

There is so much drama at Gravity that it will control your life. She struggles to get along with people managers and project managers, which has led to meaningful amounts of turnover. She gets down into the weeds on projects she does not fully grasp and has no accountability for her failures, of which there are many. Tammi does not have the experience or competence to lead and grow a small company like Gravity Payments. Figurehead Dan Price mostly stays away from the actual operation of the company and thus Tammi Kroll is the sole C-level person making decisions. Gravity does not have a proper leadership team. Direct promotions do not result in higher pay. You should know that Gravity does not have a meaningful corporate hierarchy therefore most internal movement is lateral. This has led to massive turnover in the past few years. Gravity has an official compensation policy that highlights paying above average wages to entry level employees and, relatively, very low wages to tenured employees. Gravity simply sells and supports Fiserv accounts and does a good job at it but there isn’t a bright future for Gravity without major upheaval. Gravity has not successfully launched any of its own products that reasonably compete with the leaders in the industry such as Toast, Stripe, and Heartland. You should know that Gravity is an independent sales office of a monolithic payment processor called Fiserv.

Start with these basics, and then find other ways to reward top performers, including stock options, training and development opportunities, and other incentives.No innovation. Of course, there is much more to retaining employees than pay, including hiring the right management team and creating a high-performance culture. Always focus on other incentives besides pay. This is why companies must base their salary adjustments on market conditions and not merely on a fixed rate of inflation each year, as many large companies do. If a company and manager are closely tracking the market, it will be rare for employees to receive offers that are much higher than what they are making. In this case, the manager likely allowed the employee's compensation to deviate too far from fair market value. For most people, it takes more than a 20 percent bump for them to consider leaving over salary alone. Leaving a job is a big decision, and most employees won't quit over a five to 10 percent pay increase if everything else is good. Related: Great Employees Don't Work Just for Pay. Any time a manager tells me that a top employee left over salary, I am always suspicious. Top performers cite lack of leadership and poor management much more often than salary and benefits. Many managers claim that their employees quit over salary issues, but survey after survey has shown that compensation is not one of the top reasons that people change jobs. In addition, leaders can better determine why employees leave. When entrepreneurs take salary off the table by paying people fair market value, employees can focus on what really rewards them: performing at their peak, improving their skills, and making a difference. With this in mind, here is what I have found that works in my organizations.

Related: What Dan Price Should Have Done Before Increasing Everybody's Salary to $70K This was the case with the employees who left Gravity Payments. The real problem arises when employees think decisions on pay are made arbitrarily, or that management is showing unjustified favoritism. However, employees can be demotivated if they perceive pay - theirs or others' - to be unfair. Fundamentally, as Daniel Pink outlined in his TED talk, people are motivated more by intrinsic rewards than extrinsic ones such as pay. Pay in particular is often one of the most contentious areas for employees. All of this begs the question: How should leaders handle pay in their organizations? Since then, he's lost employees and customers over the decision and is having some personal financial difficulties. Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price was lauded back in April for raising the minimum salary in his company to $70,000.
