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Lenovo CEO spreads his bonus to lower level workers

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sunzt said:
Nope. Care to show otherwise? Or you just trollin again?
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Let's see if you can figure it out on your own. Here's a hint:
JS80 said:
Smoke and mirrors. This is all marketing.

Board meeting commencement.

Chairman: I propose we award CEO $10 million.

Board member: Hey, did you read about the CEO who gave his bonus to his employees?

Chairman: Are you cra-

Board member: Let me finish. I'm no fool (CEO ain't either). But loliberals and the MSM are fools. Let's bump CEO bonus to $20 million, call it an "extra" $10 million bonus for job well done. And then...wait for it...wait for iiiiit...let's have him "forgo" his "extra" bonus and "give" it to his employees!!

Chairman: You're a genius! Let's vote.

Approved.

Loliberals: See this is a great company! What a great guy!
MSM: I want to give this CEO a bj!
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sunzt said:
So you can copy and paste. Not impressed. Basically you're still saying it's a all a marketing gimmick.... and how did i misinterpret it?
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A publicity stunt, kind of like companies that give everyone a "discount" on what they sell. "Call in the next 15 minutes to get 25% off our regular price!" Or you can call in 2 days and still get that same 25% off - because it's just a marketing gimmick.
Or Kmart's "70% off all fine jewelry sale," which they've been running continuously for at least 12 years.

Jack up the original price, then give a discount off of that, and suddenly everyone thinks you're awesome, even though the person buying the item is still paying the original price.
 
even if it's just a publicity stunt and nothing more than a cheap way to get people to buy more Lenovo, it made a few low line workers and the like, who are normally passed over for anything let alone a bonus, lives better. Even for just that one moment, it had to make their lives better. So feel free to rage, call people stupid for wanting to believe for one moment the world was a little brighter after all this is ATOT, I'm not sure what else to expect
 
On a smaller scale, I worked for a corporate account and the general manager regularly got a 3k to 4k bonus every quarter. I was directly responsible for him getting it. For which, I got a whole $20 at Christmas and all the fresh fruit I wanted. 🙁
 
Jeff7 said:
A publicity stunt, kind of like companies that give everyone a "discount" on what they sell. "Call in the next 15 minutes to get 25% off our regular price!" Or you can call in 2 days and still get that same 25% off - because it's just a marketing gimmick.
Or Kmart's "70% off all fine jewelry sale," which they've been running continuously for at least 12 years.

Jack up the original price, then give a discount off of that, and suddenly everyone thinks you're awesome, even though the person buying the item is still paying the original price.
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It's not like they reduced payments for 10,000 employees by 300 each. This was extra money that was supposed to go to the CEO on top of his regular bonus. It's good publicity for sure, but no money was involuntarily taken away from someone else's pot of money.
 
Skel said:
even if it's just a publicity stunt and nothing more than a cheap way to get people to buy more Lenovo, it made a few low line workers and the like, who are normally passed over for anything let alone a bonus, lives better. Even for just that one moment, it had to make their lives better. So feel free to rage, call people stupid for wanting to believe for one moment the world was a little brighter after all this is ATOT, I'm not sure what else to expect
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It doesn't make their lives better that much. $300 in China is not life changing. All it does it make them expect it every year and entitled. One step closer to spoiled American worker attitude.
 
JS80 said:
It doesn't make their lives better that much. $300 in China is not life changing. All it does it make them expect it every year and entitled. One step closer to spoiled American worker attitude.
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People reading JS80's post, if you're confused, he enjoys helping his employer lay people off. He's like a mini-Mitt Romney.
 
Phokus said:
People reading JS80's post, if you're confused, he enjoys helping his employer lay people off. He's like a mini-Mitt Romney.
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Once again you make stupid assumptions that are false. I despise private equity, hate working for them, working with them (which I have done both). Calling me a "mini-Mitt Romney" only further proves you have no idea what you're talking about.
 
JS80 said:
It doesn't make their lives better that much. $300 in China is not life changing. All it does it make them expect it every year and entitled. One step closer to spoiled American worker attitude.
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I know right? They should reduce their pays every year and teach them a valuable lesson in work appreciation. I don't know about you, but I sure would appreciate and extra month's pays.
 
JS80 said:
Once again you make stupid assumptions that are false. I despise private equity, hate working for them, working with them (which I have done both). Calling me a "mini-Mitt Romney" only further proves you have no idea what you're talking about.
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I didn't say where you worked at, but you are clearly proud of helping your company layoff employees. Like Mitt Romney.

edit: and $300 is a fair chunk of change to an average chinese worker.
 
Phokus said:
I didn't say where you worked at, but you are clearly proud of helping your company layoff employees.
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Let's test your honesty. Your company is going through financial distress and you need to lay off people. You know there are a group of worthless lards that do nothing. Do you not lobby to get those people laid off? Hell, the company doesn't even have to be going through distress. You want to grow headcount in areas there are growth but in order to do so you need to get rid of the worthless lards because they are eating up the budget. What would Phokus do?
 
JS80 said:
It doesn't make their lives better that much. $300 in China is not life changing. All it does it make them expect it every year and entitled. One step closer to spoiled American worker attitude.
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Unexpected bonuses are not expected to be life changing, and $300USD is about half to a month's salary in china which can have an a nice impact.

