I've had a chapter on reward included in MuseumEtc's book, 'For Love or Money': Re-engineering the Way Museums Work. However, I would hope the content will be relevant for people working in other sectors too.
For
many museums this type of re-engineering may mean a need for less core
employees, but with these and other staff being higher paid, as well as for
looking at new opportunities in broader reward and recognition.
As
shown in figure 4, Barker Langham expects to see:
• The core workforce receiving most of their
pay through a high base salary with progression being based on time served and
the acquisition of skills to compensate this group for their ongoing commitment
and involvement in a broad range of discretionary activities. They may also receive
some variable reward linked to overall organisational performance to support their
collaboration with other staff in projects, communities and networks but this
is likely to be quite limited as incentive pay is not generally a key motivator
in the museum sector.
• Peripheral staff receiving a lower base than
core employees with pay progression based upon their overall contribution in
their jobs and on projects, with, where it makes sense, additional variable
payments based on the performance of their departments or the whole
organisation.
• Contract staff being paid mainly on a project
basis, either for their time if an employee, or for their outputs if a
contractor, with pay in either approach reflecting the value of their
accumulated experience and expertise. These staff may also be given additional
retainers to keep them linked with the museum between projects.
• Contingent staff paid mainly for completing
tasks and projects as well as maybe some payments for ideas and innovations and
other impacts. These staff may not be paid that much by any one museum, but
have the potential to generate high levels of revenue from across their broader
portfolio of work.
Museums
also need to ensure these different reward approaches are seen as fair by each
of the different groups. This will be aided by greater pay transparency,
enabling each group to understand the different reward approaches used for each
group, if not the actual pay structures used within them.
To
support collaboration across the workforce we expect to see reducing pay
differentials within museums so that on an overall balance sheet based
perspective, there is both a reasonable pay ratio between the most valuable
core employee, and perhaps the lowest paid contingent worker (on a pro rata
basis), and that this ratio is also perceived as fair within each of these
different categories. This will also respond to increasing shareholder and public
concern about executive pay and increasing pressure on both minimum wages and the
immigration of cheap labour in some geographies, including the US and UK.
However,
as identified earlier on, pay is not the only motivator in any organisation and
museum staff in particular are motivated by a range of other factors. We
therefore expect to see more use of benefits and other personalised support, helping
to meet the varied needs of a more diverse workforce, together with increased
use of recognition and maybe other approaches like gamification to maintain
levels of engagement, for at least as long as levels of pay remain low.
Summary
Re-engineering
the work and staffing of museums aided by digital technologies and approaches
offers the potential for museums to find ways of moving from a focus on
efficiency and saving money (a bad jobs strategy) to one focused on value and
experience (a good jobs strategy). Whilst museums should follow this approach
to ensure their own success and engage more customers positively in their
domain, it would also support fairer rewards for the staff working in this
sector.
