The 3Rs of Output Incentives: Role, Reward, Regard

#role #position #output #insentive

Background

Output is encouraged for reasons such as eliminating dependency on individuals, sharing knowledge and information, and ensuring transparency. However, it's evident that many engineers are reluctant to get involved.

The simple reason for this is the lack of incentives. Particularly for those who are already busy with their regular work, the idea of having to output their work can even spark resentment.

Note: Here, 'output' refers to sharing within the company on a relatively large scale. This is beyond a team of fewer than ten people, extending to entire departments or even the entire company. It usually means making information accessible to all employees, sometimes taking the form of events like study sessions.

Securing Incentives

Ultimately, there seem to be only three types of incentives.

Role: Being able to make output part of one's job and being assigned to such a role.
Reward: Receiving economic, time-related, or positional incentives. This can boil down to contributing to clear workload reduction as knowledge or serving as a stepping stone for promotion or salary increase.
Regard: Gaining recognition for one's name, expertise, or character, or simply the presence within a company.

Reward is the most common type, but it's not something I personally recommend. The reason is that people tend to do only the minimum output required to gain the Reward. It's better than nothing, but it lacks sustainability.

Regard is the most compelling but also selective. Those who value Regard are often formidable individuals who already produce outputs in their private lives through blogs or social media. These engineers make up less than 5%.

Consequently, the most realistic and universal incentive turns out to be Role. What does Role imply? It means being able to produce output as part of your job openly. For example, you might be allowed to spend half of your day on output tasks. It signifies a role where such a luxurious way of working is permissible. Of course, because it is part of the job and a legitimate role, it will be recognized and can even become part of your career. This is attractive because there are a fair number of engineers who actually enjoy outputting.