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Home » Blogs » Management & Strategy » How Executives Can Show Employees: We're All in This Together

How Executives Can Show Employees: We're All in This Together

By    Lindsay  Young 
December 17, 2008
More about:  Human Resources,  Management/Strategy
BNET (www.bnet.com) says one way that companies can boost employee morale in a time of budget cuts and layoff fears, is to sacrifice executive pay to send a message down the ladder that "we're all in it together."
 
The article cites $37.5B foodservice distributor Sysco Corp.'s experience. Apparently the distributor's top 15 executives announced last summer they would voluntarily take a 5% pay cut. The rest of the executives got a pay freeze for the next year. Everyone else got a 3% pay increase -that is 50,000 employees.
 
A Sysco spokesman is quoted in the article as saying:
 
"We wanted to show our people that it was a tough economic time, but that the corporate office was going to take the first hit."
 
And ...
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BNET (www.bnet.com) says one way that companies can boost employee morale in a time of budget cuts and layoff fears, is to sacrifice executive pay to send a message down the ladder that "we're all in it together."
 
The article cites $37.5B foodservice distributor Sysco Corp.'s experience. Apparently the distributor's top 15 executives announced last summer they would voluntarily take a 5% pay cut. The rest of the executives got a pay freeze for the next year. Everyone else got a 3% pay increase -that is 50,000 employees.
 
A Sysco spokesman is quoted in the article as saying:
 
"We wanted to show our people that it was a tough economic time, but that the corporate office was going to take the first hit."
 
And he said the decision was made based on morale, not hard numbers. That said, the article does emphasize that though this move is a good one, it could also portend that more cuts are coming. Communication is key.
 
The Stuttgart Daily Leader in Arkansas had a story Tuesday on "layoff fatigue":
 
"For workers anywhere, the repeated reports of bad news can be unnerving. 'It makes things seem very uncertain,"said Craig Marker, director of the Anxiety Treatment Center at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, FL. 'You have the large corporations where you see big things coming because of the stock market. In the smaller firm you might not see it coming.'"
 
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