Employee mindset and all you desire and deserve!

Reward is what anyone looks for, for a job done well! What if we are all move to incentive compensation model for salaries and the ratio of fixed to variable (performance linked) hinges heavily on the variable side? 

It will be a nightmare, chaos, as this would mean, everyone is measured and paid for performance. Performance and results evaluated closely/objectively and may be brutally honestly, against set goals.  

But you know you cannot do this now. Why? Because an employee will not come for a high variable structure as you propose. An employee is not a commission agent. He deserves consistent and guaranteed income. Everyone looks for a fixed pay guaranteed and therefore they prefer to work for a company which can pay them well irrespective of whether they are profitable or not. Nothing wrong as employee mind-set will be different from owner mindset. And if owner has to see business through thick and thin and only he should take risks and invest based on business prudence and face unpredictable situations and lose sleep, why should he give all freedom to employees? Why would he create a welfare organization? Why should he invite participative decision making? Why should he allow others to take decisions? 

Accept the fact and when you work for someone else, simply follow instructions and do not question decisions as they are not your territory and you are not hired to worry about owner's decisions. 

That also means a distinctive divide between builders of business and supporters of business. 

Suppose you are in marketing, branding, HR or finance or even in R&D and your job has been outsourced, do you think employer will have a vendor favorable terms with the outsourcing company? Will it care about their happiness, job satisfaction, motivation and learning into the process of meeting services expectations? Not at all. And that means that hiring is the trickiest decision that an owner makes. Compare a physical human with emotions, aspirations, strengths and weaknesses, etc versus SLA and TAT signed with a services organization, you would see what matters is meeting SLA and TAT and employer is free from all those intangible drama! 

To much People-thinking can be at times become the biggest bottleneck in company's growth and in way of meeting goals that are so critical for business.  

It is not unheard "you are paid to do what you have been asked to do", "I will ask you for your ideas and suggestions or complains if I need any of them." This is so true! Some companies just do it with or without saying and we all have faced it.

But many a times, you bet on people and people give you that edge over services model and you run on their unique skills, insights and make huge margins and keep winning new clients. 

It is all cyclical and mind-set changes with each cycle and that is how business prioritizes and changes its focus and attention.

Employees, who read that change well, make good adjustments and do good with the system.

Organizations may not do a good job of communicating their strategy to people and therefore disillusionment takes place and people find positions value less, but that is all temporary and people have to make balances as they do on a roller coaster. 
As is said, you learn more on a roller coaster, it is all about reading trends and getting ready for adjustments, sometimes with accelerated growth and sometimes with being driven to become 'no one' for some time. 
Attention of companies changes, attitude changes, focus on people changes, people under limelight change, some look like going out of attention map, but all that happens temporarily. Worst case, a few get hit by layoffs but most likely I have seen people survive the test of time and they remain there for ages, passing though moments of glory to obscurity!

If you are not having your own engine, you just piggyback. Don't whine as you won't do anything that you may do if you dare to take that risk, but remember, risk-taking is owner's job not yours and you need a fixed regular income. Have fun!