It’s normal for us to complaint how low our salary is; especially when we know our friends (in other companies of the same business) get higher paycheck. This happens to our bibik also, as she compares her salary with bibik jiran sebelah. However, how you can justify with your bos/employer that you (and your other colleague) deserve higher monthly salary?
One way of doing this is calculates your company’s productivity index; which calculate how productive you and your colleague (working for the same company) really are. You can do this by simply divide your company’s net profits with the total number of staff.
I did this very often when acquiring businesses. Since people are the most valuable asset above any other assets, I like to know how productive my ‘employee’ really is before buying the company.
For example, I’d plotted comparison of productivity index for notable Malaysian banking companies:
Although Maybank generates the most profits than others, the productivity index (PI) of its workers can’t beat Public Bank. In fact, Public Bank’s PI is 33% higher than its closest rival. As an investor, I can quickly know that Public Bank has productive employees and willing to give them all a salary adjustment (if they request) to retain them in the company and motivate them for more profits!
(WARNING: Obviously, None of above-mentioned banks are Syariah Compliants)
But what this PI really means?
There are various debates and management papers that argue what a productive employee should be. To me, higher PI can be coming from:
- Knowledgeable Employees : This is the most valuable asset. You need the required knowledge and expertise to explore strategic opportunity. The only way to do this is mastering existing knowledge or learning the new one consistently. Bottom line, they know what to do and how to do it for optimum cost, maximum profits & highest return for their shareholders.
- Self-Motivated Staffs: Sometimes, you don’t have to learn everything to get things done. You can get it from someone else and use it to complete your task/ assignment. However, to that, you need self motivation because it’s not easy for other people to teach you how to do things. You need need this traits to get the right things done on-time as well.
- Proud & Ownership: As an investor, I like employee who don’t work for money. They like to do their job simply because they love working for the company. They put their company’s interest above their own. If I’m the CEO of the company, I’ve no problem giving him/her higher salary to keep him/her in the company. Make sense?
Please remember that this will only give average indicator. Your performance might be better than the rest (or otherwise. ask yourself where you should belong?), so you shouldn’t be sad if you are working with less PI companies. If you have all the 3 skill set mentioned above, maybe its time for you to move on higher PI companies? Perhaps, you’ll be rewarded accordingly.
Side note, I think, we should be grateful to have one of the most (if not the most) productive employees in the world managing our oil & gas resources.
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