If you're a Wayfair employee and hoping that 2024 will bring a more relaxed workplace, think again. In a recent email to workers, CEO Niraj Shah delivered what The Street calls a "harsh wake-up call" that involved pushback against slacking. "Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from," Shah wrote in his email, first reported last week by Business Insider. "There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success. Hard work is an essential ingredient in any recipe for success."
In his message, Shah told employees the home furnishings company is "back to winning" and on the upswing after cost-cutting measures that included layoffs. Wayfair reported increased revenue in Q3 (after nine quarters in a row of decreasing revenue), and it lost far less in this year's third quarter—$163 million—compared to 2022's Q3, which saw losses of $283 million. But, Shah added, "winning requires hard work," and that while "everyone deserves to have a great personal life ... ambitious people find ways to blend and balance the two."
Shah also implored employees to view the company's cash as their own—in terms of how they spend it. "Let's be aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer oriented, and smart," he wrote. Although Shah may have seen his words as being a year-end inspirational pep talk, not all experts agree it was the right tack. "If Wayfair wants to run a business where people work 80 hours a week, he's going to have to put up their salaries by 50% to pay them for it," Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom tells CNN Business. "I don't see this as being successful for the typical employee." Read Shah's email in full here. (More Wayfair stories.)
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