Merit-based pay terrorizes salarymen

[Taro Toporific]

EDITORIAL: Employee evaluations
Subject executives to the merit-based pay system.
IHT/Asahi: December 1, 2004
...When the Japanese economy kept growing vigorously year after year, the seniority system of automatic pay increases was the norm in Japan...However, as the Japanese economy has entered an era of slow growth or even contraction, many companies now cannot afford to keep paying handsome salaries to all their senior workers... quite a few companies that have used the new pay system to give raw deals to young employees while providing generous compensation for sections with big in-house clout...

[dimwit]

Incentive based pay sounds wonderful in theory but in practice, few people who deserve the bonuses get them. As a result of this, one of the companies a work at opted to return to a senority based system knowing that it was far more difficult to temper with.

The incentive based pay system only works in a situation where shareholders have a say in the control of the company rather than being snowed under by the management as is so often the case in Japan.