Remember this is not the US. This bonus would motivate employees to keep up the good work and can improve productivity and morale. I know that if I'd had a bonus for helping the company then I'd be more loyal, productive, and have higher morale. If the company doesn't make good profits then there's no expectation of bonus.

Ever hear of profit sharing?
 
That is an amazing gesture. CEOs know they are not politicians, and don't have to curry favor (or votes) from their subordinates, so they are generally impervious to being 'nice'. Most other CEOs would laugh at such a thought.

I am employed at a Fortune Top 100, and our CEO got a $14 million bonus in 2009. Yes, note the figure, and the year. And that when his company had to take bail-out money, and people were fired in bunches. At an 'Open House', one employee dared ask him how he could justify taking a bonus when the organization was struggling; before he could answer, a flunky in the audience yelled - " _____ deserves all that!", and nobody bothered press for a real response.

If I'm not wrong, Yang Yuanqing lives in China, so the $3 million actually should mean a much larger sum than here. That is a great gesture!
 
sunzt said:
Unexpected bonuses are not expected to be life changing, and $300USD is about half to a month's salary in china which can have an a nice impact.

Remember this is not the US. This bonus would motivate employees to keep up the good work and can improve productivity and morale. I know that if I'd had a bonus for helping the company then I'd be more loyal, productive, and have higher morale. If the company doesn't make good profits then there's no expectation of bonus.

Ever hear of profit sharing?
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Again you miss the point of my original statement, that this is all smoke and mirrors. I never said good compensation packages do not include the right incentives. I just said this whole CEO giving up his bonus to divide among the employees is a BS PR move.
 
Hey... A bonus is a bonus. I don't care if it's coming from the company or the CEO himself... I'd still be happy to get it.

I'll bet that those employees weren't getting unexpected bonuses like that back when IBM was running the Thinkpad factory... That company is downright stingy when it comes to employee pay outside of the executive ranks.
 
The economy is contracting at an unprecedented rate due to unmitigated greed and corruption. The problem is not citizens taking what deservedly belongs to them, but unceasingly what does not.

In the supermarket today, an older woman unsolicitedly blurted out how it's getting harder to find anyone honest to trust, and I agree.

Therefore it is heartwarming to witness someone who appreciates his/her surroundings in a functioning robust society, instead of the typical hypocrites and charlatans. One down, a million more to go. 🙂
 
JS80 said:
No wonder our country is going to shit. You average people are fucking dumb.
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Are you saying we should be angry the line workers got a bonus no matter how small it is? Should I just say whatever, it's all stupid even though as I pointed out it's rare the low level workers get anything at all? I just really don't get where all your rage is coming from, and now you're just calling everyone stupid becuase it was nice that some low income person got a bonus and I, among others think "good for them"
 
JS80 said:
Let's test your honesty. Your company is going through financial distress and you need to lay off people. You know there are a group of worthless lards that do nothing. Do you not lobby to get those people laid off? Hell, the company doesn't even have to be going through distress. You want to grow headcount in areas there are growth but in order to do so you need to get rid of the worthless lards because they are eating up the budget. What would Phokus do?
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Assuming i was the owner/ceo of the company, i would do these things in order:

I would freeze external hiring, except for truly urgent positions that need to get filled that can't be done internally.

Any open jobs, i would give preference to internal hires (IBM did this when i worked there).

I wouldn't even wait for a bad economy and basically make my workers become more multidisciplinary by training them, even in good times so they can move around.

I would take a temporary pay cut.

I would temporarily cut the pay of senior officers

I would work down the line and make lower workers take smaller pay cuts

I would institute temporary furloughs

etc. etc. etc.
 
Skel said:
Are you saying we should be angry the line workers got a bonus no matter how small it is? Should I just say whatever, it's all stupid even though as I pointed out it's rare the low level workers get anything at all? I just really don't get where all your rage is coming from, and now you're just calling everyone stupid becuase it was nice that some low income person got a bonus and I, among others think "good for them"
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Specifically I was referring to the post above. But your post proves how easy it is to fool the masses with trickery like the one Lenovo pulled.

I'm going to start a new class for business school. Marketing 103 PR for Executive Compensation: How to make the masses think your pay package is one of benevolence through clever PR.
 
JS80 said:
Again you miss the point of my original statement, that this is all smoke and mirrors. I never said good compensation packages do not include the right incentives. I just said this whole CEO giving up his bonus to divide among the employees is a BS PR move.
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Why do you assume I never knew that this is not partly a PR move? Of course, there's PR benefits. Do i have to explicitly preface everyone of my posts that this has PR benefits for you to realize this?

The point is, the CEO had a choice of keeping money to himself, but rather he gave it away by his own choosing, and while there is a PR angle to it, he did not conspire with the board to artificially inflate his bonus just for the PR benefits. The PR benefits were likely not the primary motivation for him doing so.

You suggested the board conspired with the CEO to create a "False" bonus payout that the CEO would give away for the sole purpose of manipulating the public. You have presented absolutely nothing to supports your view of events, just hearsay.

The $3M bonus paid to the CEO is a per-determined amount for a performance bonus for hitting target levels. This amount and target levels are defined in hiring contracts. There was nothing "Extra" in the bonuses given to the CEO for his performance that suggest his giveaway was a conspired attempt to manipulate the public.

If you disagree then please show us how the bonus he kept was different from his prior bonuses for similar performance.
 
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