New Week, New Headlines: Who’s Making $2M Profit Per Employee & Starbucks Labor Disputes Go To SCOTUS

Howdy Friends!

Well, the work news keeps-a-comin. And here’s what we’re jamming about this week:

Topic 1: Who’s Making $2M Profit Per Employee
Not gonna lie, we were surprised by the result. Visual Capitalist (great site, definitely go nerd out there), ranked the Top US Companies, by Profit Per Employee. And look, it kinda blew our mind. We jam about the findings, why they matter, and share how you can calculate your company’s Profit Per Employee.

Topic 2:  Starbucks Labor Disputes Go To SCOTUS
And, the coffee may be hot, but the labor disputes at Starbucks are even hotter (we’ll be here all week, folks. Tip your bartenders. Enjoy the buffet).  We analyze the recent labor battles, pulling insights New York Times and BBC, and the implications to workers of the US Supreme Court's agreement to hear the case. 

Hope you have a great week!

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.

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Transcript

Francesca : 0:00

They generate almost $2 million in profit per employee with only 9,800 workers. $2 million, what? What? Hey friend? Hey friend, how are you Good? How are you Great? Yeah, how are you, I'm great. Yeah, how are you, I'm great. How are you? I'm great. How are you, I'm great. How are you, I'm great. How are you Great? Yeah, it's great, it's good.

Mel: 0:30

Yeah, well, we're here at your work, friends. Yeah, I'm Mel, I'm Francesca and we're two HR leaders exposing the stuff you need to know about work. Work, work, yeah, and some of that stuff is just news, some of it's just news, and we're bringing you new week, new headlines this week. Francesca, what are you talking about this week?

Francesca : 0:55

I'm talking about Visual Capitalists Report, where they ranked the top 25 US companies by profit they generate per employee. Ooh yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, okay what are you talking about?

Mel: 1:11

I am going to talk about an article that came out New York Times and BBC. The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Starbucks Labor Fight. Ooh, that's juicy, let's jump into that one.

Francesca : 1:26

All right, let's talk about profits. Let's hear about profits. Okay, mel, have you ever been on Visual Capitalist? I think so. Okay, listen if you haven't been on this site. Friends, this is really just a cool spot. Visual Capitalists basically visualizes data and they do it in such beautiful charts and sometimes they're interactive, sometimes they're static, but they do just a really beautiful job and they chart whole host of different things. Well, this week they dropped one where they were looking at the top 25 US companies by profit they generate per employee. Okay, I always think profit per employee is a really interesting thing to look at, because companies look at this to make sure that they're efficient, that they're highly leveraged, and it's typically a really good indicator of financial success. Before I get into the chart and the findings and we'll post it in our show notes, you might be asking yourself, francesca, what the hell is profit per employee?

Mel: 2:32

Right yeah, why should our listeners care about it?

Francesca : 2:36

Yeah, yeah. So what is it? Basically, profit per employee is calculated by dividing a company's yearly profit by its full-time staff. So if you make a billion dollars a year and you have a thousand employees, that's going to be the calculation, right, right, why people should care about this and knowing about what is your company's profit per employee is because high profit per employee usually signals things like financial success, efficient HR management and, basically, a high amount of leverage per team members. The more profit per employee typically the better, the better they're doing.

Francesca : 3:13

Yeah, right, also, for you all to know that this is a data point that most really well-run organizations consistently look at to make sure that they're at an efficient size and shape and also just to know, quite honestly, that, yeah, your company is looking at how much money they're getting out of you. Yeah, yeah, there's kind of an aspect in talent management that we talk about that a lot of organizations want to leverage their human capital the way that they would leverage their financial capital, and this is one of the ways that they do that. It sounds kind of it is something that is looked at.

Mel: 3:55

Yeah, it's good information to have and something to take a look at if you're an employee See how your company's doing.

