SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET : POWER, PRESTIGE, STATUS : How a Firm Can Reveal Who’s Who and Where They Stand
When Anheuser-Busch executives go to the firm’s headquarters in St. Louis, an airport limo isn’t always enough. The preferred mode of transportation: the company helicopter.
At the McKinsey & Co. consulting firm, associate partners just want to be consulted on the furniture that goes in their offices.
Across the nation, middle managers--often feeling overworked and under-appreciated--are looking for tangible evidence beyond a paycheck that their companies love them, career authorities say. In a world of mergers, cutbacks and often ambiguous hierarchies, experts say, symbols of status make executives’ heads spin more than ever. Moreover, companies often pass out the goodies because they know that routine raises and performance reviews aren’t always enough to satisfy employees.
“Prestige symbols offer the unambiguous feedback that an incremental salary boost lacks,” said Steven Kerr, a business professor and president of the National Academy of Management. “If you don’t have a parking spot by the door and eight other managers do, then, by God, you’re below them. They can fill your head with polite words, but either they do or don’t give you these perks. It says a lot, and everyone hears it the same way.”
In addition to choice parking, the plums of prestige may include bigger offices, access to the executive dining room or gymnasium, a generous expense account and much more.
At Busch, for instance, “the world is divided into those who can fly by helicopter and those who can’t,” a consultant familiar with the company said. “Where that line is, no one knows.”
A manager at Northrop Corp.’s headquarters in Century City said vice presidents are rewarded with a parking sticker that lets them take choice “executive visitor” spots near the front door of Northrop plants; lower-ranking employees often vie for spaces a good hike from the entrance.
At International Business Machines Corp., where belts are being tightened, just having a secretary is a major status symbol, a consultant said. “If you call IBMers now,” the consultant said, “most of the time you get their voice-mail system instead of a human being. If you get a human, you know that executive really counts.”
Other signs of status include a company car, a car phone, a company credit card, a personal computer or home fax machine, the right to make first-class airline reservations and the chance to take educational seminars for weeks at a time.
Conspicuousness is often part of a perk’s payoff. For instance, few things do more to distinguish people who appear equal on the organizational chart than being invited to key meetings or palling around in public with the boss.
Judith M. Bardwick witnessed a vivid example of status-by-invitation at a lavish dinner thrown by a Baby Bell phone company recently. Only three of the firm’s executive vice presidents were honored with seats at the president’s table, the La Jolla psychologist and consultant noted.
“Given that there were several other executive vice presidents at the firm,” she said, “everyone knew then who was in. Public seating is not taken lightly.”
To be sure, such sweeteners--however sought after--do not have the same effect on an employee as being promoted to a more powerful job. “The promotion is really where it’s at, and the perks are secondary,” Bardwick said. “The promotion is power, the chance to wield more influence.”
Yet workers like others to know of the power they do wield--and perks help send the signal, said Morgan McCall, a USC business professor. McCall is troubled by the lust for status in the workplace, which can spark jealousy and distract employees.
“Maybe prestige gets overblown because we’ve forgotten what makes us feel competent,” he said. “So we project it to external symbols of competence, such as whether I get a car or a corner office.” McCall also believes that companies rely on prestige to reward employees because standard performance appraisal systems are failing.
“No one trusts the annual appraisal system,” he said. “Managers don’t like it and subordinates find it awkward. We call everyone ‘above average’ so we don’t hurt people’s feelings, and that makes it hard to realistically reward and motivate people who really are far above average.”
In a similar vein, some authorities believe companies parcel out perks because a lot of managers don’t like their jobs. Morgan Harris, a partner in the executive search firm Korn/Ferry in Los Angeles, said, “If a company offers exciting work, it should have no need to hype its compensation with status symbols.”
That may be why a fast-moving management consulting firm such as McKinsey & Co. can get away with offering few perks to top people. Cathy Nichols Manning, a director at the firm in Los Angeles, said that when senior partners get something different, “it’s for a practical reason,” such as providing car telephones for executives who spend a lot of time driving.
“Distinguishing between people is not a good idea at a company that wants to maintain a free flow of ideas,” she said. “In our environment, you want even the most junior people to speak up at all times. There is an attempt to maintain a flat organization; we can’t afford barriers in communication.”
Psychologist Bardwick said that underlings are more candid with their superiors when a company de-emphasizes differences of power and status, and the organization benefits as a result.
Yet she doubts that status symbols--and the contest to win them--will vanish from the corporate landscape any time soon: “Prestige will remain immensely important because corporate culture is permeated with awareness of where people stand on the ladder even if it’s a short one.”
