Hi Greg,
Thanks for this thought provoking summary.
Agreed this is a challenge and risks leading to unsatisfactory and unfair reward outcomes - especially for Bronze Owls (who the TC has less visibility of).
Would there be opportunity to define a process which ties all contribution rewards to a specific Working Group/s?
This would provide the following advantages:
- Clarity and reporting on wage budget by working Group (making WGs more like business cost centers in this regard)
- All Working Group leads determine compensation for individuals who tag contribution activity to their WG. This would encourage greater transparency and fairness in rewards.
- Begs the question, if activity is not tagged to any working group is it value add? If so, why does it not fit within an existing working group activity?
This is somewhat similar to the approach taken currently in the CDWG. However, if were to adopt this model I will like to see a few areas further refined - especially around the compensation for individuals working across WGs.
The current process kicks up some strange results, for example:
- Multiple separate payments at different times (i.e. CDWG rewards sent, and then an additional rewards is provided by the TC).
- There seems a natural tendency for higher contribution rewards to be granted to individuals doing activity spanning multiple WGs. In May for example, 4/7 of the CDWG were paid more than any other silver owls in the Coop.
- Maybe there is some balancing the TC can do to ensure rewards for cross-WG contributors are more equitable? This may impact the degree decentralization offered by our WGs though.
I echo @helmass’s view. I am strongly in favor of the contributor rewards being determined by WGs. However, I believe payments should still be processed centrally. It is typically very inefficient for organisation pay their staff on a departments by department level.
This question reminds me of a very common bit of org design work I used to do which was setting up a shared services model. Fundamentally, we would go in and consolidate multiple back office functions who were doing the same job across the organization (i.e. payroll).
I would be interested to know your reflections on whether broad remits, scopes and KPIs for WGs are beneficial for the Coop?
Virtually all possible activity individuals could undertake within the Coop falls under the remit of one of our existing Working Groups. This means it is unlikely that many more new WGs will form given that the majority of new initiatives will fall under the scope of our existing WG a structure.
I enjoyed reading @BigSky7’s BD WG proposal and liked the proposal of a fixed INDEX denominated reward for core BD contributors .
However, as @Matthew_Graham pointed out, this risks not protecting people from the downside (if they have bills to pay). Moreover, with volatile price action, different WG contributors could ended up being rewarded very different compensation simply due to the payment structure in place within their respective WG (INDEX denominated vs USD denominated).
I would like to see a standard process in place for all core WG contributors where they can choose whether their fixed monthly reward should be denominated in INDEX of USD. This would strike the right balance of fairness and flexibility, offering upside for those who want it, or security for those who prefer a more “predictable” monthly wage. This was partially explored in @dylan contribution options post.
@jdcook upmost respect for this approach. Your transparency and diligence is inspiring as someone who hopes to set up a Community, Organization and People WG in the not too distant future.