To answer the original question (Would you say that most companies base employee salary levels on revenue?), I would say that its one of many factors that goes into the determination of an
individual employee's salary level, but there are several more important ones that spring to mind.
Speaking only from my own experience, I would say that the factors that go into it are:
- the marketplace: what would a competing company pay me?
- geographical location (ie: you'll make more in Toronto than Saskatoon)
- seniority and experience
- performance of the employee relative to his/her peers
But these things just relate to how one employee is paid relative to another. If you look at it from an
overall budget perspective (how much money is there to go around for employees), then obviously the company's finances are the biggest determining factor. If there's not enough money coming in, they sure as hell won't be giving people raises
I don't know that the analogy really applies to the NHL, due to guaranteed contracts, etc, but in general I think its pretty obvious to say that a company's finances determine its payroll budget.