Four bosses who did something great for the sake of staff

There is a holy grail in the workplace, but it’s not exactly what you’d expect. While in any company, the products, branding strategies, packaging and pricing are essential, it’s the employees who make the difference. That’s why it’s so important that you motivate them to move mountains.

This was recently highlighted by Jeff Weiner’s most recent act as LinkedIn CEO. In February the company published a discouraging quarterly earnings report, which caused investors to back away and cut the firm’s market value in half in a single day. As such, Weiner tried to boost morale by forfeiting his $14m bonus in order to benefit employees suffering from the company’s stock nosedive.

The announcement followed a similar crisis experienced by Twitter in October 2015, when CEO Jack Dorsey gave a third of his stake in the company back to his employees after the tech platform’s stock plunged.

But let’s face it, even with depleted confidence, staff felt more motivated than before – and probably grew more loyal to their CEOs for thinking of them in that regard. After all, even in today’s society it is still considered rare for employers to go above and beyond for their staff – but here are four leaders that went out of their way to put employees at ease.

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(1) Michael De Beyer of Kaiserhof Restaurant

No list of generosity should ever be complete without mentioning what chef and owner of the Kaiserhof Restaurant, Michael De Beyer, did for then 19-year-old waitress Brittany Mathis in 2014.

Manthis heard the news that she had a tumour after visiting the hospital due to a rash on her leg. Doctors performed MRIs and CAT scans to investigate why her blood was clotting and found a ping pong ball-sized mass in her brain.

After he learned that Mathis had been diagnosed with a tumour but couldn’t afford any treatment as she had no healthcare, he gave up his business. That’s right, he went above and beyond what most bosses would do to help an employee in a crisis and put his business up for sale. How many employers would do the same?

While De Beyer had listed his business before, he had turned down any offers that had been made. This time, however, De Beyer auctioned the restaurant, with the minimum bid starting at half the business’s actual value. Any amount above that, he said, would go to help Mathis with her medical expenses. 

Image: Shutterstock

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(2) Chuck Sibley of Navistar

In 2010, a production slowdown meant that Navistar Diesel’s engine plant would soon be handing out a mass of pink slips, and Chuck Sibley would be the man that needed to do it. Worried about the welfare of his employees and their families, however, Sibley was determined to save his employees’ jobs – so he came up with a plan.

He managed to persuade the managers at parent company Navistar International to retain 50 workers – with full pay and benefits. He did so by pitching a community outreach program that would allow his workers to give back to the community by carrying out special projects for charities. 

Employees volunteered and got connected to three area charities: Care Assurance Systems for the Aging and Homebound, Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army, doing work like building homes, sorting donations, repairing wheelchair ramps and cleaning foreclosed properties. 

Sibley may not have given his employees a ton of money from his own pockets, but he did fight to make it possible for his team to keep their jobs. 

Read on to find out about the boss that gets paid the same as staff so as to increase their minimum wage.

By Shané Schutte

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