Question

In organizations, sometimes there can be animosity amongst lower level employees about whether or not senior executives could do their jobs. It often presents itself with statements that sound like, “these people are making the goals and decisions for me but don’t even know how to create a financial statement.” So the question remains... should C.E.O.s be able to do the technical tasks of the front-line/customer facing employees? (Example: teller at a bank/running a teller drawer, cashier at retail store/running the cash register, accountant/creating financial documents, marketer/creating advertisements)

Why or Why not? Explain using the technical, interpersonal, and conceptual skills information you have learned in this module.

Answer 1

Wage differences are and have always been an integral part of the economic make up of organizations across the globe. The reason for them emerging is the differences in skills required to do a particular job, the level of education that a person has and his overall return or productivity for a firm.

The growing disparity in income among the top and the lower levels of an organization are evident and some people may have their own reservations about the same.

However, in reality these differences exist due to the perceived benefits which an organization believes that an employee is providing them. The Chief Executive officer gets paid for his skills of managing and taking people forward whereas a teller gets paid for the specific skills required to do his job and each role is different.

If hypothetically both people would be doing the same job, then the need for wage differences would not be there, but the overall productivity of the organization would go down significantly.

It is important to realize, that in micro economics (firm level economics) wage differences are an integral part of the makeup of any organization. They exist due to the differences in skills and it is not possible for everyone to do each other’s jobs.

The roles of different people will always be different, and we cannot expect one person to be able to do all jobs as this would not match their skills and abilities.

Please feel free to ask your doubts in the comments section.