Tinder for Payroll Management?
Jordan from Atlantic County, NJ, writes with a “million dollar question”—well, more of a enterprise than a question:
A buddy and I have a startup idea that we wanted to run by you. Essentially, think “Tinder for payroll management.” It’s an app that plugs into your existing corporate social media (Yammer or whatever) and instructs employees to swipe right on profiles of colleagues who they think are paid more highly. If they match, then both have their salary set to the average of their current salaries, minus a small commission for us (the service provider), a fixed percentage of which we pass along to the company (the client) as a cost-savings measure. The client doesn’t have to do anything but sit back and enjoy the cost savings.
If employees are maximizing expected value, then the equilibrium of this limited-information game is for everyone to play, because your salary can only increase. And if anyone is too risk-averse to participate, then the firm gains valuable psychometric data about its employees that it can use in promotion and salary advancement discussions.
Thanks for the idea, Jordan!
The first thing we at HEC would like to point out regarding your proposed money-moving matchmaker is that HEC doesn’t condone workplace relationships of any kind. They’re just too rife with opportunities for misstep into a pitfall.
A core principal of ethics consulting, just like business management, is the idea of balancing risk and reward, and the rewards just don’t quite come out on top in this case—that is, either in the case of the workplace relationships or this startup idea, which aims to introduce the already controversial “Tinder” into one of the most fraught environments of all, namely, the corporate environment.
That’s why we’re a soft no on this payroll management thingy. It just doesn’t add up. And how would it work for employees who actually have access to payroll data?
That said, HEC staff were impressed by your equilibrium analysis of the core dynamics at the heart of your business model. Ethicists love to reason about about “the deeper truth” and your investigation of such questions as: Would it work? How? What are the incentives? Why? … is in firm keeping with the longstanding tradition of asking tough ethical questions and pursuing the answers. So, keep it up!
And you, dear reader? Light our inbox (and your day) up with your ethical dilemma by emailing us at hades@acaciavalleyhoa.org.