: Why This Dating App Is Paying All Employees an ,000 Minimum Salary #WorldNEWS Feeld is a dating app that puts being progressive at the heart of what it does. For its chief executive Ana Kirova,

Why This Dating App Is Paying All Employees an ,000 Minimum Salary #WorldNEWS
Feeld is a dating app that puts being progressive at the heart of what it does. For its chief executive Ana Kirova, that’s an approach she aims to bring to the way the business values its employees.
The company, which offers users a range of flexible options and started out as an app for non-monogamous relationships, announced on Nov. 24 that it was setting a new minimum annual salary of £60,000 (,000) for full-time employees. The new minimum pay means 40% of Feeld’s 55 full-time staff will receive a pay rise starting in January. The remaining employees already earn above this amount.
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“We put the human first, both as a company and for our customers,” Kirova tells TIME in an interview over Zoom. Following a wave of new hires, she noticed that paying employees the market rate for some roles meant that their salaries would not rise beyond a certain level. “It just didnt make sense for us to take that information and not do anything about it. ” she says. “As an organization, being fluid and progressive allows people to do their best work. ”
The decision is similar to that taken by Gravity Payments, a credit card processing startup, which raised its minimum salary to ,000 in April 2015. Feeld’s move also comes against the backdrop of a significant shift within the labor market. Dubbed the ‘great resignation,’ workers are quitting their jobs in droves. A record 4. 4 million Americans quit their jobs in September, according to a report released Nov. 12 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest level since the agency started tracking such data in 2000. In the same month, there were around 10 job openings for every seven people without a job. Demand for workers is giving employees leverage to demand better pay, perks, and working conditions from potential employers.
In the U. K. , where Feeld is based—although it allows staff to work remotely from anywhere—resignations and job-to-job moves are at the highest level in 20 years. Nearly 400,000 workers resigned between July and September, compared with 105,000 at the same time last year.
While Kirova recognizes the benefit of high starting salaries in attracting talent, she says the reason for the company’s decision was more about its “core value: being human. ”
Unlike Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments, Kirova will not be taking a pay cut to fund the minimum salary increase. That’s because the raises can be comfortably funded using the company’s profits, she says.
“Weve been profitable for the last few years,” she said without disclosing the company’s profit figures.