Ways of Working Nudge

New blog post (number 11 in a series): Wage Systems, introduced as part of Systematic Management in the 3rd Industrial Revolution, and why we work the way we do today.

🤔 Ever wondered why there is a focus on output over outcomes?
🤔 Why there is a culture of order-giver and order-taker?
🤔 Why the word 'incentives' is usually interpreted as 'financial incentives'?

Wage Systems introduced between 1870 to 1900 were predicated on incentivising people to generate the most amount of output possible, as cogs in a machine. Autonomy was reduced with workers being told exactly what to do and how much output constitutes a day's work, with, in some cases, the wage system financially penalising workers for not meeting that output.

Also, on the whole, the only incentive considered was financial. There is little writing from the time on non-financial, or implicit incentives (e.g. physical safety with a high accident rate at work, empowerment, autonomy, personal development, purpose, mastery, etc.). In the Age of Steam and Railways, in factories, it was mostly braun over brain, with people treated as if they are replaceable cogs.

Still today, we see (1) people incentivised on output over outcomes (2) order-givers and order-takers behavioural norm (3) the word 'incentives' being automatically interpreted as 'financial incentives'

Read the blog here.

LinkedIn post here, Bluesky here

Regards, Jon