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I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

theguardian.com

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Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#181

Post by egypturnash »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #54
justaguyhere wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a nice gesture from this CEO/company. I wish more companies tried this. That said, we shouldn't depend on the largesse/good nature/etc of a few rich individuals - if there is sensible minimum wage, sensible labor laws (and enforcement of these laws), sensible housing laws etc, we probably wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

Putting so many laws into place about how much you have to pay workers / etc. makes it harder for small companies to even start. To me, seeing a company pay its workers more voluntarily is the best option, and also one I wish more companies would go with.

Yes, I'm quite sure people who have spent their whole life obsessing over every single cent, and whose core motivation is "getting more money to keep score" are going to just decide to start paying their workers more one day. Keep wishing! I'm sure we'll see wages just start to rise everywhere because of the power of your wishing.

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#182

Post by mgkimsal »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #126
toss1 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but Employer-B now has employees who DGAF about anything in the business, and often have an adversarial, even 'eff them! attitude to the business. Employer-B's customer service and general care of its facilities & inventory will suck, and they will have much higher turnover costs, even if they have better products. So, what is the relative advantage? Moreover, the article was specifically about the tradeoff in…

There’s a reason Walmart and Dollar General are crushing others, and it’s because either their customers can’t afford good customer service or they don’t care for it and choose to shop there anyway. The proof is literally the fact that mom and pop stores and others like Sears went out of business, customers preferred saving $5 over good customer service. As I prefaced above, this is true for business where customers…

Most DG are out in more ruralish areas where there's simply less choice, and/or the cost of exercising that choice is more pronounced. Drive an extra 15-20 min to save 30c on milk? Probably not worth it to many folks (cost of gas is more, might make you late for work, etc).

Had a lot of discussions with the former manager of our local DG, and... while not 'eye-opening', it was interesting to hear the pressure she was under. $x/week budget to schedule all the staff, targets to be hit (dollar targets, merchandising display targets, etc). It's "retail", but the numbers she had to play with were pretty low given the volume, imo. FWICT, she wasn't on more than perhaps the equivalent of around $13/hr, although I do think there were small performance bonuses thrown in. But, I think she was 'salaried', so lots of 50-60 hour weeks for probably not much more than ~$35k?

This is a somewhat ruralish area, and this was also... 4 years ago? She's moved on since then, and we lost touch so I don't know if things have changed much with the newer managers or not.

FWIW, she did keep that store ticking over. She was a bit bristly at times with other staff, but ... there was a pretty noticeable decline in staff behaviour, sheving, cleanliness and overall experience at the store within a couple weeks of her leaving, and it's never quite recovered. I'm guessing had they paid her an extra $100/week she'd have stayed and continued going above and beyond, but... .hey... profits...

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#183

Post by cosmie »

pdimitar wrote: post #11
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they have on the website: * Chief Executive Officer * Chief Medical Officer * Senior Vice President, Human Resources * Chief Customer Officer * Chief Legal & Strategic Solutions Officer * Chief Financial Officer * President and Chief Operating Officer * Chief Compliance Officer * Chief Technology Officer * Chief Growth Officer In addition their board has 8 members.

What the hell is even "Chief Growth Officer"? Asking for real. Growth is either achieved organically or you are just forcing your way to a lucrative exit without bringing any value. Artificial and forced growth is toxic for the economy at large. The rest of the roles mostly make sense although I believe some of them can be merged so further savings can be accomplished.

You have the definition that shalmanese mentioned, which is one potential org structure that might be what the Chief Growth Officer is in charge of.

I've also seen it used as a a C-level title for head of sales (along with Chief Revenue Officer). In the cases where I've seen the role be a head of sales, it usually indicated that the sales org took a very active role in dictating the rest of the companies priorities.

It's sort of like data science teams - some data science teams are truly data science teams in the traditional sense of the word, doing advanced statistical and machine learning work. While other data science teams are just doing basic reporting but under a more politically valuable moniker.

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#184

Post by blacktonystark »

js8 wrote: post #146
lotsofpulp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposes employer A chooses to pay their employees more than other employers. Employer B chooses to pay their employees less. Both employers are selling products or services that the purchaser finds the same, i.e. they have no preference for who they buy it from. Employer B takes the money they save by paying employees less, and invests in newer, better facilities or R&D or whatever. Now employer B is selling a bette…

In Norma Rae, the main heroine is promoted to a supervisor (with a higher salary) in order to alienate her from others and suppress her pro-union stance. I suspect a similar dynamics can also happen in Walmart.

Also core to the main plot of "Sorry to Bother You".

