Don’t Blame the CEO. Recruitment agencies, Remuneration authorities and Poor Board Governance have resulted in excessive salaries being paid to Top executives over the last two decades. The madness needs to stop.
KASPANZ acknowledges NBR’s copyright of this article
which can be viewed HERE
Having at some time in my life worked and headed up HR departments it was always my concern that all members of a department and team benefited from salary developments including the salaries of the leader and GMs etc. I vaguely remember a number of senior managers saying that useless saying “if you pay peanuts you get monkeys in management” yet salaries in those days were based on the CEO, the management pecking order and the numbers of staff they personally managed and were responsible for in the day to day activities of their departments. There were few hands off managers in the whole team and all were actually expected to understand what their department did from top to bottom and expected to keep that team informed and involved in such aspects as the strategic planning process, with everyone expected to have an opinion and a consideration for the future of the organisation. Those organisations that I worked in that only consulted the top two layers did not involve the ordinary staff or ignored the input from lower level staff often found themselves either filling too many vacancies as staff walked away realising their input had been ignored, or in some cases the plans never came fruition because of a lack of knowledgeable and capable managers and staff to make it happen.
If I remember salaries went berserk in the late 90’s when comparisons were made with overseas CEO’s and when there were very few changes to the ways that organisations worked and produced. this continues to this day I might say. The Banking Industry comes to mind. I remember a Boss and colleague of mind in the early to mid 2000’s saying no person was worth umpteen million for any job because if they were honest they would never sleep and their out puts would never be achieved.
Come on New Zealand there are useful ways to assess the value of all work and decision making and if the CEO is a worthy and a developmental CEO and at the end of the year or term of office a reasonable and not off the wall bonus would be fair recompense. The biggest losers are those at the bottom of the career trail and pathway really Share the money right down the tree and everyone puts more into the job and gives back more than a fair days work for a good wage.