Reddit reviews The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness

With a self managing structure. The basic goals of the business are made in to a constitution of sorts, and then each worker makes their own mission statement in line with the business's goals, which their colleagues agree on and hold them accountable to. Salary depends on how important you are to your colleagues, if you add more value, you get paid more.

I was reading a book called: The End of Average, which called in to question how efficient Taylorist structure / hiring practices (The separation of the worker from management, interchangeability of workers, strict hierarchical structures, and the creation of averagarian human resources practices) as it applies to education and work. In chapter 7, He addresses a lot of your questions with case studies of why Costco, Zoho, and Morning Star. (The tomato company, the site I linked to earlier is run by them.) I can PM you a copy of the book / chapter if you want a more in depth read.

1. Not everybody is paid the same, but everyone has stake in the company
   
   
2. Like any company: to get paid, to have a greater input / control over their work, generous benefits. By hiring those who are highly skilled, but passed over by Taylorist metrics (Think this sub, and people form unconventional backgrounds), providing them with work and opportunities to learn themselves to better positions in the company. Being able to have well paying secure employment for a lifetime.
   
   In that chapter I referenced, the case study of Zoho, talks about how they had great success training and hiring the misfits that other Indian outsourcing companies like Microsoft wouldn't touch. You don't have to have traditional "higher skilled workers", to be able to have highly skilled workers.
   
   
3. Even if they aren't the highest skilled workers, when they feel like have input in to their work, are well compensated, and respected, they produce more than the worker who does the bare minimum to keep their job. All three of the case study companies referenced show this well.
   
   In the end, it's more about the self managed structure than it is about the workers owning the company. It's just that traditionally, worker coops were one of the few companies to adopt this structure. I do think that the workers owning the company is important though, as it eliminates the conflict of interest that comes from having private owners.