Actually a fairly enlightened take if you read beyond the headlines.
"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."
He goes on to talk about how therapy helped him better empathize with himself, customers, and employees.
The 'today' in the headline I think is the click bait and something the author is indirectly putting in this guy's mouth.
Unless he actually then improved his workers conditions (at the very bare minimum, which he hasn't, instead it looks like they're cutting staff to boost "productivity" in preparation for going public because, you guessed it - that'll make more money for the shareholders), that statement is entirely hollow, and is there for no other reason than to make him feel better.
Fuck the CEO getting "enlightened" from all the therapy he can afford if all he does with it is state what's already obvious to those who can barely afford rent, let alone therapy.
If they’re not public already they don’t have shareholders as that term is typically used. They may have investors who are forcing them to go public because they don’t want a simple loan payback, they want the bonanza of an ipo.
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.
I’m not speaking in response to the article but to those the article is talking about, you know, the ones who do whatever it takes to get those record quarterly profits
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
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."