A Story About Spreading The Wealth
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Good Decisions, MoneyWhen I hear stories like this, I wonder why it doesn’t happen more often. And furthermore, why do companies look at employees like they’re commodities instead of human beings who deserve to share the wealth for their hard work?
Regardless, this is a great story and one we can all be thankful for.
CHICAGO - Dave Tiderman wondered if the decimal point was in the wrong place when he opened his $35,000 company bonus. Jose Rojas saw his $10,000 check and thought, “That can’t be right.”Valentin Dima watched co-workers breaking down in tears over their bonus checks and didn’t trust his emotions. He drove home first, then opened his envelope: $33,000. [...]
A total of $6.6 million is being shared by just 230 employees of Waukegan-based Peer Bearing Co., with facilities in England and the United States. Amounts varied and were based on years of service. [...]
With $100 million in sales last year, Peer recently was acquired by a Swedish company for an undisclosed amount. Danny Spungen, whose grandfather founded the company in 1941, said it was a unanimous family decision to thank employees with the bonuses.
Laurence and Florence Spungen and their four children decided on a bonus formula a year before the sale closed to SKF Group, “a gamble that we would come out OK as well,” Danny Spungen said.
Somehow, I bet the family came out just fine. :-)
By the way, this is the card they sent out…
Seeing employees as family? What a concept!
In any event, very cool stuff.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 and is filed under Good Decisions, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 am
I think you’re looking at the difference between large corporations and smaller privately held companies. People in positions of power in publicly held companies can’t do this kind of thing even if they wanted to and most wouldn’t even think of it because it’s easy to turn everything into abstractions of what is good for the corporate bottom line when there is no human face to the ownership of the company. There is much talk of doing what’s best for “the shareholders” while not really understanding who they are.
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
I would never expect that kind of thing from any company–but no matter what the company I always want to be treated like a person, not overhead.
The endless empty rhetoric from most companies about how “valuable” their employees are is plainly evident by how the company treats its people.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Jim,
Actually, companies shower their execs with huge salaries, bonuses and stock option packages, so the idea that they can’t give more to the people who do the day to day, gotta-get-it-done work is silly. Sure, I know they argue that they can’t do it, but their actions prove the exact opposite.
Better to share the wealth and create a sense of ownership with everybody so you make sure people feel like they’re getting a fair shake. You’ll have a happier, more productive work force as a result.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
[...] 230 employees of Waukegan-based Peer Bearing Co., with facilities in England and the United States.more Share and [...]