Last year, nearer Deepavali, there were reports of an unusually generous boss in Surat. The employees of Hari Krishna Exports had to thank their Chairman Savjibhai Dholakia heartily and heartfully, as it rained cars, apartments and diamond jewelry. Of the 1,268 employees rewarded for loyalty and performance, almost 500 opted for Fiat Punto cars, while 207 went for apartments and 570 employees chose jewelry. The largesse took even generous corporate houses in India by surprise, as it came at a time when the diamond polishing industry in India had been suffering for a while. The boss, Savjibhai Dholakiya, an exporter however said – his workers deserved big rewards for their hard work and loyalty.
Recently, there was news of Chinese billionaire Li Jinyuan taking 6,400 staff on holiday to Paris and Cote d'Azur - and top it off by making world's longest human chain. The trip was in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Tiens Group Company. The huge group of tourists then made their way to the glamorous Cote D'Azur, where Li Jinyuan booked 4,760 rooms in 79 four-and five-star hotels in Cannes and Monaco. Li Jinyuan, 57, is listed as a billionaire on the Forbes rich list and took more than half of his staff to the region to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the founding of the company
It took 147 buses to take the tourists from their hotels to the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where Guinness World Record officials where on hand to validate the world's biggest ever human chain. The 6,400 employees arranged themselves to spell out the phrase 'Tiens' dream is Nice in the Cote d'Azur', to celebrate 20 years of partnership between the Chinese company and the French region. France is expected to be 33million Euros better off thanks to the all-expenses-paid staff trip.
If China does something, can India be far behind ? Today, TOI reports that Rahul Yadav cofounder & CEO of Housing.com, announced at a company town hall meeting held in a Mumbai suburban hotel that he is offloading all his shares to employees of the realty portal, in what comes across as an unprecedented move by a company founder and leaves him with no skin in the game. Yadav held around 4.5% stake in Housing, once touted as being the hottest campus startup to have emerged out of IIT-Bombay , but which is now marred in a pool of controversies.
Known
for having an abrasive demeanour, Yadav said in a written statement, “I'm just
26 and it's too early in life to get serious about money ,“ which is why he was
relinquishing his entire stake in Housing. People present at the town hall told
TOI that most employees were shocked with the sudden announcement. A press
statement sent out late Tuesday evening said, “Rahul Yadav , CEO of Housing,
took everyone by surprise when he announced that he has allotted his personal
shares worth Rs 150-200 crore to all the 2,251 employees of Housing who will
get approximately one year of their annual salaries worth of company stocks.“ Yadav holds the highest shares among the
founding team, which is now down to nine members from 12 when Housing began
operations in 2012. Besides the 4.5% that Yadav holds, the rest of the founders
together own about 8-9% in the realty portal. Yadav had put in his resignation
on April 30 from the CEO's role, which he subsequently withdrew at a company
board meeting last week. In fact, he went on to apologize for his unseemly
comments made in the letter against Housing's investors.
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
14th May 2015.
