After waving good-bye to billions in the subprime mortgage market and bailing out nefarious mustache-twirling mortgage lender Countrywide, Bank of America says it can no longer afford soap for its employee’s break rooms.
They can still afford to pay CEO Ken Lewis a cool $28 million a year says the New York Post:
Bank of America chief Ken Lewis may have taken home $28 million, but he’s still slashing wasteful perks such as free soup and crackers for employees.
The nation’s second-largest bank posted grim notices yesterday around its offices here and elsewhere that it no longer can afford giving employees any freebies.
The notice listed goodies it will eliminate at its employee kitchenettes: soup, crackers, flavored teas, sugar-free hot chocolate and hand soap.
The bank presumably will keep hand soap in bathrooms. City laws require it, but not necessarily at snack counter sinks.
Since there are no food or beverages to handle anymore at the kitchenettes, there’s no need for soap to wash hands – a found bonus for bean counters.
“We’ll continue to have plenty of soap in ’08,” a bank spokesman said dryly.
What a marvelous company. Well, now you know what to get your favorite banker for her birthday.
CLEANING OUT BOFA [New York Post](Thanks, Yossi!)
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The offical statement that Bank of America customer service has been given to read to customers:
On Dec. 28, a CNBC broadcast highlighted a memo from Bank of America referencing potential cutbacks on numerous items. At this time, we are unaware of the memo and have not cut back on soup in the cafeteria, hand soap, or any of the other items mentioned.
@SWALVE
“…companies with cultures of freebies are generally less productive…”
And you know this how?
Some industries require freebees in order to make the companies *more* productive. Just for example, in the entertainment industry, entire departments (called “Creative Services”) are set-up to provide freebees for staff.
By providing lunch, dinner, snacks, places to lounge or relax, you keep the crew and talent from heading off in their cars on their breaks, where they could get lost (if they are on location), tied-up (the waitress was so slow!) or distracted (we popped into the casino and time just got away). You keep them near, and happy, so that when you are ready for them or need them, they are there and satisfied. This allows you to make the most of your time, and keeps you on schedule as much as possible, maximizing productivity and keeping costs down.
And it’s not just for big name productions, this goes even to small post-production houses that work on corporate video.
Have you noticed a lot of bank tellers are young moms, single women (who tend to diet), or recent grads? They don’t really get paid that well. By making sure there is a small amount of free nutritional support available, BoA was ensuring these tellers would have the brain-power to count accurately, treat customers nicely, and make it through the day productively.
Now, by cutting these teensy perks, BoA may save some money upfront, sure but they may also ultimately contribute to their services sucking even more.
CNBC did a segment on this, and also reported that BoA will lay off 10% of its workforce in January (the estimate was 24,000 jobs cut).
[www.cnbc.com]
No soap in the breakroom? Childsplay. Try joining the Navy, where, due to budget cuts, the bathrooms at a major industrial complex aren’t even cleaned. I love the smell of victo…er, human waste in the morning!
I’m not exaggerating, there is literally human waste smeared, sprayed, dropped, whatever, on the walls and floors of the bathrooms.
Losing perks: big deal
Paying a CEO $28 million after a pretty crappy year, I would be one po’ed investor. Only in corporate America does a company make a lot of noise over $2 in office supplies but not even blink over dropping $28 million for failure.
@swalve: I totally agree with you. My ex-roommate, however, would not.
@trollkiller: Now figure in that they are buying it wholesale bulk and not retail. So that 78k would probably be 50k, and that near 1mil would probably be 500k.
Now, add in a complete package discount, where ontop of the individual item bulk discount they get, they also get a discount for their entire order for buying from the same company. And upfront payment discount, when they pay for all 12 months worth of supplies at once. Etc. Etc.
The closest that I’ve ever come to working in a company that provided free food to its employees was when I worked as a janitor in a big office complex, and we took advantage of leftover cookies and cake from office functions if it was left over the weekend. (Some of the janitors also gleaned leftover wrapped sandwiches from the cafeteria trash, but I drew the line at that.)
BofA is closer to tanking than most people think. my wife works in one of their call centers, they are starting to lay off people, they have been on a hiring freeze for about 6 months now, and have taken away the bonuses(or profit sharing as they call it) for the reason “we invested badly” as if my wife had something to do with these bad investments. either way, they are trying to squeeze everything they can out of their employees as much as they do out of their customers, it wont be long before people just move on to greener pastures.
@themediatrix: Surely you realize that the bennies you list are the exception at the vast majority of companies and not the rule.
@damitaimee: You do realize that they are talking about the entire organization of BoA, not just the banks. Not every person employed by BoA handles money as part of their day-in day-out routine. Y’all do realize, too, that they are just talking about the the soap in the kitchen/break room areas? I would think that the elimination of soap in the restrooms would be a health-code type of violation.
Having had the vast misfortune of working for several companies that went bankrupt (not my fault!), I know the signs of a company that is about to die. Discontinuing free coffee is the most reliable. Any company that cannot afford to keep its workers awake is already dead. One company had the stupidity to announce huge bonuses for the execs just as it was discontinuing the free coffee! So, BofA employees, don’t worry too much until the coffee subsidy stops. ;o)
@PEEVED GUY
All I’m saying is it varies by industry. Tech firms are notorious for offering perks to attract talent and boost creativity. Law firms offer perks to retain new associates. The entertainment industry use perks to keep costs down. There isn’t really a “norm.”
