CEO who pays staff $80K minimum wage calls for companies to pay a fair wage

A boss who pays his staff a minimum salary of $80k per year has called for other companies to step up and pay fairly.

CEO Dan Price, who heads up Gravity Payments in Seattle, has previously revealed the impressive package he offers employees, including $80k (£66k) salaries as standard, remote and flexible working as well as paid parental leave.

Now he's called out for other companies to offer their workers the same, adding that they should 'treat them with respect'.

Writing on Twitter to his 764k followers, the CEO wrote: "My company pays an $80k min wage, lets people work wherever they want, has full benefits, paid parental leave, etc.

"We get over 300 applicants per job.

"'No one wants to work' is a hell of a way of saying 'companies won't pay workers a fair wage and treat them with respect'."

Sharing the same post to his Instagram, the CEO has been inundated with comments as many people immediately asked if he was hiring.

One follower asked: "If I ever move back to the states I would love to work for you."

"I barely get paid a third of that at my job. I need a new place of work. If you ever open up shop here in BC, Canada I’ll be the first to apply," added another.

A third commented: "Last year you had a 70k minimum! It's insane you're doing this and the majority of CEOs are crying poor and blaming everything but themselves. Don't stop being you Dan!"

Dan had previously made headlines for giving all employees at Gravity Pay a salary of $70k (£52,000) per year, before now increasing it to $80k.

He also took a pay cut himself as CEO, to ensure employees all received a 'fair' wage.

He previously shared his company ethos on Twitter, writing: "6 years ago today I raised my company's min wage to $70k. Fox News called me a socialist whose employees would be on bread lines.

"Since then our revenue tripled, we're a Harvard Business School case study & our employees had a 10x boom in homes bought. Always invest in people."

While some critics criticised his actions, and even called into question how his business would survive, Price shut them down stating how his company had improved hugely since the moves were implemented.

He followed up: "Since our $70k min wage was announced 6 years ago today: Our revenue tripled, head count grew 70%, customer base doubled, babies had by staff grew 10x, 70% of employees paid down debt, homes bought by employees grew 10x, 401(k) contributions grew 155%, turnover dropped in half."

He added: "76% of employees are engaged at work, [which is] 2x the national average, customer attrition fell to 25% below nat'l average, we expanded to a new Boise office & enacted $70k min wage there, our highest-paid employee makes 4x our lowest-paid employee, down from 33x."

Dan said the pandemic hit the company hard, but because he created a workplace culture that made employees know they were valued, they wasted no time putting in effort to ensure it survived.