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If you have cash and you're transparent, your employees are likely to ask for it if you have a personal relationship with them. I would say this is frequently

If you have cash and you're transparent, your employees are likely to ask for it if you have a personal relationship with them. I would say this is frequently even the case for big picture employees. I'm saying this also as the lowest compensated person at my company for ~5 years. To me it's more of an ideal world vs real world. Ideally you can share everything, in reality the outcome is likely to have a negative impact on both employee satisfaction and profit. Ie most likely giving employees a raise and them still thinking they aren't getting enough due to them seeing the big $ in the bank. My preferred approach is budget level (we can spend x on y, I am open to your ideas) and number light executive summary (we have x months runway, not we have y in the bank). You can also give someone a smaller piece of transparency and see how they react if you think the employee could be someone with the skill set to manage a budget in the future.

sanderjd 4y ago
I don't relate to this. It seems like there may be a lack of understanding of or alignment on the long term path if this is a problem. I'm at a very transparent fairly early stage company right now and when I see how much money we have in the bank, I think "that's great news for our roadmap and long term path to profitability or further investment", not "how can I get me more of that sweet cash".
- sasquatch69 4y ago
  My company would widely be considered as stable, I'm personally 100% long term on our company. So it's past the "great news for our roadmap and long term path to profitability or further investment" phase. Although we're not massive either (few mil, rapid growth). Also bootstrapped from $300, so I could see it being different for venture funded situations. Different companies/team compositions might have different best paths. It's more "why are you hiring someone, when you could give everyone a bigger bonus" vibes. Where my goal is to say, give 2x the bonus in the future via the hire instead, but an employee could justifiably, for their own reasons, want more money today. I'm saying that^ in the context, of, in my opinion, big picture employees as well. I agree there's sometimes misalignment, everyone has their own goals/aspirations/career, and they sometimes aren't the same as the company goal/timeline. At the end of the day, that doesn't mean that they aren't capable of making valuable contributions or that we don't want to support their goals. That is ok, it's impossible to be everyone's everything.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    Yeah this makes sense. I still think it might make more sense to be transparent, and also capable of having those conversations with the team about why people are being hired instead of bonuses being juiced. Maybe you're right that it would be bad for morale, but I feel like owners / executives should be able to tell that story compellingly.
  - taneq 4y ago
    > "why are you hiring someone, when you could give everyone a bigger bonus" Or even "we just invoiced $5k for that project, I didn't get $5k, that seems unfair". Some people find it difficult to see all the different places that gross revenue has to go in order to keep the lights on and the wheels turning.
Ken_At_EM 4y ago
We have plenty of money in the bank and our company is profitable. I’ve employed over 100 people during our 13 years of business. Not once have I ever had an employee say “hey man, I noticed you guys have more than the bare minimum level of working capital in the bank! How about you give me some?” Never. If you were telling everyone you were broke, asking them to believe in the mission and endure low pay for the cause, and then it leaks out that you have plenty of cash, then yeah, I can see this question coming up.
- sasquatch69 4y ago
  My team is all well compensated, above top 5 US metro average, full remote and all highly technical. It's surprising to me that out of 100 people no one asked for a raise after seeing a pool of money, although there's a lot of industries and types of employees out there. It's a smart thing to do from the employee perspective-- I would do the same in their shoes, I don't hold it against them, I'm actually a big fan of ambitious employees, and I've granted their requests (maybe not the full value of their ask, but at least part) every time. Your mileage may vary.
  - Ken_At_EM 4y ago
    I just don’t understand that point of view. Why aren’t employees at Apple asking for a piece of their massive cash horde? If the only thing keeping an employee from asking or demanding they be given some of the companies property is the knowledge that property exists then you probably don’t want them in your company.
- sasquatch69 4y ago
  They don't frame it as “hey man, I noticed you guys have more than the bare minimum level of working capital in the bank! How about you give me some?” It's a "coincidence" that occurs a short time period after seeing the information.

sanderjd 4y ago

I don't relate to this. It seems like there may be a lack of understanding of or alignment on the long term path if this is a problem. I'm at a very transparent fairly early stage company right now and when I see how much money we have in the bank, I think "that's great news for our roadmap and long term path to profitability or further investment", not "how can I get me more of that sweet cash".

sasquatch69 4y ago
My company would widely be considered as stable, I'm personally 100% long term on our company. So it's past the "great news for our roadmap and long term path to profitability or further investment" phase. Although we're not massive either (few mil, rapid growth). Also bootstrapped from $300, so I could see it being different for venture funded situations. Different companies/team compositions might have different best paths. It's more "why are you hiring someone, when you could give everyone a bigger bonus" vibes. Where my goal is to say, give 2x the bonus in the future via the hire instead, but an employee could justifiably, for their own reasons, want more money today. I'm saying that^ in the context, of, in my opinion, big picture employees as well. I agree there's sometimes misalignment, everyone has their own goals/aspirations/career, and they sometimes aren't the same as the company goal/timeline. At the end of the day, that doesn't mean that they aren't capable of making valuable contributions or that we don't want to support their goals. That is ok, it's impossible to be everyone's everything.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  Yeah this makes sense. I still think it might make more sense to be transparent, and also capable of having those conversations with the team about why people are being hired instead of bonuses being juiced. Maybe you're right that it would be bad for morale, but I feel like owners / executives should be able to tell that story compellingly.
- taneq 4y ago
  > "why are you hiring someone, when you could give everyone a bigger bonus" Or even "we just invoiced $5k for that project, I didn't get $5k, that seems unfair". Some people find it difficult to see all the different places that gross revenue has to go in order to keep the lights on and the wheels turning.

Ken_At_EM 4y ago

We have plenty of money in the bank and our company is profitable. I’ve employed over 100 people during our 13 years of business. Not once have I ever had an employee say “hey man, I noticed you guys have more than the bare minimum level of working capital in the bank! How about you give me some?” Never. If you were telling everyone you were broke, asking them to believe in the mission and endure low pay for the cause, and then it leaks out that you have plenty of cash, then yeah, I can see this question coming up.

sasquatch69 4y ago
My team is all well compensated, above top 5 US metro average, full remote and all highly technical. It's surprising to me that out of 100 people no one asked for a raise after seeing a pool of money, although there's a lot of industries and types of employees out there. It's a smart thing to do from the employee perspective-- I would do the same in their shoes, I don't hold it against them, I'm actually a big fan of ambitious employees, and I've granted their requests (maybe not the full value of their ask, but at least part) every time. Your mileage may vary.
- Ken_At_EM 4y ago
  I just don’t understand that point of view. Why aren’t employees at Apple asking for a piece of their massive cash horde? If the only thing keeping an employee from asking or demanding they be given some of the companies property is the knowledge that property exists then you probably don’t want them in your company.
sasquatch69 4y ago
They don't frame it as “hey man, I noticed you guys have more than the bare minimum level of working capital in the bank! How about you give me some?” It's a "coincidence" that occurs a short time period after seeing the information.