Let’s say the owner of your company is an eccentric person with a Marxist bent. Starting next Monday, everyone’s base salary wil be uniform. Everyone. Everyone will be paid the same as the highest paid employee is as of today. So if the top dog gets paid $150K now, that is what the guy’s assistant will get. So will the receptionist. So will the janitor.
Salaries will be adjusted for promotions, but only for managerial positions. So the receptionist will not get a pay bump for becoming an administrative assistant. But a middle manager will get a 10% increase if she becomes an executive. This policy will hopefully reward employees for building their skills and being loyal to the company. But there will be no differential pay based on seniority. Apart from promotions, all pay increases and bonuses are uniform.
Let’s say your new salary is more than you’d be making if you worked anywhere else, given your skillset.
How would you feel about this set-up?
Would you want to work for this company? Why or why not?
In the military, it’s sometimes frustrating knowing that everyone who’s the same rank pretty much gets paid the same (there’s an increase for time-in-service, but that tends to scale along with rank anyway). So you bust your ass working overtime for nothing and then go to the gym, where the guy handing out towels gets paid the same as you. And then you leave the base and the guy standing guard working 14 hour shifts and spending half the year in Afghanistan is getting paid the same as you. Now that I work in the civilian world, it’s nice knowing that people get compensated a little bit more fairly.
Mostly, though, I wouldn’t care. I know I get paid more than a lot of my coworkers, because I have more experience and I bring more to the company. But it’s also because I have a family and a mortgage, and if they want to keep me around, they’ve got to pay me more than the single guys who just need to make rent and buy beer. If the single guys started getting paid what I make, it wouldn’t affect me one bit – good for them, I say. I’m still making enough to live a nice life, I’m not trying to keep score. I’m not sure where the money would come from, but assuming the answer is “magic,” I’d just go about my life.
I don’t really understand how everyone can make the same when managers will get a pay raise above everyone else.
The scenario actually sounds just fine to me, but then I’m the boss and I only have two employees and we all do make virtually the same amount of money as each other. The only difference is I get the profits of the company (in the years when there are profits - right now, I’m still being paid back for losses during the recession.)
In a larger company, I don’t see it working. If wages are reasonable for the top talent, then the company is going to have a very hard time being profitable. If wages are not reasonable for the top talent, the company won’t be able to keep them… and without the top talent, you’ll have a bunch of overpaid receptionists with nothing to do.
If the real question is “Is my ego tied to whether I make more than the next guy?” the answer is emphatically NO. I need to be paid what I’m worth to do a job I enjoy doing. After that, I really don’t care what anyone else is paid.
Even assuming the company can stay afloat, in the long term it is doomed as it can’t compete for talent against firms with non-Marxist Inc principles.
Think of it this way: You’re an MBA and you have a chance to go to Home Depot and possibly become a 7-figure CFO, or you can go to its competitor, Marxist Inc, and be paid as much as the Jr. Sales Assistant, with little salary appreciation available throughout your career.
Who would choose to work at Marxist, Inc? Only those who can’t cut it at Home Depot.
What does that do to your competitive position? Worsens it.
(I’m assuming the hypothetical is the company can afford to pay wages like this without going under.)
It’s the above quote that seals it. I’d work there, no question. If I can’t make more anywhere else, there’s no point in working anywhere else. It’s clearly the best situation to provide for myself and my family. I don’t care what the receptionists or managers make. That has absolutely nothing to do with me.
The hypothetical here sounds inconsistent due to managerial pay raises. If everyone starts out the same, the president never gets a raise, but if someone rises up through the ranks to VP, he or she gets paid more.
In any case, ignoring the apparent flaw, I agree with telemark and panach84: enjoy the raise and get ready to jump ship.
By and large, most people aren’t going to be a 7-figure CFO, even in their wildest dreams.
Most people are lucky if they get to be a cubicle drone. This includes most Dopers, who I know pride themselves on being the smartest people in the world but really are quite average for the most part. Cubicle drone is where the “average” guy is. The “average” guy doesn’t need to worry about what he could make at Home Depot as a CFO because his behind ain’t in the running for that job anyway.
If the owner is a billionare and she was a greedy industrialist up to whenever she started drinking the Marxist koolaide, she could have more than enough wealth to do an experiment like this, to any degree that she pleases. Perhaps profits are no longer important to her and she’s vyying for a Nobel Prize to put on her mantle. Or hers could be a small business where there are only a handful of employees. Picture something like a lunch counter. The busboy gets paid the same as the waitstaff who gets paid the same as the short-order cook. All of whom get paid the same as the manager, who’s just a 25-year-old guy who drives a beater and lives in his mom’s basement.
Don’t let the ole corporate framework block your imaginations.
A skilled company will use financial incentives to improve themselves in relation to the competition, a carrot of great magnitude which Marxist Inc gave away*. But you’re right - the “average” guy will work at Marxist Inc and clock out at 5, the ones who want more than “the average” will be busting it over at Home Depot.
The short term answer is to work at Marxist, Inc, until my first pay cut. The long term answer is to go with Home Depot.
*Does Marxist Inc allow for the ownership of stock? Does ownership shares have to be equal? Are shares held by outsiders?
Since I am likely to have been one of the people receiving a decent raise (admin/receptionist/etc), I would keep working there as long as I could. Where else would a administrative assistant type get paid so much?
Don’t tell my boss, but I’m not particularly motivated by salary. I’m motivated to do a good job for the sake of doing good work, plus acknowledgment by others that I’ve done good work. I’m motivated to stay with my current employer because of the intangibles. If I get to be first author because I’ve done the most/best work on something, then I don’t care much how my salary compares to my co-workers’ salaries. I wouldn’t have any trouble working at Marxist, Inc.
It would be hard to see how a company could be competitive in this environment with the salary structure the way you’ve given, which means the company could rapidly go under at some point in the future. I would probably start looking for another job but wouldn’t be in a rush to quit.
Although I think it takes away from some of the motivation to go out and better yourself, I don’t have an inherent problem that less skilled worker would be earning as much as I do. I would like to think my work is more rewarding and as long as I am being paid a competitive salary, it wouldn’t matter to me in the short term.
Score! I’d certainly enjoy a nice little raise. I’m not really in this line of work for the salary, but I’m not going to complain about more money.
Hoo boy we’d be about to see a political firestorm, though, as I work in the public sector. I don’t know what would have happened in America to make that particular change happen, but I doubt it’d last for long!
Sorry but have none of you ever been pissed off at a colleague who works half as hard, is 1/4 as productive, yet makes equal or even a smidge more than you? Of course this anger only exists for the 40-50 hrs a week that you’re at the office but for those 40-50 hrs aren’t you even a little peeved?
Honestly I’d have a tough time swallowing that despite whatever training, talent, and effort I possess that got me to where I was it was essentially for naught and I’m as equally “valued” as someone who brings less to the table.
I’d be happy for the bump in pay and ultimately I’d probably bite my tongue and cash the checks but there would be a sizable part inside me that is stewing that I’m busting my ass while the guy/girl the office over who comes in late, leaves early, and takes 100 minute lunch breaks is getting paid the same with no promotion/compensation coming up.
The competition is still there for management, it’s just tied to title changes. No promotion, no raise.
And talk about the incentive for the non-exempt folks to be productive! No other company is paying anywhere near as much. This company can take its pick of clerks, techs, janitors, etc. If you’re getting paid $150,000 to file and you’re goofing off, you can be replaced faster than a greased neutrino.
Now, what would I do? I’d start keeping notes. There’s a novel in that.