Taylor Swift Doesn’t Understand Human Resources — or So the Debate Goes

Recently, I came across a piece of news: CATL announced a pay raise for frontline employees—mainly rank-and-file production workers—with base monthly salaries increasing by RMB 150.

A raise is, of course, a good thing. But the discussion that followed was sharp: if CATL leads the world in power and energy storage batteries—often called the “NVIDIA of the new energy vehicle industry”—why does it seem so reluctant to share more of the wealth with its employees?

I understand the frustration. But as someone who works in human resources, I’m also aware that wages are shaped by the market. In today’s environment, the market isn’t exactly friendly to sustained pay growth for frontline workers. Criticizing a company for raising wages at this moment doesn’t feel entirely fair.

Then, another piece of news this week hit me even harder.

After wrapping up her tour, Taylor Swift announced that on top of regular pay, she would distribute an additional USD 197 million (about RMB 1.44 billion) in bonuses to everyone involved. The bonuses covered the entire touring ecosystem—not only musicians, backing vocalists, dancers, and sound and lighting technicians, but also truck drivers, catering staff, security teams, and other outsourced workers who supported the tour.

One driver reportedly said, overjoyed, that this money could help put their child through college.

If factory workers earning “just okay” pay can be explained as a product of market reality, then the people around Taylor—catering, trucking, and security—also operate under clear market pay standards. Even if she wanted to be more generous than the average employer, adding 50% to compensation would already attract top talent in these fields. She didn’t need to put nearly USD 200 million on the table to show appreciation.

And that’s what creates the contrast: on one side, a global industrial leader with sophisticated finance models and HR systems; on the other, a young pop star who supposedly “doesn’t understand management,” and whose lyrics—according to internet stereotypes—mostly revolve around heartbreak.

So who’s wrong?

To explore this, I want to start with one of HR’s classic frameworks: the 3P theory—especially the 3P compensation model. It’s the logic behind how companies set pay, why your salary may be lower than a colleague’s, and what typically justifies a raise. It breaks many of the illusions employees carry into salary negotiations, and it also gives you a more solid foundation when you advocate for yourself at work.

1) The 3P Principles of Compensation

The 3P model explains how organizations pay people:

Pay for Position: pay based on the job role
Pay for Person: pay based on the individual’s capability
Pay for Performance: pay based on results

To make it easier to understand, let’s walk through a simplified hiring scenario.

Pay for Position: Paying for the work itself

When hiring someone, a company first evaluates the role. Different roles carry different responsibilities, so the pay bands differ. A director will usually earn more than a manager; a senior specialist more than a junior specialist within the same function. Once the role is graded, the salary range is largely set.

At its core, pay for position means this:

Your role requires a specific set of tasks. In the broader market, most companies value that scope at, say, RMB 200,000 per year. If we want to hire you, we might offer RMB 250,000.

That’s why, when interviewing at big companies, candidates often ask: “What level is this role?” Recruiters and headhunters usually lead with the job level as well—because job level defines the base salary band.

Take a common example: a certain level might have a salary band of RMB 450,000–800,000 annually, plus bonus and equity (these numbers can vary and may be outdated). Once you confirm the level, you largely lock in a negotiating range. If the level stays the same, HR typically can’t offer below the band—or wildly above it—without changing the role level itself.

Pay for Person: Paying for skills and experience

Pay for person is not simply “years worked.” It’s about what you can actually do and what you’ve proven you can deliver:

Knowledge: e.g., building a consumer supply chain end-to-end
Skills: e.g., using AI prompts to improve team productivity
Experience: e.g., leading a global hiring project and achieving measurable results

If the role’s band is wide, the company still needs to decide where you fall within it. That comes from evaluating your past projects, your competence, and—realistically—your previous compensation.

In other words, even at the same job level, one person may land at the top of the band while another gets a mid-range offer. Many large firms intentionally keep broad bands because it helps them attract scarce talent even when the official level requirement is lower.

That’s why you sometimes see someone in a lower “level” earning more than someone in a higher one: the company needs their specific skills, the market supply is tight, and the business is willing to pay.

Pay for Performance: Paying for future outcomes

Now imagine you accept the offer. On your offer letter, you’ll often see more than just base salary: performance bonus, year-end bonus, equity, stock options, and so on.

That’s the company’s “future-facing” lever.

Base pay reflects your market value and what you’ve done before. But what you achieved in your previous company may not automatically replicate in the new environment. Performance pay exists to motivate and reward what you will create next.

Sales is the clearest example: strong performers can earn commission and bonuses. But most companies won’t continuously raise base salary for the same role if performance incentives already exist to reward outcomes.

That’s the logic of the 3Ps: the first two Ps often relate to past and present value; the third is a bet on future results.

2) The “Emotional” Boss: Taylor Swift

If we strictly follow the HR framework, then yes—on paper—Taylor “did it wrong.”

