Would You Take a Pay Cut to Save Jobs?

[jellyrug]

boy this is going to draw some fire but here is what I see every day..

Worker will walk down a hallway, step over a piece of paper and leave it for someone else to pickup...

Many if not most of the staff I deal with on a daily basis REFUSE to do anything outside their defined little job description citing "I am not paid to pick up trash", or "I am not paid to {insert duty here}"

I work exactly opposite of that, I find things that need done.. I grew up in a family that was self employed (my parents never had jobs they went to, they had business's that they worked).. A CEO MUST find value and keep a company moving forward or the company will die..

The worker mentality is one of "how easy can I get it", not "what can I do to make this better" sad part is most will blame this attitude on "pay scale" not even taking into consideration that they might just in fact command more money by being a "pro active" person..

Different folks, different strokes.???

Me, I work on the "need principle", it means that in my profession I make sure that the organization I work for REALLY needs me, by the value I add. If I ever even get close to the point where I personally feel I do not add enough value and I am not really needed, I am gone, bye bye, find somewhere else where I can be more useful. Never been unemployed, never had to even consider a pay cut in my life.

Think about work as your profession. What is the goal of a professional motorcyclist? The goal is to be the best and get across the line first, get into the best team, have the fasted lap times. Try and be a professional with exactly the same motives in your job, after all this is 2/3rds of your life, so why not capitalize and make it as competitive and as much fun as possible.

If I had to be unemployed tomorrow, and the only thing available was flipping hamburgers at Mc Donalds, I would gladly accept the challenge. Once in, I'll figure out how to get the best lap time, so I can get Manager status. Once there, figure out how to get hold of a franchise.

Sorry for being a BAD ASSED capitalist, but capitalism creates jobs. Look at your glass as being half full, not half empty, as the USA still offers a very high standard of living for anyone who is willing work hard and put the ego aside, especially those who want to cross the line first. We have something no one else has, a mass of hard working Americans, unified and a politically stable country, compared to all our neighbors.

Life is about the choices we make, the current economic mess has nothing to do with exploiting foreign competitive manufacturing, it has to do with financial miss management in the lending institutions, so credit has dried up. I believe 2009 will be tough, 2010 much the same and in 2011 we will again see growth.

Those who are unhappy about jobs lost to sourcing better prices overseas, if your Busa was made 100% in the US, the price tag would probably have been twice what it is today. I believe in 2011, foreign labor will not be as affordable as it is today and some of those jobs will come back here.

Never take a pay cut if you have a choice, rather figure out how you can help your company to be more sucsessful by influencing your peers, management and workers, so you can create more jobs.

 

[skydivr]

+1 for both of the above! Bringing more value/earnings/sales/income enables an employer to keep or pay you more in many instances - but this one may be so deep that it's still going to require sacrifice from everyone.

We stopped paying someone to clean up; the President, Vice-President and I alternate between emptying the trash and cleaning the toilets ourselves. Whatever it takes.

 

[Mr Bogus]

+1 for both of the above! Bringing more value/earnings/sales/income enables an employer to keep or pay you more in many instances - but this one may be so deep that it's still going to require sacrifice from everyone.

We stopped paying someone to clean up; the President, Vice-President and I alternate between emptying the trash and cleaning the toilets ourselves. Whatever it takes.

Oh man you had to say that... I clean the bathrooms and take out trash daily.. Guess I can add Janitor to my skill set huh?

 

[Dino]

absolutely not... I as a business owner take all the risks.. you the employee is guaranteed a set wage for set hours.. I am promised nothing but an endless line of other costs associated with having employees.. When I am done paying the other half of your costs (every dollar I give you costs me at least 1 more dollar in taxes, insurance and benefits and in some case even more)

I now have to make sure my vendors are paid
Delivery services are paid
and a ton of other nickle and dime expenses that just never end..

At the end, I either take the loss or take the gain... If I am loosing, you want to contribute back in? I think not.. But if I continue to loose, we are both out of our jobs.. By the same token, if I make a profit one year you think is too much, you want a piece of it? what about the years I went without a new car, lived in a cheap apartment and drove a 20 year old car? I did not get any instant gratification and elected to gamble my net worth on a good year...

