Workers demotivated by executives' high pay

mayonnaise

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/18/workers-demotivated-by-executives-high-pay-survey

Strange concept if you ask me.
During my 35+ years career, I have not once thought about what others (including my superiors) earn. Not once. None of my business and I couldn't care less.
My motivation came out of job satisfaction and my own salary, not the salary of others.
Probably another sign of this culture of jealousy and envy, so pervasive in our society today?

mystic_trev

mayonnaise wrote: »

My motivation came out of job satisfaction and my own salary, not the salary of others.
Probably another sign of this culture of jealousy and envy, so pervasive in our society today?

From the article.

Six in 10 employees told a survey that the high level of chief executive pay discouraged them in the workplace, and more than half of those surveyed felt that high level of pay was bad for a firm’s reputation.

A lot of it's down to job satisfaction.

60 per cent of UK workers not happy in their jobs

https://www.investorsinpeople.com/press/60-cent-uk-workers-not-happy-their-jobs

I also agree there is a culture of jealousy and envy.

lisyloo

Agree with both of you that there is a lot of dissatisfaction with work and instead of doing something constructive people's unhappiness tends to come out as jealousy.
Having said that if you have bills to pay and responsibilities it is very very easy and sometimes the best thing to stay in a job you don't love. If that's the case then I best you need to accept your choices, but I think this is just human nature to be envious of others who appear to have it better.
Chances are some of those execs at least are pretty stressed and many will be available 24/7. I'm not expecting sympathy for them (oh no) but just saying the grass can be greener and often high pay comes with sacrifces like not seeing your family much, being avaiulable 24/7 and sometimes even cancelling holidays.

I was going to say "what does this have to do house prices" and them realise I was labouring under a mis-undertanding that this was the house prices board :-)

Graham_Devon

It's the huge divide between pay that causes a rift. This comes at a time exec pay is increasing and we've gone through 5-6 years of cuts to pay and cuts to hours for most other people.

Just writing it off as jealousy would be totally ignorant. It's also far too easy as it simply ignores all the fundamental issues.

chewmylegoff

My own personal experience is that it is easier not to think about it when the person who is earning £££ at the top of the food chain is there on merit (eg. They built the business up theselves from scratch) and difficult not to get somewhat annoyed when the opposite is true and someone incompetent is getting paid mega bucks and then breaks everything with their meddling and somehow gets rewarded for their failures by being promoted into an even more senior role which they screw up even more badly.

I have come across both, sadly the latter more than the former.

PasturesNew

I don't mind how much they earn ... as such ... but I do hate the way that pay at the lower end of the scale hasn't increased for 20 years for many.

As technology/automation has increased, people have been replaced by machines and pay has languished at old rates, waiting for NMW to catch it up.

Increasingly bosses have seen NMW as "THE wage".

For those that can get that topped up by benefits, that's great, they've plenty ... for those that can't, tough t1tty.

chewmylegoff

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's the huge divide between pay that causes a rift. This comes at a time exec pay is increasing and we've gone through 5-6 years of cuts to pay and cuts to hours for most other people.

Just writing it off as jealousy would be totally ignorant. It's also far too easy as it simply ignores all the fundamental issues.

Alternatively even if it is jealousy it is only human to feel that way and it is down to execs/management to ensure that they do not spawn jealous resentment amongst their own workforce by paying themselves ridiculous amounts whilst cutting everything else back. I should think it is much easier for a business to be successful if the staff don't resent the management.

moneyistooshorttomention

I must admit that I wonder where anyone on low pay - say up to £20k (or even pretty standard type pay - say "£25k-£35k") is supposed to get any motivation from if they live in a part of the country where its a struggle to buy housing.

That would be the vast majority of the country then:(. £25k compared to, say, even starter houses coming in at not much under £200k = what's the point of trying basically? That being - because you can't even get something as basic as that starter house - unless you get a lot of parental help OR get married and you both plug away at saving literally every single penny possible for gawdknowshowlong in the hope you can "outrun" house prices.

stator

I think the reason for this statistic is that the top execs aren't seen to earn their pay. People get paid huge amounts of money, the company doesn't improve, maybe they lay off some people, the execs leave on the merry go round to another company where they are paid large amount of money. Some more execs come in and are paid large amounts of money and achieve nothing again.

When the economy was booming it was easy to pretend that the highly paid executives were earning their money because the company profits were going up, everyone was happy. But given all that we've been through; and are still going through in many sectors, there is no obvious result from all that pay.

PasturesNew

Where I live, say, I'd be going to work for a (good) salary of, say, £19k.

That's a take home of £1300/month.

Rent on a 1-bed flat is typically £650, council tax £110. So there goes £760. Chuck in basic bills (don't turn the heating on much) of £100, cost of travel to work/general transport costs of £100 and basic foods at £100 and there goes another £300. So now we're up to £1060 gone. That leaves the princely sum of £240/month to "live" on....

Not much lifestyle there... you're just trudging along, without much joy in your life ... for the first year you'd be saving ALL that "in case" your landlord decided to sell up and issue you with a S21.

Lose your job and be out of work just one month looking for a new one and there goes another entire year's "spare" money.

So, on reflection, you can't really afford to go out as you need to save every penny to cover those two eventualities..... and if either of them occur you're back to square one.

And that's on a "good" salary of £19k.

Meanwhile, execs are poncing about with top of the range cars, fancy dinners, holidays abroad, new clothes, gadgets and trappings .... and sliding in late without the fear of the sack.

And you know that when their OH wants a new holiday home in the Seychelles it'll be YOUR job that goes to pay for it.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's the huge divide between pay that causes a rift. This comes at a time exec pay is increasing and we've gone through 5-6 years of cuts to pay and cuts to hours for most other people.

Just writing it off as jealousy would be totally ignorant. It's also far too easy as it simply ignores all the fundamental issues.

It's fairly well established that once a certain pay level has been achieved (which isn't high) further increases only increase happiness on a reduced scale. After that happiness becomes much more relative as we compare ourselves to, predominantly, our peers.

That's why I very much doubt the average, for example, BT worker knows or gives a flying fig about what the company executives earns. If they find out, however, someone doing the same job is earning £500 more their happiness and motivation will suffer out of all proportion to what can be insignificant sums of money.

It's human nature and envy is part of human nature.