@cde:Now figure in that they are buying it wholesale bulk and not retail. So that 78k would probably be 50k, and that near 1mil would probably be 500k.
Or the stuff is brought by the coffee service. (Most likely due to the number of locations) I just checked a couple of coffee services, the Nestle hot chocolate still runs about $10 for a 50 count box.
Maybe the executives are practicing up for the day when they’ll have to keep their eye on the soap and NEVER bend over after dropping it…
At my most recent place of employment, they were spending well over $300/month on coffee and tea and assorted sweeteners and creamer. The thing that galled me was how the employees would poor out perfectly good coffee that had not been sitting for ages. They just had to have 100% fresh every damn time.
Guess what happened to our freebie? Yep. Down the drain with all the wasted coffee.
huh. I’m in one of the Boa buildings in CLT – and they’re completely renovating their huge bank lobby – to create MORE office spaces.
I’m not happy to hear about the kitchenette soap cuts – I have to ride the elevator with these people – I don’t want their germs spreading any more than they have to…
This guys are amateurs at the cost-cutting thing. I recommend charging the employees monthly rent for their desks. Those things don’t come free, you know.
Oh, and those elevators you folks like to ride to your cubicle on the tenth floor? I see coin-operated ones in your future. You can always use the stairs if you don’t like that; the staircase will remain free for the time being (although management reserves the right to change that at any time without notice.)
I’m a consultant to corporations on cost-cutting strategies and those are just a few of the ideas I’ve been proposing to my clients for a few years now. There’s more where that came from but I’m reluctant to give away more of what I charge corporations for.
Correction:
“This guys” = “These guys”
I bet all of you BoA customers feel so safe having your money in such capable hands.
@themediatrix: The entertainment industry does it because the unions require it.
I agree that this was probably a trickle down decision.
The order to cut costs probably went from Board -> CEO -> VPs -> Division Heads -> Regional Managers all the way down, with each person either finding something to cut, or ordering the people below them to find cuts.
When it gets down to the point that it can’t be passed further, those managers have to figure out something to cut.
When you cut costs, you can either hack things off like a butcher, or snip here and there like a surgeon.
I don’t blame them, its taken them more than 8 months to attempt to fix my ability to access my account online. Guess what? It still doesn’t work.
@Swalve
Not so. Non-union sets and non-union production houses offer similar perks. In many production companies perks are provided across the board to non-union employees as well (for example Pixar and LucasFilm).
I didn’t go into detail about other industries in my post, but there are *plenty* of other companies where perks are an automatic part of the incentive package.
The most obvious example is Google. [www.google.com]
Anyway, I think you get my point: that your original, blanket statement was inaccurate.
@MPHinPgh:
LOL!
As a public school teacher who also consults for a company on the side, I have little sympathy for corporate types losing perks. We don’t even get tissues for our classrooms…
wow and ya’ll riff on Walmart. At least they’re not taking away our lounge coffee, cream, sugar, cappuccino powder, soap or paper towels. And we had Thanksgiving dinner, special before Christmas meal, and bought pizza for us the day after Thanksgiving. And to teachers, not sure why you don’t get tissues but hell after seeing the lists my aunt and uncle had for their 8 kids in school, I don’t think the schools here get any money even though I’m paying taxes. They had insane lists of crap I didn’t even think would be used in schools.
@ycats: No you just make every student bring a pack for the classroom. Let’s see 30 kids X 5 periods = 150 packs of tissues.
Sorry I am just tired of teachers crying poor. You get a year’s wages for 9 months of work. Just so you don’t feel alone, I get tired of cops and firemen crying poor too.
This is their subtle way of encouraging employees to have sticky fingers.
@mindshadow: HN of Ca charges thier employees $36 a month to park. They say you can park on the street but the building is next to a major street with no parking and bordered by a Bankruptcy court building. So there might be 5-10 spots if you get there real early. If you carpooled they didn’t charge you so the wife and I always carpooled. I think the parking/complex owners actually charged HN $70 a month per parking spot.
I work at BOA and received the article via email from a co-worker. I was astounded. First, we have never been supplied with free soup and crackers. Second, they took away the ability to have assorted flavored teas sometime last year. Third, they will allow sugar loaded hot chocolate but not sugar free….what about us diabetics who can’t have the sugar. Is this an infraction of the ADA policies?
Then I spoke to an associate who just came back from the offshore office in India. Guess what??? They get FREE breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know, you could cut my pay if you are going to feed me three meals a day.
Also in the interest of going “green”, we no longer get bottled water. Instead they put in a filtered machine for water, which is fine, but it doesn’t dispense hot water. A co-worker purchased a coffee machine just so we can have hot water for our tea, which we buy ourselves.
I’m by no means stating that a company owes me any of these perks. However, if you give them, don’t expect people to be happy when you then take them away. Especially when Mr. Lewis hasn’t lost a penny. I would love to receive just a portion of the many stock options he receives every year. I only want recognition for the work I do. Is that too much to ask for???
The next step will be farming all those wonderful soapless BoA jobs out to other countries. Like Mexico and India.