So NO you are not entitled to my banner profits on this one year..(or any other year for that matter..) You want a financial gain with zero risk? You got what you invested in... Income redistribution or something more easily swallowed? Socialism or worse communism starts with this type of "1 man, 1 pay check no mater what he does, they all make the same money"

Of course with out the good employee you feel is not entitled to anything, you would never see the banner profits....

 

[SAMBUSA]

I tried, company wouldnt let me

 

[Mr Bogus]

Of course with out the good employee you feel is not entitled to anything, you would never see the banner profits....

then hire on under a contingency... I make money, you make money... your idea of profit without risk is really pie in the sky.... You contention here is absurd...

Good employee gets to work another day... Great employee gets raises, other job offers and more money.. so do not even pretend that if you do a great job you do not get compensated.. I have gone well out of my way for "Great" staff members.. (as has most any good manager, great employees are a asset to be treated as such.. if you are unaware of this treatment, well look inward, not outward)

 

[SAMBUSA]

then hire on under a contingency... I make money, you make money... your idea of profit without risk is really pie in the sky.... You contention here is absurd...

Good employee gets to work another day... Great employee gets raises, other job offers and more money.. so do not even pretend that if you do a great job you do not get compensated.. I have gone well out of my way for "Great" staff members.. (as has most any good manager, great employees are a asset to be treated as such.. if you are unaware of this treatment, well look inward, not outward)

You forget union workers Randy. It doesnt matter how great of a job you do, you get paid the same

 

[suzuki4life]

pay cuts of employees do not keep companies afloat. Now if my company said they would pay extra in order to cut my benefits...I might consider it. If the US dumped the 700 billion into a universal healthcare system, they could cut the needs for companies to provide medical insurance which in many places costs more than the employee's salaries that are being paid.

Many retirees will be using their entire pensions to cover medicare and insurance costs alone therefore, their retirement does not allow them to retire at all.


Universal health care is where we should be investing...not in banks. Without restrictions on the banks on how they lend cash, we will be back in the same shape we are in or worse within a decade.

 

[suzuki4life]

You forget union workers Randy. It doesnt matter how great of a job you do, you get paid the same

you know that's funny...as a union worker we have BEGGED to have profit sharing for the last 6 contracts. Each time the company shoots us down.


Reality of it is....as a union worker, you have someone there to watch the books and call a company a liar when they claim they didn't make a profit. In a non union company, you get whatever scraps they throw to you. Your only option is to quit.

 

[Dino]

then hire on under a contingency... I make money, you make money... your idea of profit without risk is really pie in the sky....

Good employee gets to work another day... Great employee gets raises, other job offers and more money.. so do not even pretend that if you do a great job you do not get compensated.. I have gone well out of my way for "Great" staff members.. (as has most any good manager, great employees are a asset to be treated as such.. if you are unaware of this treatment, well look inward, not outward)

I would say you are more likely the exception rather than the rule because the statistics don't support your assertation that all great employees get compensation. Executive compensation has grown more than a hundred times in comparison to the average worker. This in and of itself is a major part of the problem.

You're using a microscope to look at a problem that requires a macro lens.

 

[SAMBUSA]

you know that's funny...as a union worker we have BEGGED to have profit sharing for the last 6 contracts. Each time the company shoots us down.


Reality of it is....as a union worker, you have someone there to watch the books and call a company a liar when they claim they didn't make a profit. In a non union company, you get whatever scraps they throw to you. Your only option is to quit.

We just gave up profit sharing for a different plan. We get 6% of our quarterly earnings for working without getting injured

 

[Mr Bogus]

I would say you are more likely the exception rather than the rule because the statistics don't support your assertation that all great employees get compensation. Executive compensation has grown more than a hundred times in comparison to the average worker. This in and of itself is a major part of the problem.

You're using a microscope to look at a problem that requires a macro lens.

you have never been an employer then or you were a poor one.. You do not allow good employees to get away.. mediocre or "so so" staff members can do as they please, leave or stay, I do not care..

