What Salary Number Is "Happiness?"

Welcome back to This Week in Culture, and happy Easter Weekend. I hope you’re enjoying it with loved ones, and I hope you realize what Easter really signifies – rebirth and growth, starting anew, resurrection, etc. It’s been a weird couple of years around work, and you can see the anti-work movement growing more than we expected. We see new messaging about dropping engagement and involvement almost every day. It doesn’t have to be this way, though – your organization can also have a rebirth. Feel free to contact our team at Culture Partners to talk more, too.

For now, let’s get into this week.

麦当劳 ’s layoffs: There’s been debate for a few years now about how to handle layoffs, and which types of layoffs are “more humane,” and this debate has scaled since COVID because of more people on WFH. Do you bring someone into an office to … lay them off? Is that more dignified because it’s face-to-face? Some senior leaders still struggle with how to handle this. Well, McDonald’s did it right this past week. First off, they had announced potential layoffs for April back in January – giving employees time to figure out what they wanted to do. Then, they sent all desk workers home during the layoff period, so that they could have a potential layoff discussion in the comfort of their home, and not be subjected to the “HR perp walk” we’ve all probably experienced once or twice. This is actually a master class in layoffs, and Mickey D’s deserves credit. I got the chance to discuss this on CNBC on Wednesday morning:

Benefits and culture vs. salary: Which is more important? Phrased another way, let’s say you could make really good money but you’d have to work in a toxic environment with bad bosses and unclear priorities and you’re probably running in circles every day. Would you? Or, you could make less money, but have a place where you’re inspired and like your colleagues and don’t feel burnt out on Friday night and maybe can organize something with your partner, friends, kids, etc? Most people would take the latter, as has been proven in multiple studies. Obviously money is a big part of life, and the salary offer needs to be a factor in any decision. But … it’s not everything.?

What do you say? Salary or culture?

Speaking of that, what salary number is “happiness?” Remember about five years ago, when it was trendy to write articles saying that someone who makes $117,000/year in San Francisco is under the poverty line? And these articles came years after some oft-cited research that $76,000/year was the supposed “magic number” for happiness. Well, because the economy has been relatively chaotic for 2-3 years now, some of the researchers involved in the happiness-salary discussion got together and did what’s called “adversarial collaboration” to determine if there’s a set salary number tied to “happiness,” which is obviously very hard to individually define and also varies by geography. You can read the research at that link, or summarized here, but essentially they raised the $76,000 research to about $105,000, but also noted lots of factors are at play for happiness.?

What’s your take? Do you think there’s a specific number, or no??

So, are we working less? Bloomberg reported that Americans are working 30 minutes less per week now. LinkedIn profiled the news, noting that – and this feels crazy, but is true – 30 minutes less per week per person across the economy is equivalent to losing 2.4 million workers. There is a rush to ideology around headlines like this – “Quiet Quitting!” “No one wants to work anymore!” “Free money during COVID!” – but the real reasons for this are complicated and vary by person. At the highest level, from the work we do, I would say that a lot of people reconsidered their relationship to work during the pandemic (especially the early stages), and then I’d say some CEOs and senior leaders really understood that and leaned in and embraced flexibility and new models and blocked off days where meetings couldn’t be scheduled, etc. At the same time, some leaders doubled down on surveillance, control, and fear. In the long run, the good leaders who shape good cultures around our evolving relationship to work will win, and the other leaders will lose – good people first, then eventually market share and capital access.?

“ADP said employees who stayed in their jobs last month saw a median 6.9% pay increase from a year earlier, while those switching employers experienced a 14.2% rise.” That’s from this story. Another argument for job-hopping? Perhaps. The lesson to senior leaders here is that you need competitive compensation packages, even in an unclear macroeconomic time. By “competitive” I mean you need to do research around geographic norms (someone in Topeka and someone in Seattle don’t need to make the same for the same role, no) and competitors and job titles. You don’t need to break the bank for everyone, but you need to be fair.?

Book Reco: People ask me for book recommendations a lot. Here’s one: Presence, by Peter Senge. It is 15 years old this year.

Why such an old one? It’s a great book for leaders trying to figure out how to show up and understand the trends swirling around them, and to figure out how to parse out signal vs. noise. It’s also good for parents and lots of other people in important societal roles. Senge also has one of the most-cited papers on profound change, which is admittedly a 300-page PDF – but grab it for your next long plane ride. It’s very important stuff. You can also read a much shorter article of his, “Awakening Faith In An Alternative Future.”

A New 100: Fortune put out their new 100 Best Places To Work this past week, and the selections do indeed reflect an ever-changing world of work.

Shout-out to all the leaders doing the hard, but necessary, culture work in their orgs and leading through a very uncertain time. Shout-out to the heads of household doing the same on this important weekend. Shout-out to those who realize love can be an aspect of work. We see you, and we’re always here to help you out.?

See you next week.?