what is the future of pay?
This week on Work Is Weird Now, we sat down with Paul Vezelis, CEO of Traxlo, to tackle a deceptively big question: what is the future of pay? The conversation takes us deep into how pay is evolving as work becomes more fragmented, flexible and outcome-driven — but also what that means for security, identity and choice in people’s working lives.
What If Time Isn’t the Right Unit of Value?
Paul opened with a simple but disruptive idea: pay should be tied to clear outcomes, not hours.
Instead of hiring people for blocks of time, Traxlo helps retailers break work down into specific tasks — stocking shelves, organising inventory, simple repeatable jobs — and pays for them when they’re completed.
Because the work is transparent and measurable, incentives align: do the task, get paid fairly. Time worked becomes less important than what was actually done. Paul says this task-based approach increases performance and gives people clarity about what they’re signing up for — without bosses hovering or unpredictable shift demands.
If the job is defined by output, not presence, everything changes.
Who Is the Gig Economy Really For?
For Paul, this isn’t just about gig work. It’s about flexibility and fairness.
Interestingly, the majority of workers on Traxlo aren’t stereotypical gig workers. Many are women aged 35–55 looking for reliable, local income that fits around family life — but without rigid schedules. Others are younger workers who stack multiple income streams across a day: food delivery in the morning, retail tasks in the evening, collecting what Paul calls “full-time gig hours” without a full-time employer.
This isn’t side hustle culture for the sake of it. It’s people engineering work around life, not the other way round.
When Pay Becomes Something You Tap Into
One of the most striking themes from the conversation is that pay is becoming modular.
It’s no longer just a monthly salary tied to a single employer. It’s something you tap into when you need it — for extra rent money, a laptop, travel, or simply as a safety net when other work slows down.
For many, that autonomy feels liberating. The risk of fragmentation is real — income volatility, fewer traditional protections — but optionality can also build resilience. If one stream slows down, another can open up.
Security may no longer come from permanence. It may come from diversification.
Are Organisations Ready for This?
This shift doesn’t just affect workers. It challenges organisations at a structural level.
Task-based work forces businesses to rethink how they plan labour, how they integrate technology, and how they separate repetitive tasks from higher-value human interaction. It’s not simply about outsourcing. It’s about blending different types of labour into one ecosystem.
And technology is the quiet enabler here. Smartphones, barcode scans, image uploads — all of it makes outcome-based pay measurable at scale for the first time.
The question isn’t whether this model exists. It’s whether organisations are ready to design around it.
Freedom, Fragmentation, or Both?
By the end of the episode, the picture that emerges isn’t dystopian gig economy gloom or uncritical celebration.
It’s more nuanced.
People are finding agency in systems that didn’t previously offer much. They’re funding transitions, building businesses, supporting families, relocating cities. At the same time, the psychological contract between worker and organisation continues to erode.
Work is weird now — and how we pay people is part of why.
If pay shifts from hours to outcomes, what happens to loyalty? To identity? To belonging?
We’re still finding out.
