Video (20 min) – Establishing a democratic workplace: Interview with Ricardo Semler (May 2011)
Some call it anarchic socialism, some cutting edge capitalism. At Brazilian manufacturer Semco, the workers have sacked the boss and run the company themselves. For nearly 25 years, Ricardo Semler, CEO of Semco has let his employees set their own hours, wages, even choose their own IT. The result: increased productivity, long-term loyalty and phenomenal growth.
With Ricardo Semler, we at CoachingOurselves created a peer learning discussion guide on A Culture of Openness: The 21st Century Workplace. Management teams use this topic during a 90 minute peer learning session to generate solutions to increase trust and engagement within their organization.
Article – Payment by results: a ‘dangerous idiocy’ that makes staff tell lies (Toby Lowe, The Guardian Local Government Network Blog, February 2013)
From the post: “Payment by results is a simple idea: people and organisations should only get paid for what they deliver. Who could argue with that? If your job is to get people back to work, then find them a job dammit. Plenty of people working in local government and public services are already starting to realise this is nonsense, and a pernicious, damaging nonsense at that. The evidence is very clear: if you pay (or otherwise manage performance) based on a set of pre-defined results, it creates poorer services for those most in need. It is the vulnerable, the marginalised, the disadvantaged who suffer most from payment by results.
