I work in the warehouse of a small company. It is a successful company which has been in business for over 25 years. They have recorded steady growth until the pandemic when practically all businesses suffered major fluctuations. Now, it seems, we have finally achieved some semblance of prosperity. But I fear the future successes will be on the backs of who I affectionately call the “grunts.” The heavy lifters. The manual laborers. The hourly wage earners who are, for all practical purposes, interchangeable within their departments. Faceless bodies all committing identical motions.

Benchmarking, to explain, is when a company measures what employees will make by measuring what nearby companies pay their people. The company I work for is located in an industrial area of a small city. There is a wide array of businesses nearby. Some have some form of manufacturing on their premises as well as shipping facilities. My company has both.

When I was hired, I was given an Employee Handbook, not unlike other jobs I have had. In it, there is a “Mission Statement.” Again not unlike other companies. The company was founded by a husband and wife, who are still very much hands on in the day to day operations. Part of their mission is to always remain a privately held company so as to avoid the need to justify cost to profit margin. They only answer to themselves. And in maintaining the company control, they also control the culture. They call themselves a family company.

I don’t know how the pandemic affected the other companies in our area. I know what it did to the company I work for. At one point we all took a 10% cut in pay just to keep it afloat. Thankfully that didn’t go on for long but the point is that I felt there was a give and take that recognized the relative value. Now, it seems, we have tuned the corner and moved into a newer, colder business model.

I have a family. I treat them the way I treat them because of how I feel about them, who they are to me. How I show them I value them. And how I treat my family has nothing to do with how my neighbor treats his family. They all seem to be very pleasant people who enjoy their lives. Same for my family, for the most part. But except for the location of our homes, we probably don’t have similar needs beyond the basics.

Thats how I feel about benchmarking. How a nearby employer treats their people has nothing to do with me, and visa versa. At least it shouldn’t. Its great if a company can pay their people well, perhaps better than what other companies pay. But if a company has a down turn, that shouldn’t affect my take home. I can’t effect change in that other company in any way, but somehow it has become my burden.

If a company can afford to pay their workers well, they should. If they cant, then that becomes the shared burden. In that event, everyone understands they must all move in the same direction to get to better times. Benchmarking sends different people in different directions.