Buffer case Assignment | Cheap Essay Services

Buffer, Inc. is a company that was started in San Francisco in October 2010 to create and develop the Buffer software application. The software, available as both web and mobile applications, allows users to manage and schedule posts to their social media accounts (e.g., Facebook, Twiner, and LinkedIn). According to

the company’s website, “Buffer is the best way to drive traffic, increase fan engagement and save time on social media. As of July 2019. Buffer was comprised of 85 employees, including co- founder Joel Gascoigne (CEO). Employees work remotely from 50 cities around the world. Buffer offers an online spreadsheet showing each worker’s first name, job title, location, and, ever since lace 2013 . . .  annual salary!

The highly unusual decision for a private-sector company to post such infor­mation online is part of a concept Buffer calls “Open Salaries”. In addition to the individual   salaries, the website makes public the simple formula that is used to compute each salary. This high level of transparency aligns with the second of Buffer’s 10 Values, namely “default Transparency”. The simple formula used to compute salaries is referred to on the company website as a “living document”, and indeed there have been three versions of the formula in the four years since it was introduced. Version 3.0. as Buffer calls it, aimed to simplify its predecessor, and was designed with four priorities in mind: ( I) It should be simple enough for anyone to use:(2) take-home pay shouldn’t drop for any worker as a result of the new formula: (3) it needs to be flexible enough to adapt and evolve; (4) compensation packages must remain competitive. The resulting formula as of September 2018 was:

Salary= San Francisco50%Benchmark x Cost of Living Multiplier

x Role multiplier x Experience Factor.

Buffer’s website elaborates on the four variables in the formula, but the basic idea is

That salaries start with the San Francisco labor market as a benchmark and then adjusted for a worker’s geographic location, role in the company. and amount of experience. The role multiplier is the primary channel via which discretion in the company can be incorporated. The latest formula eliminated an automatic “loyalty” raise of 3% per year for all employees, because it was financially unsustainable and made the compensation system less flexible, and therefore, less able to achieve other objectives. It also phased out a feature of the original formula that allowed employees to choose either equity as a component in their compensation or an additional $10,000 in annual salary

Questions

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages or making everyone’s salary at Buffer public on the company website?
2. Suppose that, instead, the company had disclosed the salary information to all of its workers internally, but not to the outside world. For example, since 1986, Whole Foods has allowed all of its employees to learn the salary of any worker in the company, simply by visiting the HR In what ways would such an approach be better for Buffer than its current policy of full publicity, and in what ways would it be worse?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a formula like Buffer’s to compute compensation for every worker in the firm, regardless of whether or not the formula is divulged to employees or the general public?
4. If a formula is used, what are the advantages and disadvantages of divulging the formula to employees? To the general public?
5. On the company website Buffer’s finance team describes the salary formula as a

“work in progress”, and it has gone through three versions in four years.

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of regularly updating and fine tuning the salary formula?
• When the salary formula was created, and each time it was revised, it was

done in such a way that each employee’s salary was guaranteed either to increase or stay the same. Was that a wise decision? If so, why?

• If you were on Buffe r’s finance team, what would be your primary concerns

about the salary formula? Can you recommend any Improvements to the formula to address those concerns?