Why One Company Gives Its Employees $10,000 — After They Quit

Typically, when you leave a company, your soon-to-be former boss might bring in some cupcakes and maybe pop a bottle of champagne in the conference room. But one company sends off its employees with a party and a $10,000 check. According to Bloomberg Business, Adore Me, an online lingerie startup, has been saying goodbye to its employees with a check for $10K. "The benefit comes with no strings, but it's also not guaranteed. The metrics for who gets it, and how much, seem to be pretty vague," Bloomberg reports. Two employees have reportedly received the send-off benefit in the past year — one who was leaving to travel the world, and another who quit for a cross-country move. According to CEO Morgan Hermand-Waiche, the check is presented to "anyone that has put a lot of hard work and effort at Adore Me." The message Hermand-Waiche hopes to send? Stay, because we have a great culture, the check communicates to people in the company. Come back, because we like you, it tells those who leave with it. In fact, the employee who quit to travel the world has an open-ended invitation to return to her job when she's done globe-trotting. The farewell bonus is also a way of giving employees something in return for all their hard work, especially in a startup culture where stock options are just as important as salary numbers. "We don't like to have our team members needing to wait for the day we sell an [initial public offering] to get the reward of their work," Hermand-Waiche says. Of course, this policy would seem to go against the common sense of most businesses. Other companies might pay bad workers to quit, or give tokens of appreciation at retirement. But for businesses to reward someone who they want to stay can seem risky — and it might even provide employees an additional incentive to quit, in hopes that they'll get the bonus. Still, it does make some sense. The vague outlines for who gets the check could inspire current employees to work hard consistently; and since the recipients who depart aren't retiring, they could return after a few years of experience elsewhere. But don't assume you'll get anything more than cupcakes at your next goodbye party; we don't expect to see this trend taking off in the corporate world.