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A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit - Jobs/Vacancies - Nairaland

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A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by asumo12: 5:59pm On Aug 03, 2015
[img]http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/rH35gDuwnArzlwMy5_ZBQw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/A_CEO_raised_his_companys-404925b4961e947768dc316f1c24c8e0[/img]

When Dan Price, founder and CEO of the Seattle-based credit-card-payment processing firm Gravity Payments, announced he was raising the company's minimum salary to $70,000 a year, he was met with overwhelming enthusiasm.

"Everyone start[ed] screaming and cheering and just going crazy," Price told Business Insider shortly after he broke the news in April.

One employee told him the raise would allow him to fly his mom out from Puerto Rico to visit him in Seattle. Another said the raise would make it possible for him to raise a family with his wife. Overnight, Price became something of a folk hero — a small-business owner taking income inequality into his own hands.

But in the weeks since then, it's become clear that not everyone is equally pleased. Among the critics? Some of Price's own employees.

The New York Times reports that two of Gravity Payments' "most valued" members have left the company, "spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises."

Maisey McMaster — once a big supporter of the plan — is one of the employees that quit. McMaster, 26, joined the company five years ago, eventually working her way up to financial manager. She put in long hours that "left little time for her husband and extended family," The Times says, but she loved the "special culture" of the place.

But while she was initially on board, helping to calculate whether the company could afford to raise salaries so drastically (the plan is a minimum of $70,000 over the course of three years), McMaster later began to have doubts.

"He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump," she told The Times. A fairer plan, she told the paper, would give newer employees smaller increases, along with the chance to earn a more substantial raise with more experience.

[img]http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/DQW8jKKBKFtZ3yGNK_emAg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/A_CEO_raised_his_companys-5efa4554dcbcd28a96fc673674d768b0[/img]

Gravity's web developer, Grant Moran, 29, had similar concerns. While his own salary saw a bump — to $50,000, up from $41,000, in the first stage of the raise — he worried the new policy didn't reward work ethic. "Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me," he tells The Times. "It shackles high performers to less motivated team members."

He also didn't like that his salary was now so public, thanks to the media attention, and he worried that if he got used to the salary boost, he might never leave to pursue his ultimate goal of moving to a digital company. Like McMaster, Moran opted to leave.

But according to the Times, even employees who are "exhilarated by the raises" have new concerns, worrying that maybe their performances don't merit the money. (Arguably, this is evidence the increase is actually a good idea, potentially motivating people to achieve more.)

For his part, Price — who's also under fire from other local business owners and his brother, who says Price owes him money — stands by his plan, but doesn't begrudge his critics. "There’s no perfect way to do this and no way to handle complex workplace issues that doesn’t have any downsides or trade-offs," he tells the Times. "I came up with the best solution I could." And certainly, many of his employees agree.

source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-raised-minimum-wage-70-212850113.html;_ylt=AwrC1Ci2eb9VjBkAanuTmYlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMDgyYjJiBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMyBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--

1 Like

Re: A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by SafetyFirst(m): 8:35pm On Aug 03, 2015
Re: A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by HyDef(m): 10:23pm On Aug 03, 2015
I know it might seem unfair, but I wouldn't drop my cake just cuz my younger brother has the same size...

It's his cash anyway.

2 Likes

Re: A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by obinna2nv(m): 11:15pm On Aug 03, 2015
What nonsense, rich people always feel that they have exclusive rights to riches.. Let them quit, they aren't irreplaceable, many people will kill for the job.

2 Likes

Re: A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by Haywhymido(m): 6:51am On Aug 04, 2015
Who am i to force dem to keep working with the man maybe dey don belle full
Re: A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by AlPeter: 7:17am On Aug 04, 2015
Abeg how can I send my application to the company, it is veeeeery important
Re: A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by Tallesty1(m): 7:18am On Aug 04, 2015
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a land owner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’

So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.

About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.

So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.

When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.

‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?

Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.

Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’


“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

1 Like

Re: A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by Nobody: 9:08am On Aug 04, 2015
Orishishi.
Re: A CEO Raised His Company's Minimum Wage To $70,000 A Year, And Some Quit by asumo12: 1:57pm On Aug 04, 2015
ismokeweed:
Orishishi.


Dem smoke weed nI

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