Employees Make it, Then Buy it
While many companies worldwide are debating the wisdom of bonuses for employees at all levels, Panasonic has gone even further. The company is demanding that they give something back by supporting the business with purchases of unsold equipment.
The Times in the U.K. carried a report from its Asia correspondent about the memo sent out to 10,000 Panasonic staff exhorting them to spend the equivalent of £1,000 (U.S. $1,440) each by July. Apparently the policy isn't new, as executives "have been 'encouraged' for years to fill their homes with Panasonic goods as a symbol of corporate loyalty." As the targets are mostly at management level, a spokesman said that "the company did not expect refusal rates to be high" despite the fact that salary and bonus cuts were also announced.
On top of longstanding policies of encouraging employees to sing company songs and otherwise show loyalty, Toyota and Fujitsu have also increased pressure on staff, according to The Times. Some 2,200 of the car company's top staff have been praised for buying new cars while Fujitsu's president sent e-mails to 100,000 staff suggesting that if everyone in the company got together to increase "employee ownership rates" of Fujitsu PCs and mobile phones "then it will become a great power."
Promotions at Sony and Sharp take the form of discount sales that the story says have involved a "clear sense of pressure" to be seen supporting the company by buying its products.
Trying to deal with a major economic downturn, The Times concludes "even if other Japanese companies are less aggressive about compelling staff to buy their products, many are expecting the Japanese corporate tradition of socially enforced loyalty to kick in and force the issue anyway."
Discussion questions: What do you think of policies around encouraging or even requiring employees to purchase company merchandise? Will seeing a company's employees buying its products encourage shoppers to do the same?