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{{a|hr|{{image|Loyalty Discount|png|}}}}{{ | {{a|hr|{{image|Loyalty Discount|png|}}}}{{dpn|/ˈlɔɪəlti ˈdɪskaʊnt/ |n|}}{{Quote|“Our people are our most valuable asset.” | ||
— Every [[human resources]] department ever.}}For the miscellany of the [[HR]] military-industrial complex — salary bands, [[forced ranking]], gerrymandered [[performance appraisal]] system — all militate ''against'' the idea that staff are are a precious resource. These are lined up to ensure that, through time, an employee’s [[Compensation|pay]] will decouple from, and then trail, the value she offers her firm. | |||
That is, loyalty to the firm is progressively ''penalised''. If they get pay rises at all, they are anaemic. Accompanying protests of iniquity are shrugged off with the two-way optionality that HR managers know they are long. | |||
“As part of infrastructure, you don’t share in the ''upside'', but you’re protected in a down year” [[Human resources|HR]] will say, in a good year. | |||
In a bad one, they will tell you, “we’ve managed to minimise the [[RIF]], but we’re still under a 15% [[cost challenge]], so — just to manage your expectations, you’ll do well to be flat”. | |||
Now none of this is to defend, much less justify, city pay levels. Should we shed tears about relative disfavour among a group as systematically overcompensated as city drones? We should not. And we do not. But still, we should understand the [[systemantic]] forces at play. | |||
Fundamentally, the allocation of financial capital — which is the sum total of what the financial services machine, at its most basic level, does — is a risky, important and therefore valuable thing. Markets that most effectively allocate capital do best. In any case, those who are good at it stand to make a lot of money. This will not change. Effective capital allocation is worth paying for. | |||
The | The [[JC’|JC’s]] operating premise is that those who do get to do it do ''not'' do nearly as good a job of it as they should. Our [[roll of honour]] refers. | ||
If the system rewarded excellence, not mediocrity, perhaps fewer shitstorms would happen. So — with the caveat that, sure, everyone gets paid too much — we ask here a different question: how do we allocate pay more effectively? Resource allocation is, after all, what the industry is meant to be best at. | |||
===Mediocrity drift=== | |||
The longer good staff stay, the worse, generally, they are treated. Their only means to correct this — to [[mark-to-market|mark yourself to market]] — is to [[lateral quitter|leave]]. This seems a bit mad. | |||
To be sure, salaries may drift upwards, decade by decade, courtesy of [[HR]]’s finely honed calculus, predicated as it is on abstract, but unshakable logic: a director is worth more than an associate director; a good associate director worth more than a bad one, and so on. All true, and fair, in ''the abstract'', but here is the thing. Employees don’t ''work'' in the abstract. Only [[averagism|averages]] do. | |||
To be sure, salaries may drift upwards, decade by decade, courtesy of | |||
But the [[Modernist|modern]] world ''loves'' its archetypes. Just as the [[common law]] has its [[reasonable person]], economics its rational one, the boxwallahs of [[personnel]] have their average employee. | But the [[Modernist|modern]] world ''loves'' its archetypes. Just as the [[common law]] has its [[reasonable person]], economics its rational one, the boxwallahs of [[personnel]] have their average employee. | ||
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{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||
*[[Employment derivatives]] | |||
*[[Ergodicity]] | *[[Ergodicity]] | ||
*[[Lateral hire]] | *[[Lateral hire]] |