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I've never really bought into the 'more stress and responsibility at the top' thing. I've never been convinced that a General has more stress sending people to war than those fighting it; or that a hospital administrator is more stressed than the nurse on the ward trying to fit 40 patients into 30 beds; or that a headteacher has more hassle than a someone teaching geometry to a bottom set year 8 class when the kids haven't even mastered sitting down yet ...
From my experience talent tends to stop at mid-level. There are certain positions where if you go any higher you're no longer doing the thing that attracted you to the work in the first place. Those truly interested in doing good work remain there.
The incompetent, time-servers, and arse-lickers seem to be those that keep on rising. Their only passions are money and prestige so sitting around having 'essential' meetings all day suits them fine.
Look around you. Look in your own place of work. Do you truly believe that those at the top are worth 10x, maybe even 100x, what you earn?
Wow, there's some deep values showing on this thread.
@easily - I'll ask again, and repeat a couple of other questions from the thread.
- how much should that CEO earn in your view?
- what 'shit job' things is the CEO doing - give us an example.
I'll also ask:
- define 'mid level' in responsibility and salary
- what's your job been in life?
I'm talking in general and you're asking for specifics. I might as well ask you what precisely the CEO has done to earn that money, or what 'good' things they have done - give us an example.
I'm really not sure why you want to know about my career - what exactly does this show one way or the other?
However, I've spent most of my life as a school teacher, a diving instructor, and a mountain bike guide*. I'm currently working with adults with learning disabilities.
* This sounds like you might have to be a great cyclist. You don't and I'm not. You just need to know where all the good spots/routes are, and be fit enough to get to them. Oh, and to carry a bag full of spares.
I’d say that sometimes it’s true, more often it’s not.
Swap more often and sometimes around and I'd agree.
I’ve never really bought into the ‘more stress and responsibility at the top’ thing.
In your examples you have picked 3 of the more stressful key worker jobs there though.
Now consider a charity CEO, managing 100's or 1000's of staff, worrying about very variable income streams against very variable outcome stream, meeting strict governance requirements, etc.
Vs someone with a much smaller remit, say designing an advertising campaign or writing the monthly newsletter to send out to their donors.
I've done both - from a lab bench chemist up through middle management to 'the top job' albeit for a division rather than the whole company. It drove me to near suicide, and the money just wasn't worth it. I now earn £35K less per year in a middle management role and while it still has stresses (right now I'm trying to manage projects and workloads for a team of 40-odd to ensure our revenue doesn't tank) it is chalk and cheese.
There are resources online like https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities who do objective analysis on how effective charities are at delivering help to the people who need it, and how cost effective they are. Some charities in are more effective than others.
More generally, bigger charities have to be run like businesses. People are working full time for them, it's not something they do in their spare time. Things like chugging and charity bike rides to Vietnam are all subcontracted to event organisers because the charities aren't going to specialise in running these things themselves.
All you can do is look at how a charity spends its money, what they achieve, and decide where you are happiest to donate.
Look around you. Look in your own place of work. Do you truly believe that those at the top are worth 10x, maybe even 100x, what you earn?
I've seen people at that level who definitely do have that impact on a business through their own competence. And the opposite can also be true. Personally speaking (and I'm definitely no CEO!) I've had fundamentally different positions in a business and in some of them my value was significantly greater than in others.
I think it comes down to tangibility and risk/reward. I guess a prospective CEO must be able to convince the board:
I plan to deliver x amount of improvement to your business.
Here is my track record of delivering x in other scenarios.
To do this, you must pay me a salary of y - which will be small in comparison to x.
The problem for care workers is, wtf is x? How do you make tangible the dignity and humanity provided by a decent care worker? And to be frank, when our society has largely declined to care for the elderly themselves, how do you avoid the embarrassment of the conversation in the first place?
I worked for a charity - a housing association that also had a care home. I ran the care home - complete 24/7 responsibility. I had 130 staff reporting to me and copntrol of well over half the whole budget of the HA The rest of the HA was around 30 staff. I was paid 1/10 of what the CEO was
In other countries we do not have this huge discrepancy between the board and the workforce in salary.
Matt, how about ~3x the lowest paid worker? Everyone wins, if those at the top want a pay rise those at the bottom must get one too. Basic economics keeps the bottom on a fairly competitive field so it doesn't get silly.
Chuggers used to twist my tits something rotten, trying to guilt me out of my loan money whilst getting paid £7.50 an hour to do so.
I agree with you there @squirrelking. I think there should be a solid relationship between ends of the pay scale AND sustainability (financial, social, environmental) of a business. Charity or otherwise.
I'm more interested in the OP's disdain for anyone in such senior roles and what value they can bring. It's also the amount of money he's objecting to, not the relationship with other salaries in the business (I think).
My CEO earns about 20% more than me, and about double the lowest earner, in a national charity. I earn less than most of the teachers we train and support, and I'm no.2 in the organisation...
If the OP is cross with this organisation, he better not look up some of our richest charities. Huge profits, outrageous sums invested and property owned, tax breaks, high salaries for senior staff and many, many managers, all within a ponzi scheme of an industry. All supported by the government (and part funded) by taxpayer money. Universities.
😉🤔
I’m more interested in the OP’s disdain for anyone in such senior roles and what value they can bring...
My CEO earns about 20% more than me, and about double the lowest earner, in a national charity. I earn less than most of the teachers we train and support, and I’m no.2 in the organisation…
You and your CEO seem like precisely the sort of people I'm not talking about.
I worked for a charity – a housing association that also had a care home. I ran the care home – complete 24/7 responsibility. I had 130 staff reporting to me and copntrol of well over half the whole budget of the HA The rest of the HA was around 30 staff. I was paid 1/10 of what the CEO was
What happened when you asked for a massive pay rise?
easily Member
From my experience talent tends to stop at mid-level.
Look around you. Look in your own place of work. Do you truly believe that those at the top are worth 10x, maybe even 100x, what you earn?
(edited quoting)
I work for a charity. The boss earns about 6 x the lowest paid employee. She brings in considerably more than 6 x the income.
Like in all walks of life, and all avenues of commerce, there are some chancers running charities and some really talented, well intentioned and deeply committed people. I hate to burst the bubble but some head-teachers work harder than many of their staff, just the same as some classroom assistants work harder than their heads.
What's sad is that this thread has exposed a tendency for some people to assume that all big charities are run by greedy halfwits, only interested in feathering their nests.
If nothing else, charities' accounts are all in the public domain. By all means do your research, see what the Director/CEO/whatever is earning as a proportion of income, and make your decisions accordingly. But don't assume we're all the same.
(And no, no reasonable charity is expecting anyone on the NLW to contribute anything).
(And no, no reasonable charity is expecting anyone on the NLW to contribute anything).
So basically any of the big names then.
"oh it's only a couple of pints a week"
"you probably spend more on a takeaway"
"you can afford that"
etc.
All heard from Chuggers and doorsteppers who won't take no for an answer with not a shit given to income.
I got chugged by the r s p c a last year
Turns out the chugger worked for a 3rd party chugging co. They had a deal with the r s p c a to keep a huge whack of all the money raised. Like 1/3 off the top up to run the chuggers.
Needless to say i didnt sign up
That is the standard chugging model, if they get you to sign up they get a lump sum. It works out as long as you stay with them for over a year with the same debit amount.
You may not like the model, but charities don't get sponsors for free, they have to attract them which costs them money however they do it. A lot of them pick the chugger model as it works for them.