I have never been around any work place were truly good employees are overlooked... (and because you "think" you are a good one, does not make it so)

Man you socialist guys are killing me here... I started as a lacky at a $10 an hour job and make maybe 4X that now... They know I got their back here.. (my income depends on it)

 

[SAMBUSA]

you have never been an employer then or you were a poor one.. You do not allow good employees to get away.. mediocre or "so so" staff members can do as they please, leave or stay, I do not care..

I have never been around any work place were truly good employees are overlooked... (and because you "think" you are a good one, does not make it so)

Man you socialist guys are killing me here...

Again, you forget union shops

 

[Dino]

then hire on under a contingency... I make money, you make money... your idea of profit without risk is really pie in the sky.... You contention here is absurd...

Good employee gets to work another day... Great employee gets raises, other job offers and more money.. so do not even pretend that if you do a great job you do not get compensated.. I have gone well out of my way for "Great" staff members.. (as has most any good manager, great employees are a asset to be treated as such.. if you are unaware of this treatment, well look inward, not outward)

you have never been an employer then or you were a poor one.. You do not allow good employees to get away.. mediocre or "so so" staff members can do as they please, leave or stay, I do not care..

I have never been around any work place were truly good employees are overlooked... (and because you "think" you are a good one, does not make it so)

Man you socialist guys are killing me here...

Why then do you stay in the US? I am sure you could find employees in India that can provide a highly skilled workforce at a fraction of the cost of doing business here, thus creating even greater income for you.

 

[Mr Bogus]

Again, you forget union shops

Union has nothing to do with this.. (well they are a considerable part of the problem).

Union assures that great employees carry the deadbeats... not my loss, yours.. You trade individual achievement for the "group mentality" of a job..

can not fire a union guy without a buttload of headaches.. so you tolerate the bad ones (and they suck up any benefits a good guy might deserve).

 

[suzuki4life]

so what is a good employee?

In our shop the good ones are the ones who make the most parts or repair the most job sites...

same guys with the highest scrap rates and absentee problems.

I did a good job and got more responsibility, same pay, no extra options to overtime and more headaches.

I fought to take a cut in pay ......less headaches and I do no more than the guy ahead or behind me does. In a non union shop I would've been stuck and given more headaches with more advancement. I was lucky I got anywhere even in a union shop. People think unions are cure all's. They are not.

 

[Mr Bogus]

Why then do you stay in the US? I am sure you could find employees in India that can provide a highly skilled workforce at a fraction of the cost of doing business here, thus creating even greater income for you.

This is where you fall out of the economic theory sir...

Free enterprise allows anyone to provide services for anyone else.. IF I am making such insane money, you can go open a competing business, charge FAR FAR less and make your millions... Fact is that is NOT how it works.. profit margins are in the single digits for all but the best run companies..

you need some economics reality here.. If you can save 10% on production, you slash like amounts off the sale of said services or products to cut under the competition....

You act like employers are running work camps and this is not the case... they are trying to provide services and products at competitive prices.. when you fail to do so, you go the way of the Big 3.... stop and think about his a bit and I am sure someone can suggest some good books on economics for you to read..

 

[suzuki4life]

Union has nothing to do with this.. (well they are a considerable part of the problem).

Union assures that great employees carry the deadbeats... not my loss, yours.. You trade individual achievement for the "group mentality" of a job..

can not fire a union guy without a buttload of headaches.. so you tolerate the bad ones (and they suck up any benefits a good guy might deserve).

sorry in our shop the union doesn't make us float the dead beats...our pathetic task makers do...

easy to notice that all of our dead beats are tight with the supervisors.

and when you mention it to the union of unfair treatment. Unless you are being disciplined, they don't want to hear member vs. member friction.

 

[Mr Bogus]

sorry in our shop the union doesn't make us float the dead beats...our pathetic task makers do...

easy to notice that all of our dead beats are tight with the supervisors.

and when you mention it to the union of unfair treatment. Unless you are being disciplined, they don't want to hear member vs. member friction.

most unfortunate and hurts everyone...

 

[Mr Bogus]

Disclaimer: I may be full of chit on this theory (I only have 3 semesters of economics) but the entire subject is amazingly simple and complex at the same time.. Another aspect seems to be even the wildest of theory can be made to sound reasonable.. Fact is the classroom and the work place are different.. I am just mirroring what I have seen in the work place and what seems to work for my specific type of work...