What are the chances of a (big) American company doing this?

whygohomewhygohome Posts: 2,305
edited February 2012 in A Moving Train
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/0 ... 46640.html

Aussie Bosses Thank Employees With $16M After Sale

By ROD McGUIRK 02/ 1/12 07:48 AM ET AP
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CANBERRA, Australia -- Employees of an Australian bus company have been given a 15 million Australian dollar ($16 million) share of the proceeds of the business sale as a thank-you for their loyalty, an executive and a newspaper said Wednesday.

The 1,800 staff at Melbourne-based Grenda Corp. have received bonuses averaging more than AU$8,300 and as much as AU$30,000 after the Grenda family sold the 66-year-old business for AU$400 million, the Herald Sun newspaper reported.

Chief executive Geoff Grenda described the gratitude of staff – one of whom had been with the company for 52 years – as "overwhelming."

"We sat down and thought: 'how can we thank the people that have got us to where we're going to end up?' and it was a fairly easy decision for us," Grenda told Nine Network television, referring to his father Ken and brother Scott.

"We've had lots of loyal people over our 66-year journey and this was our way of rewarding the ones that are still with us," he added.

Geoff Grenda could not be immediately contacted for comment on Wednesday.

The staff will keep their jobs under the new owner, Ventura, the newspaper said.

A bus driver identified only as Heath told the newspaper that some staff had telephoned their banks assuming an error had been made after the bonuses were paid directly into their accounts.

"Good bosses are hard to find and Ken was a very good boss – one of a kind," Heath said.
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Comments

  • Absolutely zero. Oh wait there is this exceptional good guy. Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods (go figure)


    http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascoun ... ds_ro.html

    Wow... from Wisconsin too! :lol: Imagine that!
  • hedonisthedonist Posts: 24,524
    I absolutely love this story, but doubt that this kind of giving back to those who helped foster success (though perhaps not to that financial extent) is limited to outside of the US. I'm sure I've read similar stories about American firms in the past.

    My company was very generous to us after we sold some properties last year...much appreciated too!
  • MotoDCMotoDC Posts: 947
    Most (big) American companies have employee equity plans that encourage and often outright grant partial ownership of the company to their employees. Thus any gains from a merger/sale/acquisition would be shared amongst any employee who had participated.
  • My company (I won't say which one) gave us bonuses after we had a very difficult time with our operating systems after a merger. I don't know what the total of the bonuses were, but I got $250 and there are thousands of employees who got the same (on top of some ridiculous amounts of overtime pay due to the amount of system errors we were having--I had 30 hours of OT on one check). We also received an additional bonus about a month later after the financial results for the year came back better than expected despite the problems we had.
  • whygohomewhygohome Posts: 2,305
    Good to hear, good to hear. The scale is different, but it is still good to hear. I will sit and wait for the big banks or some Wall St. firms to do this.
  • mikepegg44mikepegg44 Posts: 3,353
    uhh...haven't you seen undercover boss?
    that’s right! Can’t we all just get together and focus on our real enemies: monogamous gays and stem cells… - Ned Flanders
    It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
    - Joe Rogan
  • Jason PJason P Posts: 19,156
    Does this happen all the time in Australia?

    I heard the beaches are nice. Toss this in and I might ponder on relocation.
    Be Excellent To Each Other
    Party On, Dudes!
  • I liked last week's when the president of Kendall Jackson was on deliveries with one of his drivers who was talking trash about the company and how he didn't care about customer service. I had to go to the bathroom but held it until they got to his post-undercover interview so I didn't miss him getting chewed out. Wow, what an awkward scene that was!

    mikepegg44 wrote:
    uhh...haven't you seen undercover boss?
  • mikepegg44mikepegg44 Posts: 3,353
    I liked last week's when the president of Kendall Jackson was on deliveries with one of his drivers who was talking trash about the company and how he didn't care about customer service. I had to go to the bathroom but held it until they got to his post-undercover interview so I didn't miss him getting chewed out. Wow, what an awkward scene that was!

    mikepegg44 wrote:
    uhh...haven't you seen undercover boss?


    I haven't really watched it much recently, it is a great idea for a show, but more importantly it is a good idea for all large companies for the executives at the top to see what really happens at the bottom of the company
    that’s right! Can’t we all just get together and focus on our real enemies: monogamous gays and stem cells… - Ned Flanders
    It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
    - Joe Rogan
  • brandon10brandon10 Posts: 1,114
    mikepegg44 wrote:
    uhh...haven't you seen undercover boss?

    :lol:
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