On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Arlyn Danielson wrote:

:| No one can force a museum to pay more- especially since there are plenty of
:| museums on shoe-string budgets, but I think that if a museum can afford to
:| pay more in salaries, it should do so.  National salary standards based on
:| experience, educational background, and skills would directly benefit
:| applicants- who could use the standards as leverage in negotiating a salary
:| based on what they are worth.

The worth of an employee is not an abstract value independent of the
organization they are a part of.  I can get a lot more out of an
organization that has total assets of $100,000,000 than I can out of
one that has only $100,000.

Additionally, the worth of an employee is also determined by the
value he or she adds to the institution.  The more they offer, the
greater a salary they can command.

Conversely, an organization gets what they pay for.  If a firm
offers substandard compensation, they will get substandard employees
and performance.

I say all this, because whenever I have seen "salary standards"
bandied about in a discussion, the focus rapidly deteriorates from
"how can the organization and the individual both benefit" to "'The
firm is cheap.' vs. 'The employee is greedy.'"

If an employee cannot have a discussion about job performance and
compensation without having a ream of "industry standards" to back
them up, chances are pretty good he or she won't be getting better
pay no matter what the standards say.

Rich Johnson
Director of Marketing
Cotton Expressions, Ltd.