Pay everyone the same? What a joke

My friend r has worked hard for years in the television industry. He started with nothing, built up his own successful business, sold it for a nice sum, and now works as a director of a well-known international production company.

They have just started an inclusivity committee, largely made up of younger members of staff, to form in-house opinion and corporate culture going forwards.

The committee’s first proposal? To add up the company’s total wage bill and divide it by the number of employees, so that everyone is paid the same amount.

My friend’s decades of experience, the thousands of important decisions he has taken, the celebrities he has promoted, the contacts he has made, the documents he has rubber-stamped, the responsibility he has shouldered, the meetings he has chaired, the deals he has negotiated, the staff he has fired, hired and mentored, the opportunities he has seized, the plans he has made, the corporate triumphs and failures he has learned from along the way?

in this brave new world, all these count for nothing. His efforts are valueless in the aggrieved eyes of new recruits who regard baby-boomer executives as worse than useless.

He would be paid the same as the post-boy — sorry, post-person — in a company where no one was incentivised to do well, or try hard, or take instruction from a senior colleague leading the charge. As r said: ‘Over my dead body.’

Still, one fears for the future if this lot ever seize control.