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Lenovo CEO Shares $3 Million Bonus With Workers
hackingbear writes "Yang Yuanqing, founder and CEO of Chinese PC maker Lenovo, will share $3.25 million from his bonus with some 10,000 staff in China and 19 other countries. 'Most are hourly manufacturing workers,' Lenovo spokeswoman Angela Lee said. 'As you can imagine, an extra $300 in a manufacturing environment in China does make an impact, especially to employees supporting families.' In its annual review last year, Lenovo raised Yang's base pay to $1.2 million and awarded him a $4.2 million discretionary bonus and a $8.9 million long-term incentive award. Yang owns 7.12% of Lenovo's shares, equivalent to about $720 million in stock."
It's easy to be a philanthropist when you're rich. Just sayin'
I believe that he did this last year as well.
Good on him, especially considering that Lenovo has been quite successful recently in a contracting PC market
would be pretty awesome
unlike protestantism that just says "fuck you, i'm rich god loves me not you!"
Psychology 101: never reward someone for not doing bad; only for doing good.
In this case, all he did was refuse to be so grossly overpaid.
In before 1000 Libertarians explaining that nobody works unless they're paid money, because nothing is important except accumulation of material tat.
Thanks for the info. I will make it a point to buy / recommend Leveno products. I want to reward this behavior.
The workers feel appreciated and will be diligent.
You don't happen upon good employee morale and company stewardship.
It has to be grown. Quality and waste will decrease. When employees feel zero empathy for the company or it's future, a fall is sure to follow.
IBM would have insisted that "Costs Must Be Cut" (TM); laid off 20% of the workforce, furloughed the remaining employees for a week, and announced record earnings per share.
$3,250,000 / 10,000 = $325 per employee.
Keep that math in your brain for the next "Overpaid CEO" argument.
This guy is the CEO. He could just as well have Lenovo give this bonus directly to its employees, which it will probably (have to) do anyway. Instead he's trying to make himself look good. Might be worth the trouble; the (apparently) kinder the CEO, the more loyal the employees. But this is not an act of charity; it's just a normal bonus with a well thought-out psychological plan behind it.
0x or or snor perron?!
He's giving part of his bonus to be distributed to his workers? That's the path to socialism!
It's an act of generosity which he didn't have to do, for a company that puts out a laptop where Linux runs great. Lenovo was already probably going to get my next purchase based on how well Linux is running on this laptop (T61 purchased used FWIW), and this only makes it easier.
And good journalism would analyze total bonus amount and base compensation and compare against other companies. From a rational standpoint, the amount is what matters, not the story behind it.
A Lenovo competitor giving 5% more base pay than Lenovo and allocating 32 million instead of 3.2 million would get less credit than this single act by failing to perform the same theatrics, in no small part due to the media lapping up this sort of stunt. It may be more generous than competitors, but without some actual investigative effort, we are left with this hollow data point.
when was the last time your fat cat union boss did something like this?
No. He is a CEO, not the single owner of Lenovo.
His personal money and Lenovo money is not the same.
First things first, he didn't assign himself this bonus, the board of directors awarded I it to him.
It's his money, and he choose to give it away to his employees. This is a vast improvement over 99.999% of CEOs.
He did this last year and we didn't hear about it. This is not a PR stunt. There are plenty of cheaper ways to get some good PR, almost all of which the company would pay for and he could keep his bonus.
Yes, it's a small fraction of his net worth, but we don't know his future plans. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would not make as much impact if Bill decided to give away all his money when he only had $5 million.
If he had raised salaries 10%, the board would likely have found a new CEO.
This is good news, not bad. He's a good person in this respect, not an evil scheming bastard.
There are a few really good reasons not to do business with me, but I've always had as many clients as I can handle. Most of my money (over a million dollars) has come from people who choose to do business with me BECAUSE of what kind of person I am.
When they see me being generous with my time and money, they know I'm the type of person they want to do a deal with.
Secondly, without a generous and grateful spirit, you can have $200 million and not be nearly as rich as someone with a spirit of gratitude and generosity who earns 1/10th as much.
Sure, it's POSSIBLE to get a lot of money by being obsessed with money. Some people do that. It's EASIER to get rich by being of service, solving people's problems. Who would you rather buy from, someone who is obsessed with getting your money, or the other guy who is trying to help you solve your problem? If you were really good at what you do, which of those people would you choose to work for?
You don't get rich spending money FOOLISHLY. Every rich person I know is generous, applying the same wisdom to their giving that they apply to their business. (Disclaimer - generous people are over represented in the list of people I know because I don't hang out with, or do business with, scumbags.)
Actually forget if it's Simpsons or Futurama but "It's the amount of money our scientists have calculated that poor people think is a lot of money!"
