None of us are numbers. We all contribute an infinite and inestimable value to the world. But sometimes, it’s hard to stop a salary figure from weighing on your sense of worth.
Michael Bradley, a Australian author, lawyer and founder of the firm Marque, has plenty to say on the damaging disparity between salary level and human worth.
He spoke at the Future of Work conference in Melbourne this week and stunned us with plenty of truth bombs, like this one:
“Money as a necessity transforms into a measure of worth because it’s one of only two things that are objective external signifiers of our value: money and status.”
And this:
“[Our salary is] commonly misconceived as how much our efforts are appreciated by the people we work for.”
We could go and blame capitalism for devaluing humans to a dollar figure (and yeah, it kinda does), but it looks like the model isn’t going away anytime soon. So, says Bradley, we need to work within it.
And what does that mean? Investing in employees’ growth — through upskilling, cross-training, mentoring and a professional development opportunities — and ensuring they feel valued by creating a supportive team network. To Bradley, it’s “convincing employees that what we pay them is not their sole measure in our eyes.”
This might seem like a given, but if you ask The Good Jobs Strategy author Zeynep Ton, many companies refuse to invest in people because “achieving excellence is so much harder than achieving mediocrity”.
The Adjunct Associate Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management also spoke at the Future of Work conference about what separates companies who deliver value to customers, employees and investors, from those who don’t.
If businesses want to succeed, these are Ton’s top rules:
Operate with slack (that’s the notion of unoccupied resources, not the communications app — although we think it’s pretty rad, too.)
Sharpen your focus and offer less (products or services fit snugly here)
Cross-train employees
Standardise processes and empower employees
The woman is a propeller of making capitalism conscientious. In her study of the world’s best businesses, she found many high achievers, such as Spain’s Mercadona and QuikTrip in the States, actually paid their staff double the required wage. Yup, they didn’t undercut employees and they made an awesome profit. Interesting, right?
Our not-your-average-lawyer pal, Michael Bradley, agrees. If you want your employees to feel valued “remove money as a factor,” he tells us. “Pay people more than their market worth… the financial investment will pay dividends.”
Bradley’s other advice might come as a shock to the corporate sector (Wall Street stockbrokers, we’re looking at you), but heck, if the GFC didn’t teach us anything….
1. Bonuses don’t work.
They engender a dysfunctional culture where, ultimately, no-one benefits.
Before Bradley went founded his own firm, he was managing partner of a large Sydney law firm and spent much of his year working out salary levels. Each year, the partners would rank each other’s’ performances (1–10) and a discretionary bonus was based on points. It might sound fair, but Bradley says “the true significance wasn’t the dollar figure, but the relative measure — how we were viewed by peers, relative to peers.” The system felt like a measure of how much each person was valued, and how much their peers thought they were worth. Instead of feeling rewarded, the partners felt judged, and depending on the shifting scales, egos could be unnecessarily inflated or harshly deflated.
2. Salary reviews shouldn’t be tied to performance reviews.
How well we perform our role shouldn’t always be connected with how much we’re earning.
3. Non-cash rewards are far more meaningful.
At Bradley’s firm Marque, when an employee reaches the five-year mark, they’ll be thrown a party and given a significant, but more importantly thoughtful, present rather than a wad of money. Oh and Bradley adds: “our staff never have to pay for their own drinks”.
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