drpeterwardle
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16th April 2006, 06:03 PM
What the collective BAJR view about the payment of performance bonuses. A good idea to reward hard work or an excuse not to pay a proper wage.
Clearly they would have to be in addition to the basic grade and care would have to be taken not to reduce quality?
Peter Wardle
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16th April 2006, 07:08 PM
My personal experience of performance related bonuses (before archaeology) was that they were an excuse not to pay the staff as much money. It also led to poor morale (in that staff were working harder and still worried that they wouldn't get the bonus).
In an archaeological situation, how exactly would performance be judged? Performance related pay needs to be linked to a clearly defined area of performance (normally sales targets and the like), and I don't see how this can transfer to archaeology.
"a pound of shelled peanuts was handsome pay by any apes standards" Pratchett 1998
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16th April 2006, 07:12 PM
I ditto Ladyjen's comments, having worked under a performance pay regime in the civil service. It all sounds good in theory but in practice you have to define any criteria for the extra pay/bonus and then measure performance against the criteria in a fair and balanced way. Setting out the criteria is one thing but it is the measuring and fairness where the system falls flat on its face in my experience.
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16th April 2006, 08:09 PM
Have to agree that I would take a lot of convincing!
perhaps paid by the kilo of Pottery or the number of sites not found on the route of a motorway..
Another day another WSI?
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16th April 2006, 08:17 PM
I agree defining the criteria and the measurement of it are difficulties. Similarly if staff are worrying about their bonus and their productivity falls then clearly such a scheme would suit nobody.
On site is would be difficult to measure and time consumming. However, there are some areas where I think it could be applied - it is used in some environmental consultancys. Similarly I assume that there are performance related pay for archaeologists who are civil servants and/or local government officers.
Peter Wardle
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17th April 2006, 09:59 AM
DO you have any more concrete ideas thre Peter?
Another day another WSI?
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17th April 2006, 11:39 AM
David,
How Mortimer Wheeler (see page 53 Archaeology from the earth). He descibes how money was paid to people for finding artefacts and he suggest was a form of bribed honesty. He suggested that it was not a good thing largely because it made the accounting harder. Similarly the notion of people being paid more for finding less sites is a very early 90s view of private sector archaeology.
What I am trying to explore is if any none time based payement system to archaeologists could work. Many years ago for example I got paid by the thin section. As I originally said care would have to be taken not to reduce quality. On site would be probably be hardest place to implement it but these days much archaeology does not happen on site.
In my own work I have pretty standard times for most tasks eg drawing up an WSI, sending out tenders etc which I use for costing things. If I am on a fixed price I make more money by doing things quicker. To a degree the same is true of a contracting unit working on a fixed price - they dig faster the unit makes more money.
On site take an adult skeleton assumming good weather and all other factors (like skill and quality) except the efficiency of work are equal then people should take the same time to excavate them. If somebody can do the same standard of work faster should they be paid more?
By the same token if an archaeological company worked as a collective with all the profits being shared would this be a bad thing?
We (almost) accept that archaeology is a profit making activity now so is there a mechanism by which the employee can share in those profits?
Peter Wardle
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17th April 2006, 11:55 AM
Sorry guys but equating commercially imposed speed requirements to standards is not a good thing.
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
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17th April 2006, 12:15 PM
There are already some units who stress working to deadlines as one of their prime requirements when advertising on this site. They tend to pay more and have bad reputations for quality of work.
I can not see how any routine task in field archaeology can be given a set 'standard' time. There are too many variable factors ranging from weather conditions, type of soil you're shifting, access and spoil dumping difficulties, not always having the best tool for the job, digging while carrying a slight knock etc. Not to mention the relative complexity of the archaeology.
A set 'standard' time for digging a post hole for example would lead to rushing, stress and mistakes.
I can also see people making a huge rush for the one or two good mattocks and barrows first thing in the morning. I personally find having good tools is a great benefit to speed and efficiency, but the general standard of tool quality on most sites does not reflect this need (another issue perhaps).
I could perhaps even see myself, a normally sunny tempered digger always happy to lend a colleague a mattock I'm temporarily not using, becoming a bitter money obsessed tool hoarder if performance related pay was forced upon us. This sort of small interaction between collleagues is very important for good site morale. It would turn what is essentially (in both uses of the word) a team effort into individuals competing for limited resources.
Performance related pay always comes across as punishing the (minority) of lazy workers rather than rewarding the vast majority of hard workers.
I wouldn't know about this but there must be early completion bonus clauses in some site contracts already?
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17th April 2006, 12:31 PM
Am working for one of the very units you describe sire.Speed is of the essence, quality of work is irrelevent/un-monitored and standards are ignored.A recent visit by the curator who clearly did`nt notice anything amiss completes the misery.Performance bonuses would set the current "hack and slash" culture in stone.No way-it`s bad enough as it is.
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
