Are we just a bunch of free agents? Is this what sports have taught us? If we think we aren’t making market value for our job, or if we’re unhappy with our current employer, we can’t seek a trade to another company, like athletes do, but we can apply and interview for a new job, essentially a try out for a different team that wants our services. When we get that new job, we play for that team for a while and when we’re unhappy or undervalued again, we try out for another new team. I’m a big believer in loyalty. I worked for the same company for 15 years before moving to Houston and switching careers altogether. However, as I stated a while ago, I am currently looking for more. Part of it is that I feel undervalued, but a bigger part of it is that I am underutilized. My intelligence level is way beyond this job, as well as the fact that this place is family owned. While they ask for my input, they don’t really want it, they have their minds made up before I open my mouth and that makes being here difficult. It’s too bad really, because this place has problems that I know I could fix, but I’m not being allowed to do those things, so I sit here and write blog entries when I have either the time or a topic to write about.
Going back to my original point though (are we just some free agents?), this seems to be a phenomenon that has only recently taken hold in the U.S., say the last 20 years. Before then, workers showed loyalty through good and bad times for their employer. I’m not sure loyalty really exists anymore. People come and go all the time, even here. It’s a wonder we get any work done because we’re always training someone new. By the time they know what they’re doing, they’re usually gone because they can get paid more elsewhere. Part of it I blame solely on this family for not paying their employees fair market value, but part of it I blame on the people themselves. They use this place to get their careers in order, get experience and move on to a better paying team. "That workplace may be better or worse, but there’s more money over there." That’s what the driving force is for most people. They need money to support themselves, their families, healthcare costs, childcare costs, 401K and other retirement funds, hobbies, habits, activities, vacations, social events, sporting events, transportation and the list goes on. I realize the cost of living is rising faster than the cost of wages and that people don’t want to settle for middle class anymore, you’re either wealthy or you’re not. It’s not about being happy in your mediocrity, it’s about being comfortable, maybe only slightly above mediocrity, but to them it’s comfortable.
The reason I’m bringing this all up is because in my economics class yesterday, we were talking about how companies should be required to give cost of living increases, even if they can’t match the current rate of increase, they should have to give you something to offset how much a home value or the price of gas has increased. I was quick to point out that not all companies could do this, such as small family owned companies like this one. I started to think about how to resolve this issue, or at least give a starting point as to how to resolve it and I came up with this:
Tax credits for companies who pay for healthcare and childcare costs for employees under a certain, government dictated, wage level . Instead of giving them tax breaks on silly things that hurt the environment, the local economy, or worse a tax break to the top 1% of Americans. Give them tax breaks that actually help the economy. For example, (and this is JUST AN EXAMPLE!) company X makes multi-million dollar profits on a yearly basis and employs 100 people under this wage level (let's say 35K/year). If they pay for their employees health insurance and pay for the 50 people who also have childcare costs, let’s say they have to pay 6K/employee for healthcare and 4K/employee for childcare (I don’t know how reasonable those numbers are, but we’ll go with them anyway), that’s 10K/employee, times 50 employees is 500K and then for the other 50 employees it will cost them 300K. That’s 800K/year to take care of their employees. Now, the company has made a very significant investment in its employees, what do they get in return? Well, they get a tax break on a certain percentage of what they paid out in those costs. I think it would have to work in brackets, sort of how it does now, where the more you paid, the more you get back. In any event, the company is winning because its employees are happier and the employees are winning because they just got a raise without their base salary increasing. Happy employees lead to more loyal and productive employees. Without the high turnover, the company becomes even more productive and sees its profits grow to heights unseen before. Maybe to partially offset some of this, the company also reduces the number of personal time off days each employee earns, not by a lot, maybe just a couple days/year, but this way, instead of a company paying you to not be at work, you are at work and being productive. Companies could get creative on how to offset these initial costs, but in the long run, doesn’t this sound like a huge win-win?
Now of course, here’s the glitch: does this plan make enough money for the government? If they are giving these tax credits out all over the place, is there anything left for them? Well, here’s the answer the Democrats are going to love: raise taxes. Of course, it can’t be a ridiculous increase or this wouldn’t work at all, but if we raised it even just a little, it could work.
What about the employees over that wage level? Well, maybe they get a percentage of their costs paid for, as they do now. To me it’s obvious that if you make over X amount of dollars/year, you should not be in trouble financially and if you are, it’s your own fault and your employer shouldn’t have to bail you out because you can’t budget well enough (let’s hope you don’t work in the accounting department!).
I believe companies have given-in to their employees in many cases, which is due to the low-level people in the organization sometimes being more important to the day-to-day functions than some CEO making $20 million a year is. But, in my mind, there are all sorts of benefits to this plan. It works for the company, the employee, the government and local, regional, state, national and global economies. It does have a downside though, psychiatrists may not have as many people coming to straighten their lives out because people would be happier. Well, I know I would happier, I could use the health insurance so I can pay for seeing my shrink.
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