Robin Hood

By Frank Mulligan - Recruit China

In a strong hiring market like China or India, recruiters and HR staff are often challenged by management to maintain internal pay equity.

What this means in practice is that they must ensure that no one employee is much more highly paid than others. Justifiable differences are fine but very big differences have to be kept in check, or kept in the dark.

The justification for this is couched in terms like ëcost reductioní and ëminimizing salary inflationí, but recent research suggests that as human beings we just donít like big differences, irrespective of personal preference or company policy.

Itís genetic, and it seems we are all Robin Hood.

According to a new study published in Nature, researchers at the University of California, Davis, selected and randomly separated 120 students into groups of four. Subjects played a game where they were assigned an amount of money and each player knew how much money the others in their group had, but not who owned what amounts.

The game play was that each student had the option of using some of his or her money to purchase the right to have the researchers subtract or award cash to another participant. Complicated, right?

The end result was that every time they played the game the subjects adopted an egalitarian attitude when distributing the wealth. They took from the rich and gave to the poor, just like Robin Hood. Nearly 70 percent of the players reduced someone elseís income at least once, and three quarters of them gave up a little to help someone in a weaker position.

It seems therefore that the egalitarian impulse with regard to internal pay equity is built into us and is related to the fact that we are more cooperative than other species. We want cooperation from others and we will punish them for not cooperating, even if it is not in our interest.

So maintaining internal pay equity is not just good business sense, itís a good fit with human behaviour. Itís a pity itís so hard to do in China.

Email frank.mulligan@recruit-china.com
Frank Mulliganís blog - english.talent-software.com