It is nothing new, to offer employees incentives to leave the company. Yes, you heard me, leave the company. It is quite a reverse logic approach to increase productivity. With the recent news of Amazon offering up to $5,000 for you to leave, I started thinking about the value of the offer. Mathematics are not my strongest suit - but the payback is quite intriguing. There are many other reasons why this is a plan that larger firms consider, but even at a very basic level - consider the (very simple) following information:

Consider an employee that does not like his or her job. You have Facebook, in fact you may be reading this during your working hours. Though, in itself, that is not a bad thing. Imagine if you spent 1 hour each week, on Facebook alone, during your working hours - and you love your job. If you made $10.00 an hour, and have a fringe of 50% (what the company pays for your insurances, misc. benefits) for 5 years (the max time and buy out offering) would be about $3900 dollars. You like your job, and that is only one hour a week. At two hours - the company gains. GE practiced something similar but was a reduction from the bottom percent of the employees by elimination.

Regardless - I just want to point out that we need to keep those who enjoy what they do, and are good at what they do. Most of us would rather be on a white beach under a palm tree but that is not a luxury for most. Yet we must break boundaries, create new paths and with that you will need talent, drive and teamwork. People who are not steering in the same direction are only holding you back.

What is success worth to you?

 

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