- 10 Jul 2015 16:32
#14580555
The real answer lies in individual situations. For example.
In large companies wages are often established higher up and far away. These "position driven" wages seek to establish and one-size-fits-all pay scales based on complicated job descriptions and comparable pay surveys. The results are sometimes bizarre. HR types are not known as the brain trust in a large company. They are the very archetypal bean-counters. I remember seeing a job ad once for a large corporation CFO. (A headhunter who was chasing me showed it to me.) This was probably a half million dollar a year job. The published job description included graduation from a top-tier business school, a decade of executive level (vice-president or higher) experience at a Fortune 500 company and national recognition in the field. To these qualifications some idiot HR type had added...."must know how to use Lotus Notes and common business machines including copiers and fax machines".
The point is that very frequently worker (as opposed to senior management) wages are not controlled by those who see the worker everyday. They are an afterthought to senior management and left entirely to the HR types. Mouth-breathers to a man.
Sometimes wages are driven by local economies. I know one person who was transferred from San Francisco to Arizona and allowed to keep her San Francisco wages. She earns about four times what the Arizona hires earn. For now anyway.
In small businesses the decision is close and personal to the people who actually supervise employees. These leaders can offer small increases only. So the employee who really wants to excel may do far better than the supervisor's ability to extend rewards. This does not mean that the additional productivity is not "worth it" to the employee. If one is earning $12.50 an hour and doing four times the work of another employee, it will never happen that the reward will be $50.00 per hour. What is possible is that this good employee might get a raise to $16.00 per hour. Though it is nothing like real recognition of their level of productivity it is still a enormous 28% raise! (And probably way more than the employee should expect.)
Anyway. The short answer is that most wages are driven by job description and prevailing wages rather than productivity. In mid to large companies, the only people likely to know that an employee is surpassingly productive are unable or extremely limited in their ability to offer a raise.
One more problem. It is likely that a production worker who is so productive that they stand out to management will be offered a job in supervision or management as a reward. In this the company descends to very bad management. Here is what happesL
They promote the superstar production worker to supervision.
They lose the 4 to one productivity of an exceptional worker.
They expect this worker to motivate his/her fellow workers to perform like he/she did.
They fail to give the new supervisors the tools necessary to reward the extra work.
When the new supervisor fails, they shrug and say, "well I guess he/she was just not management material".
This happens with commission salesmen all of the time. They make a boat-load of money on commission and get promoted to management where they not only take a cut in pay, but have no clue how to train and motivate others to do what they did.
Anyway. Management of workers these days has little to do with the tenants of capitalism.
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
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God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh.
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