Connecting work to money

In the R&D world, I feel that there is a disconnect between the work a researcher does and their ability to make money from it. No doubt that I believe that doing R&D is important, but it is hard to gauge the impact a person has on a product/society when working on a large project.

I've been working on several different aspect of my project over the past few years. I've been trying to improve power efficiency by manipulating device structures to improving reliability by testing out new materials to make sure they don't start degrading when used in environments where there are electric fields and strong sources of light.

I have a work evaluation coming up in a week and just started preparing stuff to discuss with the boss during my interview and the my angle is to try and connect the work I do either some monetary value or some impact it has on the project. The bigger the value/impact the better prospects of me getting a bigger bonus. I've been looking through some of the internal company grading schemes and it turns out that people are generally graded on a 7 step scale with most people ranked at the middle. You are then ranked higher if your boss has a positive perception of the work you do.

For a person in my position, if I am ranked at a 4 and ranked up to a 3, I'd probably get about $800~$1000 more for my seasonal bonus (my summer one). Japan has an interesting system where that everyone is paid a monthly salary and then 2 bonuses throughout the year (one in the summer and one in the winter).

The monetary bonuses are generally equivalent to about 2 months worth of salary and can be more or less depending on the performance of both the company and the individual. I generally view positive performance as the ability to find more efficient ways of doing things, thus improving the quantity and quality of output. My strategies usually involve finding ways of multiplying my output over what the average person is able to produce, thus I generally believe that financial incentives should scale with output. Unfortunately, that isn't generally the case when it comes to R&D.

When it comes to R&D, we are generally looking at either developing new technologies or improving current systems. The number of experiments and the amount of data you are able to crunch is usually inconsequential unless you produce good results. I come from the camp that if you are able to run more experiments and are able to analyze/manage large data sets effectively, then you should eventually hit on a good result sooner or be more informed when planning experiments.

The other question that one needs to ask, how much is a good result worth? An extra $800~$1000? In the real commercial world, that good experimental results are worth more, and I believe that people are generally short changed when it comes to work, simply because they do not understand the value of the work they are producing.

Interestingly, just writing a patent application will net a person $100. If the patent turns out to be an OK one, you might get $1000~$3000 ish for it after review. Exceptional patents get $10,000 in bonus cash. But here is the thing, if you created an enabling technology that created a multi-million market, wouldn't you think that a $10,000 pat on the back is a little cheap? Especially when they pay you after the fact? I think so.

I sometimes miss the times when I used to be a tutor, because I knew exactly how my work equated to monetary reward. I would eventually run an exam preparation program which was sort of an idea borrowed from the days I was part of the Math Club at UBC that sold solution packets to old first year exams. These guys would easily make $5000/term and was one of the richest clubs on campus. I took my experiences from working with their business and created a Physics version of their business and added a lecture section to the business and netted the Engineering Physics club a $4500/term income stream just for teaching first year students how to prepare for first year exams. When you get students to pay $15 for a 3 hour lecture, it is amazing how well they shut up and pay attention. Professors would easily be in envy of how I was able to keep control of my classes, because they knew that this was coming out of their pockets.

After lots of initial setup, teaching these courses would probably earn the lecturer about $400/hour as I used to have 150 students attend a single seminar. And compared to other lecturers like "Dan the Tutor", my lectures were damn cheap -> $15 compared to his $25. If I jacked up the price a little more I'd make incredible profits. But I was young and could never wrap my head around large financial numbers, so I tended to be modest when charging people. In the business world, things are quite different however.

I miss those days, when I could directly equate my work to money. I rather dislike airy-fairly corporate evaluations when in comparison. After the project I am working on ends, I'll be looking for ways to bring me back in touch with finding ways of directly producing value to people.