Not necessary. It just reward high achiever less and reward underachievers better.
P/s underachievers =/= losers.
I won't even define them as high achievers and under achievers. We are too much conditioned by the Govt's definition of meritocracy.
If you have a good education, you have high merits and you are an over-achiever. Otherwise you are underachieving. Here we are talking about different type of jobs. How can we talk about underachieving and overachieving?
If we ask an office manager and get him to clean all the toilet bowls within 10 minutes, something which the office cleaner can accomplish with ease and if this office manager fails to do within the given time, that is what I call underachieving. I will measure him not by what academic papers he holds. Of course I will pay him the salary of an office cleaner, a bit less than the regular guy and not according to the academic qualifications that he holds. To me that looks equitable.
Back to the question of pay for this office cleaner. As the office manager is not good at toilet cleaning, we have put him back to his office manager role which he can accomplish with ease. All he needs to do is to screw up everybody he sees in the office the first thing each morning so that everyone is on their toes.
Then he goes to his boss' office and tells him the star investment of the day, lucky 4D numbers, any good sales at the stores and then go back to his office to read and post on Sammyboy. Because of his high academic achievement, he can impress most of the forummers there except those who are jealous of him. Then he put his legs up on his desk and relax or call up his girl friend or chiong buddy.
His boss has a Golf game with his kakis in the afternoon. So he helps the boss to load the Golf bag and Boston bag into the back of his car. Once his boss is gone, again he put his legs up on the table and relax.
For this job, he gets $6000 a month and, being in the good book of his boss, he is expected to get 5 months' bonus this year.
As for the office cleaner not only has he to clean all the toilet bowls, sinks and basin plus the walls, refuel the washing solution, hand towels, tissues and toilet papers, twice a day, just before lunch and just before close up time, he also has to empty all the rubbish baskets, vacuum and clean the floor, desktops, computers, phone sets and cabinets. His working day is effectively used to the full with a 45-min lunch break. For this he is paid $800 a month. He only enjoys a 13th month bonus if the company makes money.
The question now is if the office manager is paid $6000 for a relatively switched off job and he has proven not been able to do the job of the office cleaner, shouldn't the office cleaner be entitled to something more than the $800? He is an overachiever in his work and he has demonstrated that he can do it even faster than his manager.
From this example, it is difficult really to determine where the balancing point of equitability is. One thing is sure. Both employees work in the same company.
An office cleaner could be a bad example. Maybe he can be dispensed off but what if he is an office worker instead, say, someone who invoices the customers. Now that is an important job. If he quits or he falls sick, the Company would suffer. Assuming there are a 100 of such workers, each handling a different office task. The office hums with them working efficiently and the office manager can put his legs on the table and relax.
Not so if because they are such good workers, the rival company hijacks some of these staff. The office manager will then have to put his feet down on the ground and call the recruitment agencies, at the same time makes arrangement for covering of duties.
What I am trying to say is that these lower level staff, even though each job specs is valued lowly, together they form an integral part of the Company's operation. Without them, the Company will simply have no operation . So their value to the Company is significant. Should they be worth something more?
When we are looking at the office cleaner, we are looking at the sustenance level of salary. What level is that? If we are not able to pay him that, what motivation has he to work for you? Granted for some jobs you can find a cheap replacement who can perform equally well at lower pay, possibly a FT who sends home part of his salary and that is, on a PPP basis, a handsome sum in his home country.
We can consider this in two ways. First, is this job so critical to the local employee? If it is, then the salary must be raised above the sustenance level and we need to have in place things like FW levies to balance out the import of FW. If the job is not critical to the local job market , then let it be filled by FT and we enjoy the low cost that this brings. Without the first approach of handling this situation, we are letting a local problem to grow.
