The company I work for has been in negotiations for almost a week on what the plan is for cost saving measures, while there are the ongoing challenges and expected fallout from the Covid-19 panpanic. While not a great situation, what I have been glad about thus far is the way the company has been handling the process and this, with a great deal of transparency and inclusion.
One of the reasons I chose to work for this company was the way it treats its people and there is no better time to observe this than a situation of economic corporate stress. It is a technical delivery company that works on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, so lost or postponed sales now have a cumulative loss affect later that can't be regained. This puts a long-range expected suppression of earnings and as a startup that can be deadly.
As said though, there has been a lot of transparency and inclusion of employees in the process which is obviously more difficult to communicate, organize and reach decisions - but the decisions reached will be more aligned with the wishes of the people. Sound familiar? The other reason I chose this company was that the software itself is prime for blockchain integration once the businesses serviced start to make moves into the space.
Due to the streamlined nature of the company already, there isn't a great deal of fat to cut away from the organization to achieve the cost savings required, so it has to be done across multiple areas. I assume the first to likely go are the "luxury" items, which are the benefits we enjoy as employees, including things like recreation allowances and some of the in-office items. I think that the next will be a reduction in office space and more remote work, since we are doing that now anyway due to the conditions, so it is an easy sell.
What I am most glad about though is that there is a salary reduction option on the table, and while this is not ideal for me or likely anyone, the company is looking to reimburse the cut through stock allocations. I think this is a great proposal, as it means that the immediate sense of loss is softened by the issuance of shares and potentially if things go well, a higher evaluation later. From the company perspective, immediate savings can be made and they get the additional bonus of having employees own more of the company, something that they encourage under normal conditions as they know that ownership matters and affects productivity.
As you can probably see, this is something that I am interested in because it is starting to take the form of a distributed network like HIVE, where activity translates into a percentage ownership of the network itself. I like this idea and from a personal perspective, it would have the same affect on my interest and motivation as me buying into Steem previously - and now Hive - as well as increase my interest level in the operational structure.
Again, like most companies have done, it would be very easy to just layoff non-essential employees and let others pick up the slack, but instead, they are planning on diluting their ownership percentage by distributing ownership further through the organization and with the long-term potential looking good, this might be a lucrative deal for recipients - whilst still not being ideal as it cuts into immediate liquids.
While this hasn't been decided upon as one of the courses of actions yet, I think that if provided, it would be the option I go for as it feels very familiar, in the same way that 50% of my post rewards go automatically into HIVE POWER. This makes moving to liquids an active decision, not the default. Thinking that it is recommended to put a significant percentage of salary away into savings or investments anyway - this option isn't the worst.
The other benefit of this is that these times are hard an everyone in the company and what happens now and how it is handled is going to have effects on employee behavior and culture later, even when things recover. Having the transparency, the inclusive process and the buy-in rather than straight layoff will mean that the company could actually come out stronger post-threat, as people are still engaged and committed.
In many ways, it would be good if this happened more, where all employees of companies were able to trade income directly for part ownership of the company itself, and more employees actually did so. Yes, it opens for loss and increases risk, but perhaps then, people will think more about the companies they work for in the same way that owners of HIVE think about and get involved in the project. If people did this, knowledge and skill increases and the global investor class starts to widen considerably and over time, the spread of wealth shifts more widely and deeper through the communities.
People want wealth distribution, but in my opinion, that has to come through taking some risks by taking some ownership. If unwilling to take on the risk of an owner, it is hard to justify the distribution to non-owners. Earning a salary alone can only get people so far and it means that one is reliant week, fortnight or month after month on that salary, with no personal safety net, other than what the state provides.
While I have never bought shares in a company before as I felt that I never had enough to spare, under these conditions, I don't mind the trade of work for ownership - especially since I have been doing it for years on a blockchain already. Some options are better than others and I don't mind working my way in.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]