A CEO of a credit card processing company is giving his employees more than they’re desired compensation by raising their salaries to over half of what they’re currently receiving.
Dan Price, CEO of Seattle-based Gravity Payments announced on Tuesday that all of the staff at the company’s new Boise, Idaho, office will earn a minimum annual salary of $70,000 by 2024.
“This morning we cut the ribbon on the new @GravityPymts Boise office AND announced that all of our employees here will start earning our $70k min salary,” Dan announced on Twitter. “I’m so grateful to work with this amazing team and to be able to compensate them for the value they bring to our community.”
The office in Boise was formerly an independent company called ChargeItPro, and Gravity acquired it as a subsidiary three years ago.
Dan has previously granted his employees a pay hike in 2015 after he read a study about happiness. There, he learned that increased income can make a notable difference in a person’s emotional well-being up to the point when they earn $75,000 a year.
He then decided to increase the minimum annual salaries for all his 120 employees in Seattle to $70,000, which is probably more than their desired compensation. To make this possible, Dan slashed his $1 million pay by 90%. The move doubled the pay of about 30 of his staff and gave significant raises to 40 others.
The 35-year old CEO said that he is the majority shareholder of the private firm, which he started in his college dorm room when he was just 19 years old. His older brother, who provided him with capital to get started, is the only other stockholder.
“I’m sick of being part of the problem, I want to be part of the solution,” he said at the time, according to ABC News. “Previously, I was making a million dollars a year and people working for me were making $30,000 a year and that’s wrong, I was feeding into the problem.”
Dan posted to Instagram on Wednesday about his decision of sacrificing his million-dollar salary in exchange for increasing his employees’ wages.
“A lot of people think giving up a million dollar a year salary and millions in profit is an unreasonable sacrifice to pay a living wage and give small businesses white-glove service,” he wrote. “Well, I am proof of one thing. It is worth it.”
The staff at the Idaho office were all excited with the announcement that he made, and Dan says that he has already heard from them how the salary increase has impacted their lives.
“I heard from somebody who was a single parent that they were not necessarily going to need to work two jobs anymore and they were going to be a better parent,” he said.
Dan’s business move has been shared all over the country and has inspired other company leaders to the same.