We had a bad year and I announced no bonuses this year.
BUT me and my partner decided to not take any pay for 3 months and see if business turn around.
Our first instinct was to consider laying off some people. But Christmas is coming and their pay is not that high compared to us seniors. And we are personally financially safer. So we took the decision to keep them and make sacrifices.
So corporations can care. My personal case is a private limited and is not by any means unique. I spoke with a lot of my peers and they’re doing similar things. Some forgoing their directors salaries to give out bonuses.
Because apparently some companies do care and value their people even when ‘We value our workers’ is not a company published motto.
So Yea, I totally agree that Walmart is evil and treat its people like shit. Except the senior execs.
My employer holds charity drives once in a while. The advertisements always look like something this:
“Please donate generously to X. We will match your contribution up to $Y.”
The second part is critical. You shouldn’t ask people to pitch in unless you’re willing to pitch in even more.
I haven’t seen any mention about whether and how much Wal-Mart is contributing to its own food drive, but that’s what would determine whether they are heroes or villains.
Thanks for having a moral conscience. It’s business owners like you that give me hope. I know Brad is good to his employees as well, so there are good guys out there.
You guys don’t have shareholders though. It’s the shareholders that determine the morality of a business- and when you have tons of shareholders, it defaults to short-term, risk-averse behavior. It’s the laws of economics at work- it’s rational behavior, even if it’s destructive to everything else.
And all the blame should go on Wal-Mart corporate, the branch is a symptom, not the disease itself.
In a sense, in my case, the other shareholders are my wife and child and my partner’s wife and children. The wives initially objected when we told them but after some persuasion, they also agreed in the end. Especially when they remembered the times when they met the employees in company organized outings.
The trouble starts when employees become pure numbers.
Wal-Mart can raise all employee pay with the money they spent on stock buy backs and not lower prices.
[ul]
[li]Walmart workers and a growing number of community supporters are taking a stand this holiday season, calling for wage increases and sufficient hours on the job to earn the modest income of $25,000 a year. This brief explores one way to pay for raises.
[/li]> [li]Walmart spent $7.6 billion last year to buy back shares of its own stock. The buybacks did nothing to boost Walmart’s productivity or bottom line. If these funds were redirected to Walmart’s low-wage workers, they would each see a raise of $5.83 an hour.
[/li]> [li]Curtailing share buybacks would not damage the company’s competitiveness or raise prices for consumers.
[/li]> [li]If Walmart redirected its current spending to invest in its workforce, the benefits would extend to all stake-holders in the company—customers, stockholders, taxpayers, employees and their families—and the economy as a whole
[/li]> [/ul]
I agree with you 100% on this. Just donate the damn money. With the NFL and PGA it is even crazier because they are both “legal” non-profits raking in the dough.
I don’t mean anything negatively by this but without the employees do you have a company. Could the remaining “management” handle everything? My brothers and I run a company and we are facing the same thing. I currently make less than minimum wage, pay for my own auto expenses and cell phone. Thankfully the company can still pay for insurance. My employees are union, so while I can lay them off I can’t adjust their wages in any way. We have been like this for almost a year, and while things are improving we have not come off the austerity program yet. But, without employees no actual work gets done.
In a small company the owners either accept nothing/little or go under in tough times. That is the reality. If my wife wasn’t working we would be in real trouble.
Construction has been rough and my part of California (the central valley) is usually the last place to recover. Things are looking up as we are seeing more commercial projects out there.
But with a small company the first rule is survival of the company, and we have been around for 42 years.
I’m fine with a floor price on labor. Minimum wages protect vulnerable workers from unscrupulous employers. Raising the minimum wage doesn’t mean employees will actually have more spending power. Increased payroll costs will lead to price hikes which adversely affect the very workers you’re trying to help. They can also lead to hiring slowdowns or layoffs which again hurt those at the bottom the most.
In our small firm, all the employees including the founders contribute to the bottom line in projects. So it’s actually possible to carry on if we fire everyone, just that we’ll need to start hiring again if work picks up and start to overwhelm us. That was how we expanded since founding 4 years ago anyway. We started with the 2 founders and grew organically based on work available.
I feel for you. Making payroll is an extremely stressful. It’s worse when you feel that you don’t have options available to get out of your problems. I’m very lucky to have a supportive wife and in the worst case scenario, we could fire everyone and work on the remaining contracts and be profitable.
But as a small business owner, the number one stress inducing issue that is always on my mind has been cash flow. Even in good times, it’s there lurking in the background.
