Let's talk about your Income

 

Let’s talk about your Income

What exactly is employment income? First off, most employees would say it is their salary, wages or pay they get for doing a task, a job or professional assignment given by an employer. This is certainly not wrong. It is part of it, but what would you say if I told you that it is far from all of it.

Let’s start by de-constructing the word IN-COME. From the employees point of view “in” amounts to everything that is availed and is accessible to them during the term of employment. The word “come” has a connotation of anticipation and guaranteed expectation. In the case of a wages, it is a routine event like the time of day or “pay-day”. The employee expects that on the 30^th day of the month, they will be paid a wage. The fact that wages are routinely available, regular and expected inflows means they can be planned for, budgeted, projected and even cashed out in advance as capital value. This regularity allows banks to secure employee loans and cash out on employee capital (wages) in advance. But cash is not the only element that flows to the employee.

Other incomes that flow to the employee include; experience, expertise, exposure and no small amount of business and enterprise education, from peers, the boss, the market and customer engagement. The other inflows that come with income are insurance, an occupation, training, meals, transport and other valuable inflows that would not be available to the employee had not been hired. A shrewd employee does not just count his income as cash, but as all the material value, plus social and economic capital he can be able to walk away from his employer. Notice, just like a lending institution takes your salary as a security and surety for a loan, if you do not take full advantage of, and plan for the use of your earned capital made available to you on the job, others will freely enjoy the benefits of your work.

The lesson here is that income; earned material and socio-economic capital, should be carefully planned for and not carelessly dispensed otherwise it is possible to earn an income for the length of the contract and never accrue any capital for your personal development. Let me take a stab at using financial terminology and say that your net worth should increase with every salary you earn otherwise you are wasting your income and capital resources.  

 Allan Bukusi is the author of ; How to Prosper in Employment and writer of the series of articles under the theme; 2026: Year of the African Employee challenging employees to prioritize creating personal wealth early in their careers.