What Corporates can Learn from the Gig Economy,

The gig economy has flipped traditional employment on its head. It’s fast, flexible, and brutally focused on output. So why do so many information and communications service firms still operate like it’s 1995?

Here’s a provocative question: What if every consulting firm ran like the gig economy?

Pay for Output, Not Presence

In consulting, the product is people. But too often, remuneration is tied to time—not value.

What if consultants were paid based solely on what they delivered in a given month? No retainers, no guaranteed salaries. Just measurable outcomes: deliverables, client results, project milestones.

You’d immediately separate the problem-solvers from the placeholders.

Output-Based Pay: Monthly and Clear

Most firms bill monthly, so why not compensate that way?

Every team member’s income could reset monthly, based on:

• Client deliverables met
• Billable hours actually billed
• Client satisfaction scores
• Contribution to IP or internal tools

This model is already baked into how many freelancers operate. Corporates can adopt it without losing structure—just add clarity and accountability.

Tie Compensation to KPIs and OKRs

Consulting and ICT firms love dashboards and metrics. But when it comes to internal performance? It’s still foggy.

If your OKRs include client retention, solution adoption, or system uptime—tie pay to them.

• Did the network stay at 99.99% uptime? Pay out.
• Did your DevOps consultant cut deployment time by 30%? Reward them.
• Did the cloud migration hit all SLAs on time? Bonus unlocked.

No room for politics. Just performance.

Sales Teams: Commission or Nothing

In this space, deals can be complex and long-winded—but at the end of the day, a sale is a sale.

All sales staff should be 100% commission-based. It focuses the mind, rewards closers, and deters dead weight. Want stability? Close more deals.

Service & Support Teams: Pay on Satisfaction

For service delivery teams—especially in managed services and customer support—client experience is everything.

So why is pay still fixed?

Link compensation to:

• SLA compliance
• Customer satisfaction (CSAT/NPS)
• Resolution time
• Client retention

Suddenly, every ticket, every email, every fix matters. You don’t just close cases—you build trust.

Product & Solution Owners: Give Them Skin in the Game

If a consultant builds a digital solution that’s licensed out, or if a product manager oversees a service that generates monthly recurring revenue, tie their pay to the P&L of that product.

Give them a cut of the profit. They’ll think like entrepreneurs, not employees.

Better still—they’ll fight for quality, scalability, and client relevance.

Executives: Performance, Not Politics

CEOs, CTOs, Partners—the top tier should lead by example.

Tie executive compensation to:

• Profitability
• Revenue growth
• Customer retention
• Team performance

No more “strategic” bonuses for just showing up. If the company wins, they win. If it underperforms, they feel it first.

Bottom Line

The consulting and ICT space is already project-based, client-focused, and outcome-driven. The shift to gig-style remuneration is not a stretch—it’s just logical evolution.

Pay people based on what they actually deliver. Use the tools we preach to clients—OKRs, dashboards, metrics—on ourselves. Make work more meaningful, more accountable, and more rewarding.

Not everyone will thrive in this model—and that’s the point.