The drawback of this approach is that it is easy to mismatch people. Some people consider themselves a senior, while our standards would rank them at mid-level. In many cases, levels are associated with salary, and the higher the level – the better the salary. The resulting discussion is not very positive. If you get to an agreement, either party might leave the discussion with a sour feeling, affecting the relationship until you depart.
The discussion resulted in a point that we have to approach the problem differently. The fact is that as an organization, you want to pay for the skills that you need. You might have a position for a marketer, which can’t be filled by someone with a financial background. While both are seniors, you don’t need an Excel master to define your communication plan – do you?
So we decided to drop the idea of levels and start to establish a list of skills around 4 axes: Technology, Team, Project, and Communication.
This approach has a number of advantages:
- Candidates are now weighted based on these 4 axes.
Some of our candidates are better at technology, while others are better at communication. Still, both can be valued equally - The staff understands how they can evolve and grow in the organization.
- Identifying gaps in the team is easier as the graph will show what skill is lacking
Some interesting blogs on this topic :
- https://www.degarmo.com/the-effectiveness-of-skill-based-pay-systems
- https://work.chron.com/jobbased-pay-vs-knowledgebased-pay-8232.html
If you agree with how we feel, join us! We’re looking for some new heroes to join the team.