If I'll ever start a business I have some gold rules for it:
- what you're doing (the difficulty of a project) decides your partial salary, and not the time you're working on it
- if you take a lot of time working on something that should have taken less, you'll be controlled by your supervisor BUT he/she must be gentle and friendly, he/she should be able to understand your problem. If there is something that really could have taken so much time, the partial salary will be higher, otherwise, you'll get a strike
- after some strike you'll be "reviewed", we must understand if you're joking or you really want this work.
- there must be a lot of free time, we don't like stress
- your supervisor (as written before) must be gentle and friendly. If these qualities aren't met we must find a new supervisor (of course there will be a survey)
- you should come to work with a smile, if an activity is too much stressful you should report it, and take a pause (here comes the free time)
- I don't care if you have a degree, what you CAN do is what I'm searching for.

@CriticalFailure that's something I should have explained better, more on the next comment

@CriticalFailure the partial salary is "something more" than your regular salary, let's say your regular salary is 2700$ and your partial is 1200$ (random numbers, but the regular salary should always be higher than the partial)

There are no forced smiles, what I tried to say is that we should make the environment as stressful-less as possible.
Damn, you're not forced to smile!

Breaks are not forced too, if someone needs some time, there is some time, that's what I meant

The strike is only used when someone does nothing for a long time without a good reason. Is that too much?

@CriticalFailure my idea of "partial salary" doesn't get near to bonuses, not a bit.

@CriticalFailure no, it's part of the salary, which is different

@HAlex if it's varying, optional and largely opinion based, part opportunity based (should a person be paid less because even though they can do something harder they've been assigned an easy project?) it's either a bonus or a commission, and what you're talking about is not a commission.

@alwaysmpe ok, it looks like I have to rethink my ideas

@kashish-shah thank you for the kind comment, I'll definitely watch the video you mentioned!

@alwaysmpe just to point it out (I need to): the partial salary is not optional.

@HAlex I appreciate the good intentions but if there's a minimum amount that a person can get (nothing) then anything more is, by definition, optional.

But it's something you're passionate about so I feel obliged to try to offer some productive insight. Have you read "The 5 dysfunctions of a team"? It's a very insightful book that can be a bit more challenging to implement for those with limited seniority within the team. If you haven't I strongly recommend it.

One of the dysfunctions is ego. In particular if a person's actions are endeavoring to improve one's own position at the cost of the team than that's bad for the team.

While the approach you've outlined may improve individual motivation it's also likely to feed ego and self interested-ness. For example learning a new skill, say front end, may be good for the team as it means that if someone is ill in future or there's a high priority deadline there are more people that are able to work on that, however this is likely to be considered an "easy" task, by your terms.

Likewise, if you're perceived as taking too long to learn a new skill you may be discouraged from asking for help as it means you end up receiving more supervision when you don't feel it's beneficial.

Additionally the concept of "strikes" will actively reduce inclination for research oriented projects as they tend to be non-deterministic deadlines (I've done them, believe me they are). It also discourages doing things that "aren't your job". For example as part of my recent algorithm quality improvement work I spent a couple of weeks developing a speed evaluation tool. I could have done a one off evaluation of performance in a day however I know that the MD regularly does these so it will be beneficial in future.

While I'm aware you've said these things should be considered prior to strikes being applied this causes micro management and removes feelings of empowerment from colleagues. What if this was decided to not be worth it? should I have sought approval prior to starting? What if my time estimate was wrong, it wasn't any harder than I thought it just took longer than I thought. Should I be penalised because my estimate was wrong? Also estimates of time are generally bad. Read the book "noEstimates" for a justification. Given what we do it is hard to give accurate estimates of time. And yet you're advocating penalising a person's salary if they miss their estimate. That, my friend, will make people leave your company.

If you are interested, another book I'd recommend is "The Goal" by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, it's a fable about business management and people management.

@alwaysmpe that's right, Something to consider, definitely

And besides all of this I feel there is already a rather appropriate way in which people that are more able to tackle more challenging tasks are paid more. It's called experience. People with more of it tend to be paid more.

@alwaysmpe my intention was to fix a base salary and extend it with the partial salary, which in my idea isn't a bonus not an optional thing. The partial salary is calculated based on what you're working on.

But if you still think that this is optional, I should definitely reconsider the idea.

@HAlex the thing is this strikes me as stemming from an experience of "What I'm doing is hard, I should be paid more". But have you ever had the experience of "What I'm doing is easy, I should be paid less"? Because that's the kind of experience people working in that kind of environment would have. It also makes comparison between jobs harder, which is anti-employee. And as it's not a fixed income component, from the perspective of a bank, it's a bonus. And bonuses can't be used to help a person get something like a mortgage.

I suggest sticking to a policy of paying people a fixed salary based on their experience and market rates. If you want to pay a bonus on top of that then do, but being fair, consistent and transparent is very difficult. As an example the company I work for is employee owned, the short of which is that board minutes are visible to all and we receive an annual profit share. In previous years this has caused arguments, so basically the board now just pays everyone the same and the maximum that is tax free.

I'm trying to be fair, but as you guys are pointing me out, I'm not. Thanks for your suggestion, @atheist