“What Henry Ford understood about wages”
Seth Godin shared this short and to the point blog post below.
Henry Ford had it right.
When we get more productive, we get to raise wages again.
When I suggested we raise wages during yesterday’s GM meeting, the room turned very cold. It was the GM’s who resisted my suggestion. And they were correct in doing so… Boloco already pays about 20% above market”, and we aren’t able to raise wages further because we aren’t doing things differently.
We aren’t measuring customer throughput (# guests per hour we can handle when pressed) regularly, we aren’t finding ways to be more productive, to do more with less. But if we, as a team, can find innovative ways to do the same work in less time, Boloco is a company that WILL raise wages (because I am ALWAYS trying to raise wages, to a fault, because generally speaking they are always too damn low for those receiving said wages!)
Begin forwarded message:From: “Seth Godin”
Subject: Seth’s Blog : What Henry Ford understood about wagesDate: May 17, 2017 at 5:16:23 AM EDT
Every time Ford increased the productivity of car production (in one three-year period, he lowered labor costs by 66% per car), he also raised wages.Not merely because it’s the right thing to do.
He did it because well-paid workers had more to spend. On houses, on clothes, and of course, on cars.
There’s a positive ratchet here.
You can’t shrink your way to greatness.
When you enable your workers (and your customers) to do more, connect more, produce more and get paid more, you create a positive system. The goal isn’t to clear the table, the goal is to set the table.
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