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$70k Salaries Didn't 'Backfire'; Gravity Payments' Profits Have Doubled (inc.com)
AmiMoJo writes: In April, Dan Price, CEO of the credit card payment processor Gravity Payments, announced that he will eventually raise minimum pay for all employees to at least $70,000 a year. The move sparked not just a firestorm of media attention, but also a lawsuit from Price's brother and co-founder Lucas, claiming that the pay raise violated his rights as a minority shareholder. But six months later, the financial results are starting to come in: Price told Inc. Magazine that revenue is now growing at double the rate before the raises began and profits have also doubled since then. On top of that, while it lost a few customers in the kerfuffle, the company's customer retention rate rose from 91 to 95 percent, and only two employees quit. Two weeks after he made the initial announcement, the company was flooded with 4,500 resumes and new customer inquiries jumped from 30 a month to 2,000 a month.
You're describing the Copenhagen area, except education is free. I like it here.
-- Make America hate again!
While undoubtedly true, I'd rather companies use such things for PR than what you usually find them doing.
I don't think he did this in order to get the good PR, but even if he did, he made the world a slightly better place. Good for him.
Shachar
Yet another AC rant that misses the point, but I'll bite, if only for the benefit of the peanut gallery.
The point of this company's $70k minimum salary is an acknowledgement of the fact that every employee is valuable to the company, including the guy who cleans up your shit when you overflow the company toilet. If a position isn't vital to a business's operation, then there's no need for the position to exist. This has nothing to do with being lazy or entitled (nor is this about to become law, so don't soil yourself just yet). It's just a business owner who seems to have no interest in the usual M.O. of keeping as many employees as possible as close to poverty as possible.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
I'll forgo the obvious "get off my lawn" jokes..
No, you don't have to buy the lifted truck. No, you don't have to buy a house (but if you do, $2400 a month is not ridiculous - especially compared with rents in that area that are more than that), but if you want to go to a four-year college, you will be paying $100,000. My state university charges $24,000 a year. For in-state students.
No, you don't have to have a smart phone, or a house with a bunch of land, or travel for vacation. You can live like a monk and be happy with the impenetrable amount of smug you have surrounding you, while your landlord fails AGAIN to fix your toilet. These things are not necessary, but they improve your quality of life. And that's really all people want, they want a salary that allows them to have a life that they enjoy outside of work.. and for there to be an "outside of work" where you won't get fired if you don't answer the phone from some idiot VP at 9PM harassing you because you're not still at work.
For so long, we've just accepted the fact that your corporate masters are living off the sweat of your brow, leaving you with little to show for it other than massive debt (which they also make money on by investing.) It's been so long that we don't recognize what an equitable work arrangement looks like anymore - the "social contract" that used to exist between a worker and his/her employer has been demonized as socialism and laziness. Wages stagnate while productivity and profits rise, and anyone that points out this fact is immediately attacked for being greedy, lazy and/or socialist.
The Millenials don't want anything that wasn't considered reasonable 40 years ago. They want a salary that they can live on, and they want to share in the success of their employer. These are not unreasonable things. Things have gotten so twisted that the dude offering this $70k minimum salary was repeatedly harassed by his peers in the business community - one of them actually said to him "If you pay your people that much, what incentive do they have to work hard?" The whole concept of getting what you pay for when you hire workers has completely fallen off the radar, because it would eat into the profits. No, these folks think that the less you pay someone, the harder they'll work. Which is bullshit. It should be the other way around, but we've all been convinced that this needs to continue so companies can be "competitive" (read: the CEO's third mistress wants another Porsche.)
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.