Disney CEO Iger, CFO Staggs Sign New Five-Year Contracts

[Disneyatic]

I noticed on both lists that were given on the top problems "Quality of Cast Members" was #1.

I know this sounds like a stupid, obvious question, but why does Disney pay their people so poorly? Is it just front line people that are paid so low? Does Entertainment get paid peanuts also?
I know that profit is important, but with raising salaries, they are going to create a higher demand for their jobs and be able to attract better quality people because their pay is competitive.

[Ian]

Well ... I don't know the real answer to this, per se, but I can take a very good guess.

While we were all enjoying the rapid expansion of WDW in the 90's, I personally think that few people realized what a problem Disney was causing for themselves.

It takes almost 60,000 people to make that resort run now. The overhead associated with having that many employees is just insane. You think about what that costs in terms of training them, paying them, paying their benefits, scheduling them, managing them ... it goes on and on and on!

They backed themselves into a corner ... you simply can't pay 60,000 people a real, living wage and maintain any kind of profitability at the resort. Or you have to establish a pricing structure that basically does the same thing ... it costs so much for people to vacation there that you put yourself out of business.

I don't know what the answer is. Sadly, I don't think there is one, really. I think we just may have to resign ourselves to the fact that the days of Disney-quality cast may be over.

[lockedoutlogic]

I noticed on both lists that were given on the top problems "Quality of Cast Members" was #1.

I know this sounds like a stupid, obvious question, but why does Disney pay their people so poorly? Is it just front line people that are paid so low? Does Entertainment get paid peanuts also?
I know that profit is important, but with raising salaries, they are going to create a higher demand for their jobs and be able to attract better quality people because their pay is competitive.

Bingo.....

they do pay poorly.....they are overextended based on the low cost labor pool in Orlando...and they will not pay more to raise the caliber because WDW is the biggest cash cow that the Walt Disney Company has in the US - and that means it must stay so for financial reasons

I have to grin when people say "better employees"....there are those of us...who worked there but weren't in awe of the company taglines...who analyzed the situation and know that saying "better employees" is a problem that cannot be solved with a feasible solution at this time....

The best they can do is outsource and reduce the labor pool...then increase salary and training when the bottomline numbers won't be so large (don't forget about health care....which probably costs disney 2/3 of what they are paying in wages at WDW)

so that problem cannot be solved without a major reorganization, priority shift, and to be frank....a complete alteration of company philosophy that will not happen under any forseeable circumstance.

i can give you 100 real world examples if you wish....but i'm hungry so that will have to wait until later

[Ian]

Eh ... I'm not sure I agree. I think there are ways they could improve the situation from where it is now.

I'm not sure they're options they would want to explore, perhaps, but it could be done by someone with guts and vision.

Two qualities one Mr. Walt Disney had, I might add ....