What? Solyndra Bonuses Reduced; Fired Workers Irked. Ya Think?
Attorneys for solar-panel maker Solyndra LLCsay they’ve reduced by more than $100,000 the amount of bonus money they want to pay a handful of current employees still working for the bankrupt company.
But fired employees still oppose the plan, which is up for a hearing Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. They say there’s no reason to provide extra cash to workers at a time whenSolyndra is being sold off part by part.
Solyndra attorneys say they need the bonuses to keep current employees from leaving for other jobs. Otherwise, they say the company would have to pay out even more money for expensive consultants. The company has fewer than 100 employees, down from 1,100 before it went bankrupt.
The maximum to be paid out under the bonus plan is now $368,500, down from $500,000 in the incentive payments first requested. The proposed bonuses have drawn sharp criticism from several Republican members of Congress.
Rep. H. Morgan Griffith, Virginia Republican and a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been investigatingSolyndra’s collapse, was among dozens of Republican lawmakers to send a letter to the White House asking that the administration oppose the bonus plan.
“Personally, I agree with them 100 percent on the bonuses and I don’t understand why the Department of Justice didn’t get in there and oppose the bonuses,” Mr. Griffith said in an interview Tuesday.
Solyndra filed for bankruptcy last fall two years after the company won more than a half-billion dollars in federal loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
While the Justice Department, which represents the Energy Department as a creditor, made no objection to the bonus plan, the department did file a motion recently backing Solyndra in a separate dispute between the company and fired employees.
Solyndra attorneys made no mention of members of Congress in unveiling their downsized bonus plan in a recent court filing. The revised bonus plan came about after negotiations with a creditors committee, according to the filing.
The eligible employees do not participate in Solyndra’s management but include “engineers, technicians, specialists, administrators and in-house accounting personnel,” Solyndra attorneys said.
Under the previous bonus plan, one employee was eligible for up to $50,000 in extra cash, but now the maximum bonus payout is $30,000. The names of the employees were not included in bankruptcy filings.
In opposing the bonuses, attorneys for fired employees filed a motion in which they asked a host of questions about the cash payouts.
“What specific tasks are the bonus winners being incentivized to do? How does payment of a bonus directly translate into a measurable benefit for unsecured creditors? For senior managers already making six figure salaries, why is any bonus necessary as additional motivation?” the fired employees’ attorneys asked.
In their initiation request for bonuses, Solyndra attorneys had said the bonuses would “motivate the eligible employees to work as hard as possible”. Source: Jim McElhatton for The Washington Times.
Explosion To 60 Million Uniques: How Indeed,The World’s Largest Job Search Site Did It.
New York-based Indeed, a pay-per-click job listing and search site, is one of the largest career sites in the world.
Founded in 2004, Indeed has 360 employees. It boasts 60 million monthly unique visitors and 1 billion job searches. It works with 25,000 partnering sites and it is profitable.
We asked CEO Paul Forster how it achieved its rapid growth and how it caught up to pre-existing competitor, Monster.
Forster says the key to explosive growth is creating a great user experience. Most of the growth has been organic although Indeed does some search marketing.
While word of mouth might be part of its growth story, Indeed has also launched a lot of new products and publisher partnerships to increase its reach.
The 60 million uniques aren’t on Indeed.com alone. They’re spread over all of Indeed’s partnering sites. Indeed powers the career and job sections of publishers like Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
In addition, Indeed has email products that push listings to users; it also syndicates sponsored jobs across the web. Sponsored jobs are how Indeed generates most of its revenue.
Its API and mobile application have also helped Indeed grow. While Forster wouldn’t say how much traffic or revenue is generated via the mobile app, he says it is “significant and growing.”
Indeed has been growing internationally too. About 50% of its traffic and 20% of its revenue are from outside the US. To fuel growth abroad, Indeed is opening a European headquarters in Dublin in the next few weeks.
Indeed has also grown beyond job search; it is now a job placement tool too. Last year it launched Indeed Apply, a one-click solution for job applicants who host resumes on Indeed. Now there are more than 2.5 million resumes in its database. Indeed is working on ways to monetize the growing resume file too.
In addition Indeed produces job trends reports as well as ratings and reviews for companies.
All in, Indeed has at least ten products working simultaneously to help it dominate the online job market.
When asked about an IPO Forster replied, “An IPO is an option for us because Indeed has been growing so fast. It’s profitable so we’re an attractive candidate. It’s something we’re evaluating but we haven’t made any definitive decisions yet.” Source: Alyson Shontell for Business Insider, San Francisco Chronicle.
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