I work for a private company in the transportation space. Our bonuses are discretionary across the board. We also don’t have a formal HR department. The company has grown from 15 employees to over 125. The CEO owns the company – his family started it. Below are things I have witnessed that I don’t know how to feel about.
I come from a background of working for large and small public and private companies so maybe I just was never privy to this stuff happening at the ‘top’ but truly trying to understand if these things are normal?
1) We have no formal HR department. The CEO has been heard saying he hasn’t hired anyone for this role as he hasn’t found a hot enough blonde with big b**bs that fits the ‘culture’.
2) Employee bonuses are completely discretionary. Yet the CEO has best friends who report to him that outside of work he invests in real estate with and goes on vacations with. It makes it difficult to not feel favoritism is rampant and the amount of brown nosing that goes on is on another level. I’ve just never been in a position to see if CEOs at other companies were going on family (not work) vacations with direct reports?
3) We’ve been told lately that we are not as financially strong as we were in the past (no bonuses for the non best friends for 3 quarters) yet our CEO makes sure to let the entire company know when he buys a new car (lost count of how many he has), a new house (up to 5 now), and/or charters a private jet somewhere. The biggest jet expense was flying him and his friends overseas for almost $300,000 and he told a few of my coworkers that this was a work expense and trip as one of his friends could ‘potentially be a customer’ one day.
4) The CEO has a couple family members on the payroll that literally do ZERO work for the company. Not as in oh they are lazy employees, they truly are not employees but yet he pays them.
I understand it’s technically his company and it’s privately owned, but these things just feel ick to me. Are these actions ethical? Are they legal? Maybe they are and I’m just too sensitive. Thanks for input!