A Raise in Wages Is NOT Always The Answer

As a former human resources manager one of the things I heard a lot was “when can I get a raise” or “are we getting a raise this year”. Back then twenty years ago I had not yet figured out that more money wasn’t always the answer.
 
Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad fame is credited with saying “It’s not how much money you MAKE that’s important, it’s how much you KEEP.”
 
Why don’t companies spend more time teaching employees this concept?

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There are many ways to do this. Teach them budgeting, financial management, fiscal responsibility, etc. In fact, one of my pet peeves is that we should be teaching kids in school at an early age how to manage money. We don’t even teach it in high school or at the university level.
 
One of the ways that we save money is by cutting coupons for groceries or to get a deal on Pizza. I challenge people that save money like this to take that saved money and put it in a jar or piggy bank per se.  That way, they can track and actualize their savings.
 
Now let’s talk about how this can benefit an employer. 
 
If you gave a full time, forty hour a week employee a dollar an hour raise, it would actually cost your company about $1.25 an hour when you factor in benefits like paying into a retirement plan or government deductions. That would cost your company $2,496 per employee per year.
 
For the employee they got an extra $2,080 per year but after taxes their take home pay would be around $1,500.
 
What my company decided to do was put together a program where employees could save on thousands of deals at hundreds of thousands of merchants throughout the USA and Canada. When they go on vacation they can save on hotels and rental cars throughout the world. Companies can also save on all their corporate travel.
 
So, let’s say a company bought a membership for $100 for each employee that would save them at least two thousand dollars annually. Using our numbers above, the company would save $2,396 per employee per year and the employee would keep far more money than they would from that $1.00 an hour raise.

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