How Much Should Exceptional Employees Be Paid? MORE
Jeff Haden
Speaker, Inc. Magazine contributing editor, author of THE MOTIVATION MYTH, ghostwriter.
Where a truly great employee is concerned, forget pay scales. (Here's how to know if an employee really is truly exceptional.)
Forget industry standards. Forget thinking, "I can't afford to pay any of my employees that much."
What should you do when employees are truly outstanding?
Pay them more.
Why? Consider this story from The Breaks of the Game.
In 1974, the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted Lynn Swann. Swann was the 21st pick in the draft but his agent, Howard Slusher, managed to get him the second-highest starting salary of that year's rookies. (In simple terms, Slusher managed to get Swann paid like a #2 pick instead of a #21, a rare feat.)
At the press conference to announce the signing, Art Rooney, the owner of the Steelers, pulled Slusher aside. "You think you screwed us, don't you?" Rooney said.
Slusher took the politic route and didn't respond, although privately he did think he had gotten the best of the Steelers.
"You're wrong," Rooney said. "We got you. My son says he's not a good football player, he's a great football player. Probably the best draft pick we've ever had. Maybe better than Terry Bradshaw or Joe Greene." (Since Swann went on to have a Hall of Fame career, Rooney's "great" prediction was right.)
Slusher could tell Rooney wasn't done making his point. So he didn't respond.
"Let me teach you a lesson, young man," Rooney said. "You can never overpay a good player. You can only overpay a bad one. I don't mind paying a good player $200,000. What I mind is paying a $20,000 player $22,000."
And he was right. Great employees are worth significantly more -- to teams, to customers, and to the bottom line -- than average or even above-average employees.
Sometimes twice as much.
Sometimes multiples more.
Truly top performers are rare. So forget scales and benchmarks. Pay your superstars not just as if you want to keep them... but as if you desperately need to keep them.
Because you do.
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Speaking and Leadership traner and Accessibility Consultant
6 年Truly exceptional people who are not compensated accordingly will do one of two things. Either they will go to another job, where they will be paid according to their performance or they will sand-bag until they can go to another job where they will be paid according to their performance. Either way, the one who will not pay will never see what that person can really do.
Self storage Manager/Warehousing Experience
7 年That is very true about significant employees are worth more. They go above and beyond the call of duty.
Business Owner at Scarborough Law
7 年I see your point, buy how do you reconcile this with the laws requiring equal pay for "substantially similar" work?
USMC Veteran | Technical Project Manager | SAFe Agilist, PM/PO | Cybersecurity | InfoSec | GRC | Cyber Data Analysis | M&A
7 年I agree with the point of the article with one small tweak - COMPENSATE at higher levels. Pay is only one dimension and not everyone responds to or values financial compensation the same. In the spirit of ‘The Five Love Languages’, learn about your staff individually and understand what they value. For some, it will be money, time off, a new/bigger computer monitor, better tools, flexible working hours, etc. Identify how they want to be compensated, then put the broad brush down and start sowing into their lives in their preferred methods. You will stop losing your Rock Stars and you will see even higher levels of performance.