A CEO is asked how many people work for him and he says, “About half…”

Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth in that statement.

If you find that joke funny, you don’t manage people—yet. The problem for any manager, of course, is to figure out which half is doing the work. The answer to this question is not always as clear as one might think, especially when considering the many layers of management an organization might sustain. What if a company, with an employee’s active engagement, was able to determine, based largely on a single metric, that a certain hire would likely be more successful than another person?

Employees, on the other hand, are rightfully seeking the highest possible rate of pay for their skills. What if an employee knew going in that she would be paid at the top of the pay scale? This is about much more than equal pay for equal work. This is about proper pay for the best performance.

My new book, Leveling the Paying Field, explains how all this can be achieved.

LTPF is about workers taking responsibility for their own pay and well-being and employers embracing a new kind of compensation model based on their employees presenting their value to the organization in a defensible manner. It is about employees performing like they have some skin in the game—because they do.

To be clear, Leveling the Paying Field also exposes the slack performer. The system points out those who aren’t pulling their own weight. LTPF separates the doers from the noisemakers—and makes our CEO happy to know which half is actually getting the work done.

Photo by Jaime Lopes on Unsplash