They say that money can’t buy happiness. Here’s a company that is testing that theory.
The idea began percolating, said Dan Price, the founder of Gravity Payments, after he read an article on happiness. It showed that, for people who earn less than about $70,000, extra money makes a big difference in their lives.
His idea bubbled into reality on Monday afternoon, when Mr. Price surprised his 120-person staff by announcing that he planned over the next three years to raise the salary of even the lowest-paid clerk, customer service representative and salesman to a minimum of $70,000.
“Is anyone else freaking out right now?” Mr. Price asked after the clapping and whooping died down into a few moments of stunned silence. “I’m kind of freaking out.”
I could use that kind of freak-out.
Nice!
Did you read the NYT article? Talk about obtuse:
If it’s a publicity stunt, it’s a costly one. Mr. Price, who started the Seattle-based credit-card payment processing firm in 2004 at the age of 19, said he would pay for the wage increases by cutting his own salary from nearly $1 million to $70,000 and using 75 to 80 percent of the company’s anticipated $2.2 million in profit this year.
Now granted the salary cut is substantial. But the company has a 2.2 million profit this year, and after the staff salary bump will still be in the black. Yet somehow, for the NYT, this sounds like a bad thing. There was a time when this was the right way to do business.
Right off the top of my head, I can think of about 120 employees who would probably seriously consider taking a bullet for their boss.