Panera founder says employees today aren't motivated by the idea of making money for shareholders: 'Nobody cares'

I'm having a hard time imagining that creating shareholder value was ever a motivation for those working on the floor.

At least one founder and former CEO agrees that the idea of boosting shareholders' returns isn't likely to be a key motivator to workers these days. Ron Shaich, Panera Bread's founder and former longtime CEO, has stressed how important it is for management and members of the C-suite to empathize with their employees and better understand what can get their buy-in to the company's mission.

"No employee ever wakes up and says, 'I'm so excited. I made another penny a share today for Panera's shareholders,'" Shaich told Business Insider in an interview. "Nobody cares. You don't care whether your CEO comes or goes."

What a click bait bullshit title. The person never said what they are implying they said.

He makes some good points and some bad ones. But I bet we'd all be happier if we worked for employee-owned businesses with no shareholders or executives at all.

Yeah no fucking shit. Even the big-picture, meta sort of "a successful business rewards its employees" doesn't hold water these days because everyone in entry-level jobs will tell you that things get worse and more complicated the bigger the company gets.

Did anyone here read the article?

He's not saying "those lazy peasants should know their only purpose is to make me richer and be happy about it", he's saying "obviously nobody will be motivated by making some rich jerks richer while getting paid peanuts".

Unfortunately in the second half he goes into out of touch CEO mode, but the quote on the ragebait title is actually very reasonable

Fuck the shareholders I’m here to not starve not enrich them

As someone with a master of I/O psychology degree, there are some organizations that hire individuals with a psych background to assist in creating a healthy, psychologically safe, workplace environment.

That said, in talking with others in the field the "make our employees mentally healthy," quickly devolves into "use your psycho head games to make our employees do what we want."

Maybe give people stock options. I’m going to make over 100k a year for the next three years just in stock options because of shareholder value.

ETA: Panera isn’t a public company anymore. It was bought a few years ago by a crappy company. So there is no reason for employees to go the extra mile.

It's kinda crazy that this is such a business-world revelation. Wow. Deep thoughts, my guy.

C-suiters really need therapists to explain working class life to them so they can learn the capacity to empathize.

Sorry, neo-feudalist-gilded-age-run-by-socipaths-says-what?

Therapists. hire teachers.

Is this a joke?