Dan Price's experimental minimum wage increase for all his employees has clearly paid massive dividends for the company.
The CEO runs Seattle-based Gravity Payments and decided to cut his own wages by 90 per cent so his employees could enjoy a $70,000 (£52,612) minimum salary.
He was mocked by some commentators, who told him it wouldn't be sustainable for the business, but Mr Price has set the record straight about how beneficial it's been.
Dan wrote on Twitter: "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.
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"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."
He dropped stats like math was going out of business in several follow-up tweets.
"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 told his followers.
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."
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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.
"At the start of the pandemic, we lost 55% of our revenue overnight," Dan said. "Our employees were so invested they volunteered to take temporary pay cuts to prevent any layoffs. We weathered the storm, paid everyone back and are now giving out raises."
He explained how the wage increase was sparked when he found out an employee was working a second job at McDonald's to get by.
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Dan said no one should have to do that when they're already working full-time and so he cut his pay to make sure everyone else got a fairer salary.
He's calling on other companies to reflect a similar change and watch their business grow.
"I don't miss anything about the millionaire lifestyle. Money buys happiness when you climb out of poverty. But going from well-off to very well-off won't make you happier. Doing what you believe is right will," he said.
Featured Image Credit: Dan Price/InstagramTopics: News, Inspirational
