11 - History of a Failed Company - The Couple's Policy

In the midst of all this mayhem the company had come up with probably a unique ridiculous scheme called "The Couple's Policy".
To take a step back, as one may remember, that most personnel in the company were from outside Barbados the company had a policy of paying the to and fro fare to the country of the origin to every employee. The company also had said that it would pay for the spouse and the children (do not read this as dependents as would be clear soon).

So far so good.

Now came the punch. There were quite a few personnel in the company's roles who were husband and wife. The company graciously came up with "The Couple's Policy" which read that in case the husband and wife both worked in the Company, the company would pay to and fro fare to the husband and his mate, treating the husband as an individual, and the company would pay additional to and fro fare to the wife and her mate, treating her as an individual. If they had children (no matter how many) they both would be paid for themselves for their spouse and for two children.

What???? asked a few people.

Now consider the consequences of this alongside the remuneration that was being offered. The employees at the lowest level were offered 500 USD as their salary after tax plus a 400 USD as
food allowance. The transportation and accomodation were on the house. This employee would have taken home a salary of 900 * 12 = 10,800 USD as compensation. Typically this person would be single and he/she would have been just out of graduation.
The to and fro fare from Barbados to India varied from 1400 to 1700. So the amount to be compensated was fixed at 1700 per person of the household. Now the lowest employee would end up spending anywhere between 1400 to 1700 to go home and come back and he would be compensated for this with 1700. At most his gain would be 300 USD.

Now consider the case of a person who was married and had his/her spouse working in the company and lets say had one child. Now in this case the husband would get 1700 + 1700 + 1700 + 1700 = 6800, further rounded off to 7000 USD and the wife would get a similar 7000 USD every year. And how much would they be spending? A max of 1700 + 1700 + 1700 = 5100. Which meant that they would be gaining 14000 - 5100 = 8900 USD just like that.

Now compare this to the grand annual total of 10800 that was the remuneration of the lowest employee in the hierarchy and try and justify the scheme.

But the management did justify this despite the cash crunch and other issues.