Senior level exec "perks"

[draggar]

I'm not talking about all the well known perks like great sports game seats, high level bonuses, high pay, top of the line benefits, etc.

I'm talking about something that most people don't realize, and apparently this is quite common in the large corporate world. I knew it was going on but never realized how common it is.

I had a chat with one of my co-workers the other day who spent time at my company's world HQ's IT department as well as a few others in his past (so this has been going on for a long time).

Every senior level executive (CEO, COO, Senior VP, etc.) who has worked for my company and left has their own office at our corporate HQ as well as a well paid "executive assistant". We pretty much have an entire building dedicated to these people. The assistants are there maybe once every 2-3 months and the former-execs are there once a year, at most.

We're paying a lease on a building that is almost never used for people who don't work for the company anymore.

Also, each of these executives, no matter how good or bad of a job they did, still receives a paycheck from the company they used to work for. No, it's not what they made in their position but I'll say this - their monthly check is still more than what I make in a year.

So, here I am busting my rear end trying to improve my company yet not getting a raise in 4 years because of "cost cutting" and seeing at least 75% of my department laid off (plus now 3X more work) in the name of "cost cutting". I can't even do my job now since due to budget cuts I can't get in the equipment I need.

Yet these people, some of which ran my company into the ground and almost destroyed it, are raking in tens of thousands of dollars a month for doing nothing.

I've known about this in my own company for a while now but I didn't realize it was quite common in the large corporation world.

[Rapscallion]

Never heard of anything like this before. However, it reinforces what a mate of mine once said. "I'm all for a minimum wage, but I'm also all for a maximum wage."

Rapscallion

[gremcint]

I think there should be a relation between maximum and minimum wage. your highest paid person (counting expense account, company car, bonuses) is only allowed to make x times the lowest paid person in your company.

Further whenever someone is giving a bonus a second bonus is then given divided evenly among ever person directly below that person. guy gets 1000 dollar bonus and has 50 people reporting to him through the chain, they each get 20 dollars then.

[crashhelmet]

These are all just fragments of the "Golden Parachutes" that many executives have written into their contracts. Many of these executives have either "retired" or they still have some active role with the company, like being a member of the board, or even worse "A Consultant."

The admins, however, are pulled from other people or are temps.

[draggar]

I think there should be a relation between maximum and minimum wage. your highest paid person (counting expense account, company car, bonuses) is only allowed to make x times the lowest paid person in your company.

Further whenever someone is giving a bonus a second bonus is then given divided evenly among ever person directly below that person. guy gets 1000 dollar bonus and has 50 people reporting to him through the chain, they each get 20 dollars then.

Maximum wage will never pass - too many of these people are highly influential and the corporations will work against it. Not only that, they can easily skirt around it. This is another thing I've seen - a company launches a new initiative and an executive takes a position with that initiative without leaving their old position, even at times the two positions being redundant.

For example, a food processing company has a senior VP of hamburgers. The company decides to launch a new line of hamburgers and it would make sense to have that senior VP in charge of them. But instead they make that new line it's own department / product line with their own staff and put that senior VP in charge of it while still having his previous job - he now has two positions with the company that are technically redundant. I've seen this a lot in my past with several companies I've worked for.

As for your bonus, great idea, until you get to a large corporation. The president of a 50,000 employee company is supposed to get a $4,000,000 bonus. So, instead he takes $2,000,000 and the other $2,000,000 is split among the other 50,000 employees. That leaves $40 per employee (before taxes - after it'll be about $20-$25). Plus, "bonus" structures can easily (and legally) be redefined and manipulated.

These are all just fragments of the "Golden Parachutes" that many executives have written into their contracts. Many of these executives have either "retired" or they still have some active role with the company, like being a member of the board, or even worse "A Consultant."

The admins, however, are pulled from other people or are temps.

I've seen this before - "retired but still fufilling the role of (whatever)".

[gremcint]

I won't complain about an extra twenty bucks now and then, I have no problem with someone being rewarded for their work but when my work contributed to theirs I should get something too even if it's only a little. Heck if all the major managers gave themselves large bonuses and I got 20 bucks each time I could double my paycheck.

[mikoyan29]

But acknowledging that you didn't have all that success on your own is one of the paths to Communism.....