Employers often ask me how they can get their employees to work harder. I tell them to disregard conventional thinking and eliminate bonuses, discontinue incentive payments and reduce the base salary of everybody on their payroll.Needless to say, look of amazement on their faces is something to write home about. They call me callous, say I’m uncaring and claim that all their workers will leave if they implement this strategy. I say, “nonsense.” Jobs are hard to come by, and if their employees do pack their bags and walk out the door, it's an opportunity. Employees can always be replaced with cheaper workers—just ask Circuit City's management how much money that company saved when it replaced its salespeople with cheaper workers.
But enough with the rhetoric. Here are the facts. According to Bloomberg, companies that pay their workers very little, outperform those who pay their workers well. Look at Apple. The company’s fourth-quarter profit jumped 67 percent, topping analysts' estimates, after the company sold record numbers of Macintosh computers and made gains in the mobile-phone market.
And how much does Apple pay its CEO? According to Wikipedia, Steve Jobs earns $1 per year. Proof that the less you pay your workers, the harder they work. My only question is how does a company as big as Apple get away with violating the minimum wage law—which is $7.50 per hour in California according to that state’s Department of Industrial Relations?
Reuters backs up my argument that paying your workers as little as possible is the most effective way to get them to work harder. McDonald’s, which pays many of its workers minimum wage, increased its same store sales by 6.9 percent and has forecast earnings of 83 cents a share—6 cents more than the analysts predict.
If you need more proof that my strategy works, compare these companies to Citigroup, which last year paid its “now retired” Chairman and CEO Charles Prince, more than $22 million. For this sort of money you’d expect exceptional performance—and that’s what they got. Charles oversaw and organization that will write off more than $11 billion in subprime mortgage loans, and may be forced to lay off an additional 45,000 workers—on top the 17,000 people it let go in April, according to Marketwatch.
Society Today says the best way to get good people to work for you is to hire well-educated people who work hard for very little pay. While this does eliminate half of the workforce, women can be great workers.
I know this is a radical idea, and that I sound like a left-wing hippy, but face facts. According to a report prepared by Eurostat, women in the European Union live longer, are better educated and earn less than men. They also work more hours per day than men in every country surveyed except Sweden. So unless your business is based in Sweden, do you self a favor and hire as many women as you can.
To stay one step in front of the competition, check out my latest book: Dr. Young’s Guide to Demotivating Employees at Dolyttle & Seamore.
While I don’t really have any interest in hearing what you have to say about anything, if you have a burning desire to get something off your chest, email me: dryoung@demotivationist.com.
