Pay Them Enough to Care Or Stop Expecting Them To
There was a bit of brilliance in this post from Seth Godin about task work vs. project work:
Sometimes, people say, “they’re not paying me enough to care.” What they mean is that the industrialist has chosen them to do tasks, and going beyond tasks isn’t part of the deal. On the other hand, when we sign up for a project, the terms of the deal have to be deeper and more human than trading effort for money.
He goes on to point out that poor leaders hire and pay people to do tasks, but expect them to care deeply about the project.
That’s a mistake.
If you think AI can replace what your staff does daily, then you hired them to do tasks. I guarantee you that a fancy AI tool doesn’t care whether your business succeeds or not. The company behind it only cares that you are successful enough to renew your subscription. They are not part of your team. They are exchanging a product for cash.
Most employees are also exchanging a product (their time and effort) for cash. They don’t have equity; there’s no financial incentive for them beyond the difference between a 2 percent raise when the company does well and no raise when it doesn’t. Layoffs can occur regardless of whether the company performs well or not.
As I’ve said before, if AI promises to free up people to do more strategic work, what does that mean when you don’t offer them the opportunity to take on strategic work? How many people in your organization are integral to the work beyond completing tasks? When they do move into more integral work, will compensation change to match the increased expectations? Of course not. More likely, you’ll remind them of how much of their work can be replaced by AI as a warning.
You still have people performing tasks in exchange for a paycheck. They have no reason to feel like they matter. They’re ultimately replaceable. You remind them of that in a million little ways, then expect them to feel dedicated to the work your company does. That makes no sense.
Law firms, things are no better for you. There are still too many of you running around talking about your “non-lawyer staff” as if we are contract employees, running out website updates that feature every lawyer, but only 3-4 C-level staff members at best and expecting the rest of us to be prepared to drop everything, no matter the time of day, because it’s vital to the firm “family.” The family that doesn’t even acknowledge us? Please. You get work in exchange for paychecks. Ironically, it’s the same economic model you have with your clients, who get hours in exchange for cash.
Too many employers are out there expecting us to see ourselves as an integral part of something larger than ourselves, but only providing entry-level pay, zero flexibility, and micromanaging every step of our work. They want a sense of ownership from employees without giving any. They become angry when people leave, yet they provide no incentive to stay. They reward the wrong things and make token efforts to care about the people who work for them. In short, they treat employees like tools and blame them for not being fully committed to the company.
A good leader never blames their tools.
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