A Seattle-based credit-card processing company made headlines in April when the CEO announced that it would raise the minimum salary for all employees to $70,000 over the next three years. Now, several months into the experiment, that company is thriving.
Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments, told Inc. In a recent article that Gravity’s profits have doubled, and revenues are growing at twice their previous rate since he made the announcement in April.
Price, who decided to take a major personal paycut (from $1.3 million to $70,000) and mortgage two houses to invest another $3 million of his own money into the company in addition to raising the minimum salary of his 120-person staff, was inspired to make the move by a previous pay experiment.
In 2012, Price raised company salaries 20% after a conversation with an entry-level employee pushed him to question whether his employees were being sufficiently compensated. In 2013, he did it again. Both years, profits grew, and productivity rose 30% to 40%.
Price told Inc. That the April announcement has energized the company.