CEO takes 90% pay cut to increase staff’s minimum salary to £50,000

Team Udayavani, Aug 2, 2021, 7:19 PM IST

Dan Price, CEO of a credit card processing company Gravity Payments took a huge pay cut to ensure that his employees had a liveable wage.

In a Twitter thread, Dan wrote that he first realized his staff was having money troubles when he found a McDonald’s handbook on the desk of an employee named Rosita – who was training to become a manager at the fast-food chain.

Turns out the employee had to take up this second job because she couldn’t survive on the income Dan’s company paid her.

How I learned to be a better boss:

I was a bad CEO. 7 years ago, I found a McDonald's training handbook on the desk of an employee named Rosita. Turns out she was training to become a manager there because she couldn't survive on the income I paid here. I called her to my office

— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) July 29, 2021

Dan further wrote, “She was hiding the McD’s handbook and thought her 2nd job would get her fired. What kind of culture had I created? Scarcity and fear. Rosita is a college grad but was making $30k a year. She’d leave our job at 5 and secretly work 5:30-11 every weeknight at McD’s for 1.5 years.”

Rosita informed Dan that she needed a $10,000 (£7,156.50) raise to quit the second job – which he agreed to if she took on some extra duties. He wrote, “She quit the McD’s job, moved out of her crappy apartment, and used the free time to see her friends more. As her mental health improved, so did her work performance.”

Rosita soon got promoted to director of operations.

“A light bulb went off: What if we did this for everyone? So we more than doubled our minimum wage to $70k. Since then our productivity and revenue have tripled. 10x more staff bought homes and had babies,” wrote Dan.

Dan decided to double the minimum salary of the company to $70,000 (just over £51,000).

He further asserts, “The biggest thing I learned? Listen to your damn employees. Never assume you know what’s going on – never make top-down decisions without their input.”

He said that they hold weekly company meetings with everyone invited and have multiple reps from each team vote on our priorities each year.

He said, “I don’t miss anything about the millionaire lifestyle.”