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I don't get it. A CEO shares wealth with his workers without them demanding it. But so many people here feel he should do more. Why exactly? Just because he earns more? He has already done what few here are ever going to do in their entire lives.
The fellow is working hard. He has led his firm to being the top PC maker today. He has not only kept the jobs of most people in his organisation secure, but they are almost certainly getting good raises. His brand's market share is increasing and shareholders are getting a good dividend in a climate where established PC makers are crumbling.
And there are some who want to know what exactly he does that is more important than a good foreman. Only someone who has never owned or run a business will say this. Workers are far more insulated from a business's performance than a CEO. A few bad quarters mean that the CEO's job is already at risk. The CEO does not have absolute authority over everything. He constantly has to convince the board of directors for every new move he makes, or every not-so-successful strategy he has to persist with. He doesn't just get to take home a fat salary and enjoy life. All the perks you see just make the fellow's life a little easier. The reason leaders get paid more is because of what they are. Leaders.
This guy just bought: better morale, free publicity, [some] defense against charges of being heartless/taking advantage of workers a la Foxconn, and probably some warm fuzzy feelings for himself as well. I don't think he'll lose any sleep because Slashdot readers looked at his salary and wondered why he didn't give up the whole thing. Yes, he could have just had the company issue the bonus without any mention of where it came from, or he could have given the bonus but not released a press release about it, but so what? China's economy is slowing down, times are going to get tough, and this guy put a few hundred bucks in a lot of families' wallets; good for him.
These are peanuts for monkeys. It is less than 1% of the 500 millions of profit Lenovo did.
Next time you give some change to the poor, remind me to flame you because it's less than 1% of the hundreds of thousands your family makes (or whatever).
I seem to recall a recent ill-concieved socio-economic political movement asking for laws to be passed to make this sort of thing compulsory. Kudos to Yang for taking the initiative here - maybe others will follow his lead and we'll end up with a Rockefeller/Carnegie philanthropy competition going on. You may think of it as "cheap" PR, but examples like this stand far more of a chance of causing change than Occupy ever did. We've already got a Bill Gates at the top, we need someone like Yang in the "middle" as well.
Lenovo didn't do this because they had to, Yang did it because he wanted to. Kudos!
Good for lenovo, and it's workers.
Still not buying a laptop from them though:
- I dont want a touchscreen on my laptop (on the plus side, they still offer win7)
- Im not buying a 2000 euro X1 with a resolution of only 1200x900....
Why do phones have higher resolutions then laptops these days???
I do bonuses when the company can afford it for just that reason. Employees want a stable, guaranteed pay check. If they didn't, they'd be entrepreneurs. It would be cruel to give them a raise and have to take it be back six months later. Most would much rather have stable pay that won't be cut plus a bonus once a year than have their pay go up and down every month depending on company financials.
"And also the way you mean it, in that you expect some kind of return for the investment of your generosity."
That's not what _I_ meant at all. While it does make sense to be friendly with our friends, when I said spending foolishly I meant things like cars.
I can buy a lot of meals for people who need it with the money I could otherwise spend on a flashier car. The flashy car losses it's shine quickly.
On another level, I take my lunch to work, rather than eating out. 270 lunches X $5 = $1,350 every year, multiply by me and my wife, that's $2,700.
Over ten years, $27,000 from lunch. Instead, I could buy someone their first starter car every year and still come out $700 ahead, just by taking
lunch with me.
Really, ANONYMOUS giving does something to me that I don't get any other way. I'd like to do that more anonymous giving.
I can't quite explain it, but I think the effect is has on me likely makes more a more successful person, certainly a happier person.
I mentioned foolish giving. By that I do not meaning giving where I'll get nothing in return. I always get something in return because
it does something to my psyche / spirit / brain that's good. I mean that just as it's foolish to rent furniture from RAC, it's foolish to
"give" by bailing that same person out of jail AGAIN, or bailing them out of whatever situation they habitually put themselves in.
Just as the rented furniture ends up going back to the store, my brother ends up going back to the jail. Much better use that money
on someone whose actions show they intend to never go back to jail again.
Giving very publicly is fun, the recognition strokes the ego. Giving anonymously WITHOUT the ego boost, remaining humble, has longer
lasting benefits. I'm reminded that I'm actually the steward of what I have. It's been trusted to me because I've made wise decisions,
worked hard, etc., so it would be irresponsible of me to hand it out to drunks who will waste it, but ultimately it's not really mine. It was
created by the creator, and when I put it use with that in mind I become closer to what I'm made to be.
* I am no saint. I give far less than I "should", far less than many people do. I'm merely speaking of what happens _when_ I give in different ways.