> First, most executives have little impact on the specific event that put the firm under. (I was a senior marketing person; the building burned down. Fire safety was most assuredly NOT within my purview or even something I could ask about)
That's perhaps reasonable for you, but business succession planning and disaster contingency planning is the job of the board and executive team. They made a choice to discount the possibility of a building fire taking out the business, and that's a failure they should be accountable for. Or, worse, they didn't make a choice, and didn't even think of that risk. And yet now they're being "rewarded" with a bonus so they'll stick around to fix their mistake after it's too late?
At the end of the day you have a company full of people, and you're going to lay most of them off. Given the financial distress the company is in, they're not going to get much of a severance package, especially since you "need" to throw much of the remaining money at the executive team to keep them around. And for what, really? So a bunch of high-paid executives can pat themselves on the back that they "heroically" brought a company back from the brink? That's little comfort to the people who got laid off and struggled to find a new job before their severance ran out.
That's perhaps reasonable for you, but business succession planning and disaster contingency planning is the job of the board and executive team. They made a choice to discount the possibility of a building fire taking out the business, and that's a failure they should be accountable for. Or, worse, they didn't make a choice, and didn't even think of that risk. And yet now they're being "rewarded" with a bonus so they'll stick around to fix their mistake after it's too late?
At the end of the day you have a company full of people, and you're going to lay most of them off. Given the financial distress the company is in, they're not going to get much of a severance package, especially since you "need" to throw much of the remaining money at the executive team to keep them around. And for what, really? So a bunch of high-paid executives can pat themselves on the back that they "heroically" brought a company back from the brink? That's little comfort to the people who got laid off and struggled to find a new job before their severance ran out.