The Simple Definition of The Salary Levels

I believe the advent of the repeated 70 hour week is a core business problem of today — but it’s not about me or my newfound buddy. Do not feel sorry for the elite, the top 1% who, by the simple definition of the salary levels they enjoy, have profoundly more money than sense, and financial safety nets that enable them to walk away and do something else.

The real issue emerges when this hits the masses — the bulk of the management and staff that make up most corporations. Over the last decade or two, far from the predicted world of increased leisure, the work week has expanded — in some cases dramatically — for the ordinary man and woman. ‘Re-engineering’ (common definition: doing the same tasks with dramatically less people), cost cutting (usually including recruitment and replacement freezes) and misguided investments in systems and technology (that do not deliver the planned savings in manpower, but where the manpower is fired anyway), have all led to crisis level under-resourcing in many corporations.

Of course, the only option not available to management in these cases is to ‘fess up.Stop and think: have you ever heard, or even heard of, a manager of any profile or significance addressing an analysts’ meeting, or an employee group, and opening with the words: ‘Er … er, well … look, guys, we messed up. That reengineering/downsizing/cost cutting/huge investment in technology (delete as applicable), … er, well … it didn’t come through as planned and we’re taking those 11,000 folk back on. If they’ll have us.’