Paying per hour in R&D and science?

[WooKi]

Hello.

What do you think about such payment method? Everyone everyday writes how many hours he has spent working, these numbers are summed once a month, the sum is multiplied by some factor and this is your salary. Particularly, if this is used in R&D and research, i.e. not 'around science' jobs, but in places where there is real need to conduct experiments to move forward.

I was unable to find out how common such thing on the West. Here it is Russia, and here it is pretty uncommon. My attempt to find the answer made me imagine that only undergraduates may work like this in the West. In Russia as I've said already this is fairly uncommon, even undergraduates are usually offered some stable (not high) income.

So, how common this in your environment?

And what generally do you think about this? Is it ok for R&D and research?

And as a beginning I'll provide my answers: (1) uncommon; (2) not ok, it hinders work considerably, making employer way too 'powerful' (absolutely OP), because every one depends critically upon how much work there is for him; it makes the whole situation 'unhealthy', when people constantly think about things they shall not care about; and remember that it is about research jobs (not some 'around science' jobs), where I believe people must have a fair share of freedom in how they do their job.

[swansont]

It's how I'm paid, as a government employee. Not so common in academia and industry, though. They want you to work longer hours, and use a salary system.