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#185

Post by vonmoltke »

ReptileMan wrote: post #66
justaguyhere wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed the behavior of markets, especially big companies? The only things they seem to be doing voluntarily are those that help increase their profits. CEOs are getting paid tens of millions of dollars while laying off thousands of people and closing factories. Companies do every dirty little trick to avoid paying for healthcare/pension. And so on. We have already tried the "markets will fix things, markets…

Well... bump the fiduciary duty to shareholders couple of stairs down the priority ladder and they may change.

You mean the mythical one Milton Friedman made up?

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#186

Post by toasterlovin »

JimBrimble35 wrote: post #149
toasterlovin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. Lots of things persist because “that’s the way it’s always been done”. Probably what’s going on here, in my opinion.

I think what you are identifying as incompetence is, in fact, well-aged malice. The greedy behavior that leads to the kind of inequality faced by today's society is now so well established that it has become hard to recognize for what it truly is. The fact that this article's author seems to find it novel to trickle down the proceeds of the company to the bulk of it's employees is a pretty good indication of that.

> The greedy behavior that leads to the kind of inequality faced by today's society is now so well established that it has become hard to recognize for what it truly is.

I know you think you’re arguing against me, but what you described supports my position.

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#187

Post by thatfrenchguy »

pdimitar wrote: post #175
WhompingWindows wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He took action and doubled the pay to 15/hr, then it further increased to 16.50/hr. I didn't think he was stumbling on a new lesson, your reading was a bit more cynical than mine. Simply put, he hadn't realized the plight of those on 7.25/hr until he heard what his employees were going through. How else can we improve things if we don't allow people to change their views? Mocking a CEO for changing his view is the op…

> he hadn't realized the plight of those on 7.25/hr until he heard what his employees were going through. That's the crux of the problem right there. If you need somebody to start living with their kid in a car to get this grand epiphany then you are hilariously mis-prepared to be any kind of a leader. To be a leader, you need a much better [emotional] education than this.

Or higher taxation and less inequality so that the people whose parents are on minimum wage end up being the people making the decisions, not the people whose parents are from rich suburbia who never had these issues in life.

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#188

Post by yoz-y »

allworknoplay wrote: post #85

This is insane -- paying a $7.25/hr minimum wage to people you call "teammates" and expecting them to stick around is preposterous. In anything but a terrible economic downturn, minimum wage says to employees that you just want a body doing a job right at this moment, but aren't willing to invest any further in them. Why would anyone stick around, or care to do more than the most basic job requirements? These jobs ar…

Somewhere there was a quote; Paying minimum wage is like saying: "I would like to pay you less, but it is illegal to do so."

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#189

Post by otikik »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #102
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was watching a sitcom called Superstore a little while ago, features the employees in a Wal-Mart like store, and the protagonist got a promotion to the head of the store. There was a whole plot line about how her wage was now in the 6 figures, and I was incredulous until I did a bit of research - Wal-Mart store managers can absolutely make that much money while their employees live in poverty. How you could make th…

Supposes employer A chooses to pay their employees more than other employers. Employer B chooses to pay their employees less. Both employers are selling products or services that the purchaser finds the same, i.e. they have no preference for who they buy it from. Employer B takes the money they save by paying employees less, and invests in newer, better facilities or R&D or whatever. Now employer B is selling a bette…

But that's only one of the possible scenarios.

A different one is that employees leave Employer B for Employer A (or others). So Employer B makes more money per employee, but he has less of them now.

Re: I froze the salaries of my executive team to benefit other workers

#190

Post by will_brown »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #88
allworknoplay wrote: post #85

This is insane -- paying a $7.25/hr minimum wage to people you call "teammates" and expecting them to stick around is preposterous. In anything but a terrible economic downturn, minimum wage says to employees that you just want a body doing a job right at this moment, but aren't willing to invest any further in them. Why would anyone stick around, or care to do more than the most basic job requirements? These jobs ar…

I was watching a sitcom called Superstore a little while ago, features the employees in a Wal-Mart like store, and the protagonist got a promotion to the head of the store. There was a whole plot line about how her wage was now in the 6 figures, and I was incredulous until I did a bit of research - Wal-Mart store managers can absolutely make that much money while their employees live in poverty. How you could make th…

>How you could make that much and expect loyalty and sacrifice from your staff who make a fraction of that, I won't ever know.

All those Walmart store managers make 6 figures as you say, some as much as $250k, but the one thing they can always fall back on is they all started out as a low paid Walmart employee as well.

It doesn’t change the inequality dynamics but it’s better than something like this story of the healthcare execs making $300k+ bonuses compared to their minimum wage coworkers, where the execs never started out making min wage with the company...or consider the horror story’s of those certain tech companies who don’t even treat low wage employees as regular workers and encourage regular high wage workers not to socialize with the low wage workers.

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