If the company is failing, then leadership should be cutting their losses and engaging in deep layoffs. Downsize production to adjust for lower demand, preserve working capital, focus on efficiency. Upsetting your employees is the worst of both worlds: your employees perform worse, and you don't save any money on compensation while that happens. So you make a deep cut, take the emotional hit, make it clear that it's the only cut you're going to make, and then ramp the company back up.
That said, it's far from the most egregious thing I've heard, I'm not going to spend many cycles thinking about it. But I can understand why the employees would be upset by it.
People setting up home offices has been a hugely growing market that apparently has gone uncaptured by MillerKnoll. I wonder who sets the strategy for a company that we could blame for this failing? Whomever they are, they probably shouldn't get a bonus as that would be rewarding failure.
Uh, not really. The only one emotions we are talking about here are the CEO's, and how they are impacting communication with employees.
> The reality is the company is failing, can’t pay people what you don’t have.
There are good ways to communicate this reality to your employees. If you think what the CEO did is a good way, then I wish you good luck.
If it was just math, a lot more people would be better at it. But your own statement shows how there’s much more to it than math: “Pay them and hurt the company, or don’t pay but maybe lose your best employees.”
No math is going to tell you how to decide that situation. And business is full of such decisions, which collectively can make or break a company.