Prompted by the article: "Does paying workers more hurt business? A complete guide to the minimum wage." by Jeff Spross
These are my simplistic views on a minimum wage (MW):
- I'm not even sure if it should be called that.
- "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys". I am not in the business of selling peanuts, nor do I wish to call myself or my employees 'monkeys'.
- The MW at least gives me some kind of threshold at which I can peg (realistic? reasonable?) expectations of my employees' performance.
- If my clients are not happy with the quality of work we provide, it's got absolutely nothing to do with how much I pay (or don't pay) my employees.
- If other companies in my industry don't wish to follow the MW, they may be free to do so. Chances are they will be stuck in the cycle of catering to the lowest common denominator of clientele. Some of their staff may be attracted to my offer of a better wage and I will be justified in seeking to max out their potential to contribute to the company. Chances are my staff retention rate may improve.
- I would most probably pass on the added manpower costs (some, not all) to clients. This will make me correspondingly more accountable for the work I deliver. And hopefully, they will have a truer sense of the value of the work we performed.
- We are dealing with people, not toaster ovens. I'm pretty sure the employees building Rolls-Royce cars are earning far more than MW. Many of them have been with that company for years, if not decades. They have a real sense of pride and ownership in what they do. If I want to position my company along these lines, then my employees (and I) need a starting point, so that we can start working together towards 'fair payment for fair service'. [You can also replace the word 'fair' with 'poor' and 'good'.]
- Without profit, I can't hire the people I want. The MW can allow me to price my service accordingly so that I can get a decent profit and channel it towards developing my employees, amongst other things.
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