Francesca : 4:00

Yeah, so again visual capitalists. Look at the top 25 companies in the US, the ones that have the highest profit per employee and. You know I consider myself somewhat savvy in this area, but I was actually really surprised when I saw who and how much and just add a sheer curiosity Because I just don't want to be alone in my humbleness there.

Mel: 4:23

Okay.

Francesca : 4:24

So when you think about a company that has a really high profit per employee, who do you think like just automatically off the bat?

Mel: 4:30

I mean I would think immediately some megas right like Amazon, yeah, we're making in billions while people sleep, so but then I think their overhead is high. So then I'm like, ooh, it gets diluted. Like Coca-Cola brands, I would think maybe Walt Disney World, you know some sort of media companies potentially. Yeah, um, am I on base at all here?

Francesca : 4:54

Kind of not, because I definitely was like either services, companies that have yeah they don't have the overhead necessarily or the big overhead like distros, but they have high margins, or I was thinking things like Apple, right to your point, amazon. Listen, apple and Amazon are on the list, so you're, you're right about that, but they're not the top, they're not even in the top 10.

Mel: 5:14

Oh, interesting yeah okay.

Francesca : 5:16

So, and this is where visual capitalists just really shines, as you can see so clearly this scale comparatively to to the set, which I think is just really beautiful. Okay, energy companies dominate the ranking.

Mel: 5:30

Oh, I believe it. Yeah, now that you say that, yes, I believe that one.

Francesca : 5:33

It's energy, yeah, so 48% of the 25 or energy companies. Wow, 28%. Tech again, we're looking at the top 25. Okay, 12% finance, 8% construction or percent healthcare, all right, all right, let me give you a little bit more context here, just because I was like number one company in terms of their profit per employee, conical Phillips, which is one of the world's largest public energy company. They generate almost two million dollars in profit per employee with only 9,800 workers. Two million dollars.

Mel: 6:10

What that's insane. Yeah, yeah, that's a high number, yeah.

Francesca : 6:17

Other thing about this that two million dollars conical Phillips. They generate three times more profit per employee than Apple, which was number 13 on the list. Apple generates 609 thousand dollars per employee. Wow. Let me give you some even further context. Starbucks $80,000 per employee oh, that seems so low. It seems low, but Starbucks has a lot more employees than the 8,800. Giving everyone some context there. Again, I think it's a really interesting thing to look at. I encourage everybody to go out and look at this report. I also just nerd out in Visual Capitalist, the first time I was out there.

Francesca : 7:01

I was out there for like four hours. What, what? Look at all these pretty charts. A thousand percent. You might want to calculate your profit per employee for your company. Again, the very simple calculation there is your company's yearly profit divided by its full-time staff. See what it is. I also recommend people look at if you can look at the five-year trend and see if that's going up or that's going down.

Mel: 7:29

Always be aware of it. Yeah, if it's going down, that might not be a good sign.

Francesca : 7:34

Might not be a good sign. It might be a sign that your company is over hiring. It might be a sign that your company has some financial stress going on as well. Just always a good thing to look at, because your organization is looking at it.

Mel: 7:47

Oh, I love it.

Francesca : 7:49

Two million dollars per employee, two million dollars per employee, all right.

Mel: 7:52

Well, just raking it in over, there Damn.

Francesca : 7:56

Damn Visual Capitalists will link to it on this show notes yeah, profit per employee. Get into it, folks Get into it, get into it. Well, what's going on with the Supreme Court and Starbucks?

Mel: 8:11

Oh, my goodness, You've heard about unionization. The last few years at Starbucks it's been in the news quite a bit.

Francesca : 8:16

You've heard all the yeah, I mean listen there's just been upticks in unionization with Amazon, starbucks, united Auto Worker. I mean you're just seeing this huge uptick. But definitely the Starbucks one was interesting to me just because Starbucks has always been, in my mind, a bit more progressive and being employee-centric, so it was interesting to see them unionize and to have stores actually get unionized as well.

