W.L.Gore

##### Contribution process

Once a year, within each team (typically groups of 10 people in roughly the same function), everyone ranks the others from 1 to 9 (contrary to Holacracy, you don’t rank yourself in the list) based on their past and expected future contribution. The process has been automated, and on the forms, people can add a comment next to every person, and additionally assess if they are a “high culture fit" or "low culture fit”.

A small committee (typically the leader, another leader, and HR) reviews the aggregate results in great detail, and in their discussion they can change the order. Say John ends up number 2 on the aggregate list, but that feels too high, and the committee member suspect that it's really a loyalty vote. They can decide to move John down to number 4.

When the committee is done, each sponsor shares feedback with their person. Never the exact place in the rank. But “at the top”, “middle” and “bottom”. (If one person is at the bottom for a while, discussion will happen: other role that fits better? Need for training? Or exit the company?)

Compensation process

A compensation committee follows in the footsteps of the contribution committee. It will plot the salary curve of the 10 people that were ranked and see if the salaries are in line with the contribution. If needed, the committee will make the appropriate changes.

Transparency

There is no transparency on salaries at Gore. If a person in the committee is being discussed, he or she will not see the data that pertains to him or her.

Incentives and profit sharing

At Gore, there are no incentives or bonuses. Everybody gets shares in the company as part of profit sharing. For example, someone making £50K in salary in the UK could make an additional £5K in shares. The profit sharing is proportional to the base salary (it is calculated based on this year's salary and the salary over the last 3 years in some formula). So if your unit loses lots of money or makes lots of it, it doesn’t change profit sharing, to reinforce the “all in the same boat” mantra. ^[1]