Or, solidarity at work
It is funny you write about this. Decades ago, I worked for a "family"
company for several years. The bedrock company of this family was a
bank, a mid-tier one in assets. The bank invested in several other
family companies. All by the book and according to Hoyle. The bank's
financials were solid, according to the rules in effect at the time.
Then...the regulations changed.
Now the status of some of the daughter companies changed, my company
being one of them. In order to follow the new rules, my company has to
be sold. And it was. It was a good sale, both for the family and the
buying company.
That's the background. The buying company was well-established in
several markets, including government contracts. The problem was cost
control and ineffective management. (The purchase of the family company
didn't help.) So the buying company fired the management and hired a
turnaround specialist as the CEO. The new CEO had a number of successes
under his belt.
The company was beginning the process of Chapter 11. Us employees were
presented with choices. Some employees were given early retirement to
get them off the payroll. There was a hiring freeze. And so forth.
Most interesting was the "suggestion box": propose a cost reduction, and
received five percent of the money saved after a year. One employee
walked off with a million dollars -- again another story of note.
The company had to cut costs NOW, not next year or even next quarter.
So the employees were given a choice, take a temporary pay cut for six
months -- to be repaid after things turned around -- or suffer layoffs.
The unionized employees elected layoffs; the non-union employees agreed
to the "haircut". Further, the repayment of the haircut could be in
cash, or in company stock, at our option. I selected the stock, and
further invested some saved money into the company because I really
liked what the turnaround CEO did on Day One.
I made out like a bandit on the whole deal. I held onto the purchased
stock for 367 days, and saw a 40 percent return on that move. I did
well with the stock repayment, although the ROI on that stock was lower.
It helped that I had the freelance writing side hustle during that time.
It can work.
It is funny you write about this. Decades ago, I worked for a "family"
company for several years. The bedrock company of this family was a
bank, a mid-tier one in assets. The bank invested in several other
family companies. All by the book and according to Hoyle. The bank's
financials were solid, according to the rules in effect at the time.
Then...the regulations changed.
Now the status of some of the daughter companies changed, my company
being one of them. In order to follow the new rules, my company has to
be sold. And it was. It was a good sale, both for the family and the
buying company.
That's the background. The buying company was well-established in
several markets, including government contracts. The problem was cost
control and ineffective management. (The purchase of the family company
didn't help.) So the buying company fired the management and hired a
turnaround specialist as the CEO. The new CEO had a number of successes
under his belt.
The company was beginning the process of Chapter 11. Us employees were
presented with choices. Some employees were given early retirement to
get them off the payroll. There was a hiring freeze. And so forth.
Most interesting was the "suggestion box": propose a cost reduction, and
received five percent of the money saved after a year. One employee
walked off with a million dollars -- again another story of note.
The company had to cut costs NOW, not next year or even next quarter.
So the employees were given a choice, take a temporary pay cut for six
months -- to be repaid after things turned around -- or suffer layoffs.
The unionized employees elected layoffs; the non-union employees agreed
to the "haircut". Further, the repayment of the haircut could be in
cash, or in company stock, at our option. I selected the stock, and
further invested some saved money into the company because I really
liked what the turnaround CEO did on Day One.
I made out like a bandit on the whole deal. I held onto the purchased
stock for 367 days, and saw a 40 percent return on that move. I did
well with the stock repayment, although the ROI on that stock was lower.
It helped that I had the freelance writing side hustle during that time.
It can work.