New York CNN –
Wayfair’s CEO has a year-end message for the online furniture company’s employees: Don’t be afraid to work more and combine your work with your life.
“It takes hard work to win. I believe that most of us who are ambitious people find fulfillment in the joy of seeing our efforts produce tangible results,” CEO Niraj Shah said in a note to employees earlier this month celebrated the company’s recent success and which a company spokesperson confirmed to CNN. “Long working hours, responsiveness and work-life balance are nothing to shy away from. There aren’t many stories where laziness was rewarded with success.”
Shah also encouraged Wayfair employees to consider the company money they spend as their own and to negotiate prices. According to its most recent filing, Wayfair employed around 15,000 people as of December 2022.
“Would you spend money on this, would you spend that much money on the thing, does the price seem reasonable to you and finally – have you negotiated the price?,” he said in an email to Wayfair employees earlier this month. The note was first obtained by Business Insider.
Wayfair’s business boomed at the start of the pandemic as domestic shoppers ordered furniture, desks and home goods online.
But starting in 2022, the company struggled as people returned to in-person shopping and shifted their spending from physical goods to experiences.
In 2022, Wayfair announced it would cut 5% of its workforce.
But Shah told employees in his email that the company was profitable again.
“Together we can win much faster than we can now if we all row together in this direction,” he said. “Let us be aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer-focused and smart.”
Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics, said in an interview with CNN’s Richard Quest on Thursday: “If Wayfair wants to run a company where people work 80 hours a week, it has to raise their salaries by 50% to compensate them.” pay.” .”
“I don’t think this is successful for the typical worker,” Bloom said, noting that the job market is strong and workers have options.
A company spokesman was not immediately available to answer CNN’s questions about pay.