Business Ethics - Profit Distribution Problem

YourBuddy

surferdude wrote:

Imagine this scenario. You are the owner of a company that has been losing money for the past few years. You've drawn on both a personal and a company line of credit to keep the company solvent and meet payroll. Your staff are all paid at or above market average.

You've spent considerable time coming up with a new business plan. You've come up with a plan you are sure will work that will involve investing in technology and additional staff. You invest a considerable amount of your money, have had a few private investors commit some money and have given allyour employees a chance to invest but no employees do invest.

Three years later your plan has been a fantastic success. Not a single employee has been asked to do more than they previously were as the plan included hiring new staff.

Do you feel obligated in sharing the new huge profits with your staff? Do you feel the government should obligate you to share the profits with the staff?

I think that would depend on the employees, if they maybe went above regular duty to help make a success then yes. Remember your plan would not work with out the backbone of the companies staff. But, if the employees just did as they did when the company was failing then no, they obviously were skating by and didnt really care what happened in the end

sponger

I would consider their disposable income prior to the growth spurt. If they were barely making enough money to put food on the table, then I wouldn't have expected them to invest. If they were putting extra dollars into nicer cars and HD tv's, then I'd tell them to go screw themselves.