Business Tools Blog

You know times are tough when your CEO asks you to work for free.   According to the Associated Press,

BA chief Willie Walsh has said he would not draw a salary for the month of July, and urged other employees to work for blocks of time without being paid.

Willie Walsh is asking employees to sacrifice in the short term, to help make British Airways stronger in the long term.  How would you react in that situation?  Sure you want your company to be successful.  Going an extra mile doesn’t seem out of the question.  But there is a very big difference between giving up $100K of an annual $1.2M salary, versus giving up $1,667 of a $20K annual salary.  Not surprising that Unions reacted angrily to the request.

The airline industry, like the American auto industry operations is baffling.  On the surface, it seems like these businesses should be extremely lucrative and profitable.  I think that Willie might better spend his time learning how to create value, than perhaps working with the unions to figure out how to pay employees fairly.  Perhaps he and his executive team should put more skin in the game and forego their ridiculous compensation packages. But that’s just step one.  My guess is that BA doesn’t fully understand where they are profitable and where they aren’t.  Until they really understand their value proposition, no amount of crazy cost cuting will make them successful in the long term.