Come on....why can't they? There are 300 million people in this country. They can't find a qualified person to do the job for $500K vs $1,000,000?
They aren't just looking for qualified. They are looking for "the best available person", or even paying enough to make people who where otherwise not available, become available.
Of course there are a number of options as to what to do with the money but a first good step is getting salaries lowered.
Its always in their interests to lower the salaries, if they can do so with no reduction in the quality of or the morale of the employees, including those at the top. But if they underpay compared to what other "elite" schools pay, they will tend to lose the top candidates.
Of course there are a number of options as to what to do with the money but a first good step is getting salaries lowered.
Perhaps, but the point is that they are separate issues, even if they do lower the salaries of the top people, its still likely to be a bad idea to pay well above market rates for the less skilled people, unless 1 - By doing so they get better people, and/or less turnover and 2 - The returns of getting better people or reducing turnover exceed the value of the additional salary. If they do get better people, then just possibly the extra money could be worth it, but then they aren't helping the people who would otherwise be at the bottom (at least at the school), they are rather replacing them with better candidates. They will be pulling from a pool of potential employees who are already qualified for higher wages, nor raising the wages of the poorly qualified. Also while one or a few schools (or other employers) could possibly benefit from doing this, most or all of the benefit is a comparative benefit of offering higher wages then other employers. If everyone tried to use this tactic, it wouldn't work any more. |
