
Grab Asks Staff to Take No-Pay Leave to Cut Costs - jinonoel
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/softbank-backed-grab-asks-staff-to-take-no-pay-leave-to-cut-cost
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namanaggarwal
Unlike other companies, the no-pay leave is voluntary, they are not forcing
people to take leave(atleast till now). Also the amount of pay cut is replaced
by RSU. I think Grab is doing good enough job to support workers and drivers
and to support it's business.

P.S used to work for Grab till last week. Left because of personal reasons.
Opinions are my own

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envolt
Softbank backed OYO has done the same thing. While these kind of leaves are
voluntary on paper, they are the only option offered. Formally company present
this option to you, you show interest, you accept what they are offering.

Informally, the company asks you to accept whatever they are offering. You can
always resist, you're very much likely to have the legal advantage. But you
don't want to go through the trouble.

Edit - the only good part of the offer was 0 day notice period. They are
betting on major chunk of employees to not come back, so they can bring back
the one who are left (IMO 80% will leave)

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mirimir
Why not issue vouchers, at least to staff they'd rather not lose?

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chemeng
And if not some sort of withheld wage to be paid later, issue equity in lieu
of pay.

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namanaggarwal
They are issuing RSUs in lieu of pay.

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chemeng
Awesome! Feels like an important detail that Bloomberg should have in the
article.

Difficult times for everyone right now, it might be a small gesture, but it's
something.

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babycake
But why is this good? RSU are pretty worthless right now... there's a lot of
restrictions around it. Stuff like when can you cash them out, what happens if
the company loses more money and shutters, what happens if you get laid off,
and they don't help pay the bills?

Cash is king right now, especially in this economy.

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econcon
Ideally VC mothership should pay for their continuation through crisis. Or
none of the VCs included Corona like risk in their calculation?

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twblalock
Nobody included that risk in their calculation.

~~~
econcon
Taleb did

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Mengkudulangsat
They are becoming way too haughty in recent years.

Expanded from ride sharing to meal deliveries to coupons to VC fund (yup, a
startup with it's own VC fund, ironic), to digital banks etc.

Cut the crap and focus.

~~~
sfifs
They're not a startup. They're a giant owned by some of the richest business
families in the region that essentially kicked Uber's ass out of South East
Asia because they execute a lot better in a market where BOTH legacy Taxis and
public transport are really good :-)

We took a vacation in Bay Area last year and were shocked how poor transport
and food delivery options were compared to the big cities in Asia.

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nerdbaggy
“And, beginning in May, the ride-hailing company will reportedly put forward a
30 percent reduction in pay for executive leadership, 20 percent for vice
presidents and 10 percent for all other staffers who are exempt per a
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.”

This stuff grinds my gears. I think they could take a bigger pay cut. I see
this everywhere not just with Grab. The CEO Anthony Tan is in the top 50
riches people in Malaysia.

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Jommi
You do realize that % based cuts are already progressive right?

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willcipriano
The nature of executive compensation is often different than rank and file
employees. A common trick is to say "The leadership team took a 30% paycut, so
the 10% paycut you are taking isn't so bad" however executive pay is often
split between equity, bonus and base compensation with equity and bonus making
up more than 50% of the total comp. Often when they say 30% they are talking
about 30% of base.

