Thanks for your reply, Sam. I also directionally think higher salaries overall would be good. I read your second paragraph (Staff fly economy, etc) as reasons why CG might use the talent more productively than peers would; that employee produces stuff but w/o the other operating expenses that another org might have. That’s the cleanest case where I see no major cons with the higher-than-peer salaries.
But my anecdotes are two cases in recent months where NGOs were trying to recruit people who were really attracted to the role but the salary was considerably lower than their current salary (at GW in one case and Gates in another). The NGOs “couldn’t” match because it wasn’t just matching one person’s salary; you wouldn’t want the new hire to be paid more than their supervisor so you’d have to re-align a lot of people’s salaries. The gap between that first choice candidate and other candidates wasn’t large enough to justify that total cost.
Anyway, I am quite open to the idea that, all things considered, the higher-than-peers salaries are the right thing to do. My hope was to prompt more explicit thinking about this, if it’s not occurring, and, if it is, more sharing of that thinking, in the spirit of radical transparency.
Look forward to meeting you when I am back next fall and happy to participate in a club event.
Thanks for your reply, Sam. I also directionally think higher salaries overall would be good. I read your second paragraph (Staff fly economy, etc) as reasons why CG might use the talent more productively than peers would; that employee produces stuff but w/o the other operating expenses that another org might have. That’s the cleanest case where I see no major cons with the higher-than-peer salaries.
But my anecdotes are two cases in recent months where NGOs were trying to recruit people who were really attracted to the role but the salary was considerably lower than their current salary (at GW in one case and Gates in another). The NGOs “couldn’t” match because it wasn’t just matching one person’s salary; you wouldn’t want the new hire to be paid more than their supervisor so you’d have to re-align a lot of people’s salaries. The gap between that first choice candidate and other candidates wasn’t large enough to justify that total cost.
Anyway, I am quite open to the idea that, all things considered, the higher-than-peers salaries are the right thing to do. My hope was to prompt more explicit thinking about this, if it’s not occurring, and, if it is, more sharing of that thinking, in the spirit of radical transparency.
Look forward to meeting you when I am back next fall and happy to participate in a club event.