If the way we work fundamentally changes – should we change the way we pay people, too?

Loïc LeMeur, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the LeWeb confereces (which are on hiatus this year), thinks we are working on outdated models of compensation. We need to rethink pay for a more flexible economy:

Even though it’s the norm in Silicon Valley, this vision of “employee ownership” seems totally outdated to me today. There will be less and less “full-time employees”. Everybody should be compensated now and somehow in the future based on their real contribution, not really on the time they spent in the company as full time employees (vesting stock options).

And what might that future look like?

A new model should emerge that can help freelancers coming in and out of the projects and the corporation as needed and getting compensated in a flexible way. Open source models are inspiring, they compensate the best contributors with visibility, recognition and ego-boost.

It’s an intruiging idea (speaking as a freelancer…). The old models of day rates or fixed-fee projects leave us less vested in the work we are doing. If a model between the traditional arrangement and the startup equity agreement can be found, it would truly create a more flexible workforce with bigger incentives to deliver.