She likely hasn’t studied human resource management or taken courses from famous HR thinkers. Her nearly USD 200 million bonus plan looks like pay for performance, but from a traditional HR lens, it’s “low in structure”:

People doing very different work received bonuses without obvious differentiation.
There’s little sign of formal segmentation (high potentials, critical roles, retention risk).
And sustainability becomes the obvious question: if you do this once, what do you do next time?

Any experienced HR professional presenting such a plan inside a corporation might get torn apart: Where is the structure? Where is the system design? Where is the long-term logic?

And the generosity is so extreme that it breaks conventional “market” expectations.

Yet this is precisely why Taylor’s decision is so revealing—because it highlights elements that modern organizations often neglect: perceived fairness, belonging, and team cohesion.

Her approach communicates several powerful signals:

Everyone’s contribution is visible. The tour’s success depends on every link, not just the stars on stage.
A contract is not the ceiling. The bonus goes beyond obligation and builds emotional commitment.
A shared memory becomes culture. Generosity turns into a story the team carries forward—raising loyalty and motivation for future work.

One detail especially moved me: bonuses were reportedly delivered with a “check + handwritten thank-you card” combination.

She spent weeks writing personalized messages to individuals—recognizing specific sacrifices, missed family moments, long stretches away from home. Being seen and remembered created emotional value that, for many, rivaled the money itself.

This isn’t just compensation. It’s culture-building. It forms a psychological contract: “My effort won’t be ignored here. I will be treated fairly.”

3) The “Ultra-Rational” Industry Leader: CATL

I’m reluctant to treat CATL as a villain.

There are plenty of companies doing far worse. CATL, at least, is trying to raise frontline income.

But the public response hasn’t been positive. One highly upvoted comment I saw captured the mood: this is what the vision of “common prosperity” looks like from China’s top manufacturing companies—good, but never too good; just don’t be worse than peers.

This exposes the limitation of the 3P model: it’s a pure HR framework. It doesn’t fully cover corporate social responsibility.

Many private companies talk about social responsibility in terms of taxes paid, jobs created, donations made. Far fewer highlight employee welfare in the same way—whether salaries are meaningfully higher, whether benefits go beyond legal minimums, whether additional pensions or medical coverage are provided.

In contrast, many multinationals actively publicize such benefits: extending coverage to family members, offering generous parental leave, funding vacations or travel, supporting flexible work to help working parents. If you calculate strict ROI, some of these programs don’t “pay back” neatly—companies do them because they believe it’s the right thing to do, and because labor institutions and unions often enforce higher standards.

In China, with “anti-involution” becoming a central topic, frontline workers increasingly want to see fairness—not just survival-level compliance.

When a market leader posts massive profits, a modest monthly raise can feel symbolically out of sync. Compared with factories that pay minimum wage and rely on overtime, CATL may already be “better.” But as the leader, the public expects more leadership—especially under the broader national conversation around income distribution and shared prosperity.

So who’s wrong?

I don’t want to morally attack CATL. In a slowing economy, any company that moves first and raises fixed labor costs significantly risks being labeled “uncompetitive,” potentially weakening itself in a brutal price war.

So the industry settles into an unspoken agreement: no one wants to be the first bird to stick its head out. The equilibrium remains capital-friendly and labor-strict.

This reflects a deeper dependency on a low-labor-cost path—an inertia that once powered “Made in China” to global scale:

Growth logic: long reliant on investment and exports rather than consumption. Raising ordinary incomes is key to shifting to a consumption-driven economy, but the transition is slow and painful.
Evaluation systems: markets still overweight revenue, profit margins, and capacity expansion, while underweighting “soft power” indicators like wage satisfaction and internal fairness.
Social mindset: labor is still treated as a cost. We’ve said “human capital” for years, but many decision-makers still view people primarily as expense.

In that current, even a giant like CATL is still just one ship in a river.

It’s easy to blame the ship for not rowing against the flow. The more important question is whether the flow should change—and who has the power to reshape the channel.

My conclusion is that the real mistake may be our continued reliance on an old path that once worked.

CATL, as a leader, chose the safest and most conservative strategy, not the level of responsibility its status might suggest.

The industry collectively is trapped in involution—trading long-term investment in people for short-term cost advantage.

And honestly, I may be guilty too.

When I first saw the CATL news, my instinct was to analyze it through the 3P framework—not through corporate social responsibility.

Taylor Swift—through USD 197 million and hundreds of handwritten cards—shook me awake.

A singer “who doesn’t understand HR” ended up drawing a vivid picture of respect, recognition, and shared prosperity—leading her team to a triumphant ending.

Meanwhile, many companies—including the very best—still grip tightly to the headband of “productivity per head” and “cost control,” struggling through endless KPIs as if that were the only way forward.

If the era is setting a new course, do we still have the courage to loosen the old inertia and find a new path?

In July 2024, the country formally introduced the idea of preventing “involution-style vicious competition,” bringing “anti-involution” into the policy framework.

That’s a good thing.

Because involution is doing more and more meaningless work with no real gain. To reverse it, one part is cutting the meaningless. The other part is raising workers’ actual returns—and their sense of satisfaction and dignity.