During the pandemic my former company (yesterday was my last day) played the “we are here for our people” game. They did some things I think were solid (4 weeks pay at start of pandemic for everyone even if they weren’t working do to low staffing, hazard pay for 4 months for the people who were, a week of PTO for anyone who tested positive). But the biggest thing that they touted was that all of the highest tier leaders gave up their annual raise in order to make sure they could keep as many people working as possible. It still ended up with over 50000 people on furlough for 6 months before they demanded everyone back in the building or they would be terminated. But we got these prerecorded videos from the CEO telling us that they were pitching in to make sure we could keep working.
Fast forward two years to today when I (unrelatedly) looked up the CEO’s salary. They are making a $3 million salary for a Midwest based company, which, maybe because I am desensitized to it, seems reasonable. But with other reported compensation including stock options, personal expenses, and other corporate nonsense, they were compensated close to $16 million in 2020.
Now I left because the company cut hours during our second busiest season of the year because we’re were only on track to do the same business as last year ($30 billion-ish) instead of 10% more and that lack of growth needed to be offset. But knowing that this tomfoolery was coupled with the facade of valuing the employee experience” while banking record profits and salaries makes me nauseous.
I was a true believer in that company. I have a lot of friends in the middle management tiers that are excellent people genuinely trying to do right by the people around them and their direct reports. But I was deluded to think for a second that ANY company is doing anything right by anyone but their bank accounts and the shareholders.