for contractors or sales people (where you could use the sales volume), this could lead them to favor short term results and compromise the long-term health of the company (e.g. by favoring quick, low-quality solutions by contractors, or selling features that don't yet exist and creating unsustainable roadmaps by sales people).

[jsty]

You could reward them in the same way that executives are increasingly remunerated for their performance-based pay - in shares or other financial instruments with an enforced holding period that are linked to the health of the business / business unit as appropriate.

[luiscleto]

While that's an interesting approach for compensation which might mitigate knowingly bad/irresponsible decisions, it doesn't look like it would address the core issue here of having to choose a metric to base compensation on.

Maybe the gaming effect would be lessened by that compensation approach, but at a very large scale org, I doubt that it would. Although, it would be interesting to see real life studies of this, in case such practices have already been tried out.

[heavenlyblue]

Does exec give a damn if they earn 5 or 10 million?

It’s only true if you believe that the average human being is not opportunistic.

[hopler]

If they don't, why are managers choosing to pay them $10m?

[bluGill]

Yes. Pay is partially a means of keeping score.