Has your boss just received a generous payrise? If so then beware - according to researchers the more a boss earns the meaner they can be. Professors from three US Universities, Harvard, Utah and Rice, found that as a CEO’s paypacket swells so too does the disparity between their income and ordinary workers’ salaries which results in the boss feeling more powerful and so mistreating colleagues in the process. This equality in income can also result in the CEO seeing other workers as dispensable. The Australian federal government is taking steps to avoid super-sized payouts for executive pay, and is supporting nearly all of the Productivity Commission’s recommendations on the subject, including a proposal that will prompt a board spill if over 25 per cent of shareholders reject a pay deal in two consecutive years.
