Sunday, August 31, 2014

An Innovative, Outside The Box Incentive Program From Industry Leader Walgreens

Deerfield, IL- Corporate executives at Walgreens, the nation's largest pharmacy chain, today announced a new employee bonus program that they promised would "shake up the retail industry, if not the entire business world" at a press conference at its Zug, Switzerland Illinois corporate headquarters.  "We're turning conventional thinking upside down" stated company CEO Greg Wasson. "How? Well hang on to your seats. By rewarding.....failure"

According to Wasson, effective immediately, all Walgreens employees will receive anywhere from 0.75 to 1.2 percent of any financial errors they are responsible for in direct payments from the company. "Now granted, to a cashier whose drawer is off by ten dollars at the end of a shift, a payment of an extra dime may not mean much, and let's face it, a store manager getting an extra ten dollars for a deposit off by $1000 certainly won't be a game changer. That's why I'm announcing the start of this program with two executives who we think will become emblematic of what we're trying to accomplish. Wade, Kermit, step on up here."  

Mr. Wasson was then joined at the podium by Company Chief Financial Officer Wade Miquelon and President of pharmacy, health, and wellness Kermit Crawford*

"Now, these two men were recently responsible for a billion dollar forecasting error when projecting our upcoming Medicare business" Mr. Wasson continued. "And there's no company where a billion dollars isn't a good sized chunk of change, so naturally, we have to let them go. But not before, and I want everyone to know this, we load them up with payments and compensation worth $8.5 million and $12 million, respectively."**

"That's right" Wasson said "Write that down for the whole world to see. Make a billion dollar fuckup at Walgreens and walk away rich!"

Asked how a plan that rewarded failure could possibly further the company's interests, Wasson replied "That's the genius of this whole thing. Like I said, this won't mean a whole lot to the vast majority of our employees. Right now that is. But what it does is let them know that if they work their way up to a position where they are responsible for a whole lot of dollars, well...then the world is their oyster. So what we're gonna have here is 250,000 employees striving every day to reach a position of greater responsibility so they too can have a $10 million screwup payday. And quite honestly, 250,000 store-level employees giving their best is worth far more than one fuckup at the top."

While executive-level business people were almost universally positive in their reaction to the new bonus program, others were more skeptical.

"I don't see how this changes current executive compensation practices at all" said Harvard business professor Camfield Rosenburg. "And to be effective, the expansion of fuckup bonuses to store level employees would have to be coupled with a policy where promotions to positions of great responsibility were based on positive performance. And I didn't see anything in today's announcement to indicate such a change has taken place."

After the press conference, Miquelon and Crawford issued a joint statement that read simply "Moneymoneymoneymoney Brrrraaaahhhhhaaaahhhaaahhhaaaaaaaa!!!!!"

*As much as I would like to say I made this up,  "Kermit Crawford" is the guy's real name. 

** I didn't make  this up either. In case you were too lazy to click on the link, these guys made a billion dollar screwup and were rewarded with millions of dollars in severance money. 

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