You need your team to step up.
To drive results. To deliver incredible service. To cover down for each other. To care.
But caring isn’t something you can demand. It’s something you design for.
The real question most managers are asking — often quietly — is this: How do I find, and more importantly retain, people who will step up? And once I do, how do I build a system with initiative — and then let it run?
People Work for Money. Full Stop.
People work to make a living.
They’re paying rent or a mortgage. Supporting families. Trying to keep up with rising costs of food, fuel, insurance, and healthcare.
Data shows many Americans have depleted savings, are living paycheck to paycheck, and are increasingly vulnerable to high-cost credit products and speculative activities that promise fast cash.
You already know this.
So the challenge isn’t whether people care about money — it’s how you align their need for income with your need for results.
Compensation Is a Signal
Compensation, at its core, is a signal.
It tells your team:
- What you value
- What matters
- Where effort should go
- And how much that effort is worth
Most American workers — especially in field and home services — are still paid hourly. Hourly pay signals that time is the unit of value.
Show up. Stay busy. Don’t leave early.
What happens during that time is usually described in a job posting and managed by a supervisor. As long as the hours are paid, employees may be reasonably indifferent to how that time is used.
This isn’t a moral failing. It’s rational behavior.
The Limits of Hourly Pay in the Field
Hourly pay works best when work is tightly supervised, tasks are uniform, and output is difficult to measure independently.
Field services are the opposite.
Managers aren’t riding along all day. Technicians make dozens of micro-decisions on their own. Some actions grow the business. Others simply fill time.
Without constant oversight, time isn’t always put to its highest and best use — not because people are lazy, but because the signal is weak.
You can try to fix this with KPIs, meetings, training, posters, Slack messages, and pep talks.
But the strongest signal in any organization is still pay.
Introducing Piece-Rate (Performance) Pay
Piece-rate pay — often called performance pay — addresses the signal problem by tying earnings directly to specific outputs, not just time.
Instead of saying “this is important,” you say “this is worth money.”
Examples:
- If you want technicians identifying leads for larger jobs — pay for qualified leads.
- If you want a particular product sold — pay for those sales.
- If you want weekend or after-hours coverage — pay per shift covered.
- If you want better documentation, safer driving, faster close-outs — pay for those outcomes.
Piece-rate pay doesn’t replace hourly pay overnight. It complements it.
Base Pay for Stability. Performance Pay to Light the Way.
Across industries, employers combine base compensation with performance pay.
Base pay provides stability and predictability. Performance pay “lights the way” — guiding behavior toward what actually grows the business.
Base pay answers: Can I pay my bills?
Performance pay answers: What should I focus on?
When revenue is highly predictable, some organizations move entirely to performance pay. In field and home services, most are layering performance pay on top of hourly wages — especially for technicians.
The Front Line Is Where Results Are Created
Technicians are the front line.
They interact with customers. Build trust. Spot opportunities. Deliver service. You’ll only be as good as they are — and as clear as the signals you send them.
When people know exactly what matters, what it’s worth, and that they’ll be rewarded promptly, they don’t need to be told to care.
They care because the system makes caring rational.
Piece-rate pay doesn’t extract more from people. It reveals who wants to step up — and gives them a reason to stay.
And once that system is designed well, you don’t have to push it every day.
You let it run.