Dear Members of the Board,
Despite record profits last quarter, we are experiencing pressure to lower costs, improve the bottom line, and silence our detractors. As CFO, I’ve discovered our people are our greatest assets and also our greatest cost.
In order to maintain profit margins, grow sales, and “innovate,” we must consider alternative compensation structures. That is why we need to hire the most creative and intelligent people to work for literal peanuts.
It’s critical that our employees are able to think outside of the box, accept a payment that comes from inside a box, while also living in a box under a bridge.
Compensation Structure
With the approval of the board, we’ll implement a system whereby employees labor in exchange for goober peas. We’ll phase out mid-level staff who receive cash bonuses and replace them with fresh grads who receive their pay in an abundance of salted hard kernels. We will pay all new hires with equal amounts of peanuts as our contribution to closing the gender pay gap.
Hiring Strategy
The ideal new hire can engage in complex problem-solving while subsisting entirely off edible seeds. To attract top talent and experienced hires, we are offering a signing bonus of our newly launched legume coin. Millennials really love those bitcoins. New joiners can trade in their legume coins for actual legumes.
Competitive Landscape
While we used to rely on our brand name, long history, and associated prestige, we’ve found that people are leaving us for companies like Google, Facebook, and apparently this new thing that’s like Uber for dog walkers. Well, we did not survive two stock market crashes and cause a recession by sitting on our laurels. Like other cutting edge companies, the office will have bowls of groundnuts. And, to save on costs, it will come out of employees’ wages, which are also paid in groundnuts.
Retention Incentives
How will we keep our talent? The executive office has devised an internal marketing program to inspire our workforce with motivational robocalls. Employees will receive automated messages throughout the day to remind them that we only hire the smartest people, work with the biggest clients, and provide the best career opportunities. Did you know we have a lower acceptance rate than Harvard?
In fact, we could even pay employees half as much if every other week we replaced their paycheck with a new title. Everyone loves career growth, and studies show that millennials care more about meaning than about money.
Other Considerations
Think of the operational efficiency we’ll achieve with the elimination of 37% of our operating expenses. Our only concern is potential lawsuits in nut allergy deaths, which will be dealt with by a strict arbitration clause in the contracts of new employees. HR has raised complaints about peanut allergies, but legal says we’re fine. We are excited to open this new chapter in our company and seek your cooperation to make peanut payments a reality.
Please note that senior leadership and partner salaries will not be affected.
Sincerely,
P. T. Barnum
Chief Financial Officer