Washington. In the corporate world, the news of profits and acquisitions often remains in the headlines, but the owner of an American company has presented such an example of loyalty and respect towards his employees, which has won the hearts of the entire world. Fiberbond company owner Graham Walker recently sold his business to a giant called Eaton, but before finalizing the deal, he put forward a condition that even business advisors were surprised to hear. Walker made it clear that 15 percent of the company’s total sales amount would be given directly to the employees who have taken the company to this position.
The deal was finalized for $1.7 billion (approximately Rs 14,000 crore). As per Walker’s terms, a bonus of $240 million (about Rs 2,000 crore) of the sale proceeds was reserved for all 540 full-time employees of the company. The most special thing about this decision was that the employees did not have any shares in the company, yet Walker made them a share in the profits. Accordingly, each employee received an average of $4.4 lakh (approximately Rs 3.7 crore), which will be distributed over the next five years as a retention award. When employees received sealed envelopes bearing their names in the month of June, many had tears in their eyes. Lesia Ki, who has been working in the company for 29 years, said that she started in 1995 with a wage of only $5.35 per hour. After receiving the bonus amount, he repaid his home loan and fulfilled his dream of starting his own business. Similarly, 67-year-old Hong Blackwell, who had been working for 15 years, also received a bonus worth millions of dollars, due to which she took an honorable retirement.
Fiberbond’s journey has been full of struggles. The company, which was started in 1982, was destroyed by a massive fire in 1998, but the Walker family did not stop the employees’ salaries even after production stopped. Later, the company also struggled hard during the dot-com recession. The company’s fortunes changed when it invested heavily in the data center sector and its sales jumped 400% as demand for cloud computing increased during the pandemic. Graham Walker’s advisers warned him that a clause requiring employees to pay 15% of sales could complicate the deal, but Walker stood firm on his decision. He believed that this money was not just a gift, but a gratitude to those people who did not abandon the company in difficult times. This move not only proved to improve the financial condition of the employees, but also became a means for the new owner company to stabilize operations.
