A Message to All Business Leaders (now and future)

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Dear business leaders of today and in the future, this is a heartfelt message for all of you.

At this time, my mom isn't sure whether her hospital, Stanford ValleyCare, will lay her and her department off. Earlier today, they've laid off many of the employees working in management and other departments not covered by unions. These times are tough especially when business activity has been halted. 

As much as I want to have empathy for the many businesses working hard to survive during the pandemic, I also find it despicable that many CEOs are firing employees in order to maintain their huge salaries. Before Hertz went into bankruptcy, the company paid its executives huge bonuses as over 38 thousand employees are worrying about whether they'll have a job tomorrow or even a job to go back to. 

Some of you might say that your Ivy League education and your hard work justifies this behavior. Honestly, as a person with many friends from the Ivy League schools (alumni and current students) and friends that went from rags to riches, I find that reason to be shallow. 

"The actions we do today define who we truly are"

-Anonymous

 Vulnerable times determine who we truly are. Are we people that are well prepared? Are we people that are generous or selfish? Are we broken in the face of adversity or are we resilient? 

I want the workers of America to be treated with respect and cared for as much as possible. Not everyone can be entrepreneurs. While I believe that those who take on the most risk and work the hardest deserves the most pay, I also believe that by taking care of your workers, society would be much better overall. 

Look at Henry Ford. When the Great Depression happened, Henry Ford decided to double wages to help workers. With that, since he transitioned his production process into the assembly line, he decided to hire more workers. Since those workers were well paid and provided income to their communities during the hard times, economic recovery can sooner than if he chose not to pay his workers. 

If our leaders can start treating our workers better, then many Americans can sleep better and there would be more positivity in this world. 

Also, the economy would be in better shape overall. Mortgage lenders and landlords wouldn't have to put their debtors and tenants under tough circumstances. Restaurants wouldn't need to heavily discount things to accommodate to the new consumer sentiment. And overall, people would be willing to obey their city and county's lockdowns orders as they wouldn't have to disobey the law and put their health at risk just to put food on the table. 

For all the business leaders of today, please read this and take action to help your current employees and the people you laid off. 

And for the business leaders of tomorrow, I hope you can learn to be compassionate to your employees when you are put in tough situations like this.