COVID-19 Doing the right thing

[sun rise]

Remember the guy who decided to pay all his employees $70,000. How do you think he responded to his business going into the toilet? By doing the right thing once again. It's called, in the words of the article "emotional intelligence". I'm sure one really big reason it worked was his prior handling of employee salaries. That created good will and trust.

Covid-19 is ravaging the global economy and presenting employers with unprecedented challenges. For Gravity chief executive Dan Price, that challenge was crushing: The company's revenue had essentially been cut in half. Price was faced with a grave decision: lay off 20 percent of his employees or go bankrupt.

Price refused to accept either option. Instead, he decided to do something almost unheard of in today's business environment:

He asked his employees what to do.
...
"Together, the Gravity team settled on an unconventional strategy," writes Shegran. "Each person was given a form that allowed them to privately express how much, if anything, they could sacrifice financially in terms of a pay cut."

According to Price, employees with higher earnings generally gave up more while lower-paid employees gave up less. But everyone in the company took a cut.

Instead of Laying Off 20 Percent of His Company, This CEO Made an Unusual Decision. It's a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Remember the guy who decided to pay all his employees $70,000. How do you think he responded to his business going into the toilet? By doing the right thing once again. It's called, in the words of the article "emotional intelligence". I'm sure one really big reason it worked was his prior handling of employee salaries. That created good will and trust.

Covid-19 is ravaging the global economy and presenting employers with unprecedented challenges. For Gravity chief executive Dan Price, that challenge was crushing: The company's revenue had essentially been cut in half. Price was faced with a grave decision: lay off 20 percent of his employees or go bankrupt.

Price refused to accept either option. Instead, he decided to do something almost unheard of in today's business environment:

He asked his employees what to do.
...
"Together, the Gravity team settled on an unconventional strategy," writes Shegran. "Each person was given a form that allowed them to privately express how much, if anything, they could sacrifice financially in terms of a pay cut."

According to Price, employees with higher earnings generally gave up more while lower-paid employees gave up less. But everyone in the company took a cut.

Instead of Laying Off 20 Percent of His Company, This CEO Made an Unusual Decision. It's a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence

When the small company I worked for several years ago was seeing hard times, I contemplated offering to take a cut in pay if it would help. Though I was afraid that, in doing so, there might be some push to others to do the same - people who weren't necessarily in the same place I was. I never actually said anything in that regard, and instead ended up finding a better opportunity later after this company layed-off my last underling. It is an idea rooted in the plausibility of people holding some amount of loyalty to their employer - something I think is sorely lacking more often than not.

 

[Nakosis]

Capitalism at its best.

 

[Sunstone]

Capitalism at its best.

What, then, is capitalism at its worst?

And surely you don't think it actually requires capitalism to do such a thing?

 

[Sunstone]

Remember the guy who decided to pay all his employees $70,000. How do you think he responded to his business going into the toilet? By doing the right thing once again. It's called, in the words of the article "emotional intelligence". I'm sure one really big reason it worked was his prior handling of employee salaries. That created good will and trust.

Covid-19 is ravaging the global economy and presenting employers with unprecedented challenges. For Gravity chief executive Dan Price, that challenge was crushing: The company's revenue had essentially been cut in half. Price was faced with a grave decision: lay off 20 percent of his employees or go bankrupt.

Price refused to accept either option. Instead, he decided to do something almost unheard of in today's business environment:

He asked his employees what to do.
...
"Together, the Gravity team settled on an unconventional strategy," writes Shegran. "Each person was given a form that allowed them to privately express how much, if anything, they could sacrifice financially in terms of a pay cut."

According to Price, employees with higher earnings generally gave up more while lower-paid employees gave up less. But everyone in the company took a cut.

Instead of Laying Off 20 Percent of His Company, This CEO Made an Unusual Decision. It's a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence? In this case, the same thing as wisdom, I believe.

Dan Price strikes me as someone who has quite possibly discovered that life is rather meaningless unless one believes in something larger and more important than oneself.

In my case, that larger and more important thing would be chocolate.

 

[Revoltingest]

Capitalism at its best.

I am impressed by such creative & effective management.
Perhaps the example will spread.
Government is cutting back too, so I wonder if it could apply there?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Seems practical too. Employers will have more reasons than for not wanting to lay off people as well. if business comes back again, re-training new people costs money and time. Receiving forms to comment on company improvement is probably fairly common as well

 

[Nakosis]

What, then, is capitalism at its worst?

And surely you don't think it actually requires capitalism to do such a thing?

The ideal of capitalism is mutual self-interest. When agreements are made to maximize the benefits for all parties involved. Capitalism fails when this is not done. Greed screws with everything but that's a matter of personal principles/morals.

 

[Sunstone]

The ideal of capitalism is mutual self-interest. When agreements are made to maximize the benefits for all parties involved. Capitalism fails when this is not done. Greed screws with everything but that's a matter of personal principles/morals.

Right. If it's good, it's capitalism. If it's bad, it's a failing of personal morals. Got it.

 

[Nakosis]

Right. If it's good, it's capitalism. If it's bad, it's a failing of personal morals. Got it.

Morals can fail in any system.

 

[sun rise]

Morals can fail in any system.

In a checks-and-balances system which is being undermined in the USA, failure of morality by some should be checked by others. Whether that's government/industry, labor/business, government/voters and so forth.

It's "obvious to the meanest intelligence" that is not working well at all, to put it mildly.

 

[Nakosis]

In a checks-and-balances system which is being undermined in the USA, failure of morality by some should be checked by others. Whether that's government/industry, labor/business, government/voters and so forth.

It's "obvious to the meanest intelligence" that is not working well at all, to put it mildly.

The checks and balances are working. The problem is people are accepting the imbalance.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Morals can fail in any system.

And certain systems make the option for them to fail easier.

 

[Nakosis]

And certain systems make the option for them to fail easier.

You can try to enforce a particular set of morals but that means taking away a lot of freedom. Ideally you would encourage and cultivate in society "good" morals.

 

[sun rise]

You can try to enforce a particular set of morals but that means taking away a lot of freedom. Ideally you would encourage and cultivate in society "good" morals.

There's the root sense of morality and rules/regulations.

For example, "obey the law" is something all should do. But if you're driving and your spouse/friend suddenly starts dying violating all the traffic laws to get to the ER quickly is higher morality.

Not causing injury to someone is moral. But if that person will murder or rape someone and you can stop it by punching them out then to me you've done the right thing.

It's not "situational ethics" because the ethical/moral base is still there. But it's knowing that rules can be set aside when the situation warrants it.