Mel: 8:38

Yeah, in the US, unions exist to protect employees. Great service for employees. They have many benefits. One number one, obviously, collective bargaining, is where this union will negotiate things for you. Negotiate things like fair wages, negotiate benefits, negotiate better working conditions on the employee's behalf. That's probably the number one value. The other piece is job security. So typically unionized workers have greater job security because unions negotiate the just cause terms on their behalf with the employers. And then number three is really workplace safety and health conditions. So unions really advocate for safe working conditions and push for compliance of safety regulations. That's a huge, huge benefit. And then, lastly, unions provide legal representation and support to workers in disputes with their employers. So in cases like unfair dismissals, grievances related to any of the working conditions, that sort of thing. So for an employee, unions are really good.

Francesca : 9:46

Yeah, they can be, they can be. Yeah, they can be.

Mel: 9:50

So what came out of the BBC in the New York Times is and this is really huge news is that the Supreme Court, who doesn't just choose to listen to everything, so that's why it's a big deal that they've agreed in this upcoming session to hear Starbucks challenge to a court order that mandated the rehiring of union organizers who were fired back in 2021. So a little bit of background here. The National Labor Relations Board obtained an emergency court order for Starbucks to rehire seven of their workers at a Memphis store location because these employees were allegedly fired for engaging in union activities, which Starbucks is disputing completely. Organizers with the Starbucks Workers United have filed numerous complaints alleging that the company has violated a number of labor laws to hinder unionization at various locations, and many of these claims have been substantiated by labor officials, which I thought was interesting. So there have been substantiated claims that Starbucks is actively trying to stop unionization.

Mel: 11:00

Right now, the company is denying any wrongdoing concerning these labor laws and expressing satisfaction that the Supreme Court will review its appeal to establish what they're calling a consistent standard for granting injunctions in these cases. The company is arguing that the employees who were terminated were terminated for violating company policy, including rules around off-duty access to Starbucks properties. So I don't know all the ins and outs of that. Obviously, starbucks is disputing it the reason people should care about this. The outcome of this legal battle will significantly influence the kind of remedies that US workers can expect in labor disputes going forward. So this is something everyone should be paying attention to, whether union worker or not. It is going to likely set some precedent going forward in our disputes as employees.

Francesca : 11:57

There's three things that are happening right now in the ecosystem. One is for the first time in our country's history, a 30-year-old is worse off than their parents. There's an economic issue happening with workers number one. Number two you also are seeing a pretty massive uptake in unions because of pay, work environment, that sort of thing. So you're seeing this in distribution centers. You're seeing this in things like Starbucks as well. I think there's also the squeeze, though, on companies, especially public-traded companies.

Francesca : 12:33

It is incredibly hard to do business and be profitable. I guess here's the deal. Most organizations think unionizing is a pain in the ass. They don't want to do it. Right, right, because they lose a lot of control. Number one Right. They see it quite honestly, sometimes as being much more expensive to operate and they don't want to do it, especially if they're publicly traded. It becomes really, really complex. You have to have whole layers in your organization dedicated to your union All the negotiation and collective bargaining. Yes, even in terms of what you can and can't do, how you can and can't do X, y and Z. It is incredibly complex. Everything Right For employees. You also have things that you can and can't do. There's a slowness A lot of times, that happens not only for the employee, but for the employer as well. With unions, which a lot of people want to avoid the plague, however, you get this benefit of having very employee-centric work environments, which is really important.

Mel: 13:34

It's striking a balance. It doesn't really exist yet. Still, In this case, the Starbucks Union represents workers at more than 370 locations. What the New York Times noted was that the labor board has now issued dozens of complaints against Starbucks based on hundreds of accusations of labor law violations, which included threats and retaliation against workers who were seeking to unionize. A failure for Starbucks to bargain in good faith. That's interesting to me. This is really one to watch.

Francesca : 14:12

Yeah, it is. I also think we're going to see a lot more people unionizing quite honestly, just because of the economics. I also think it might be who have a lot of companies to figure out how to move through this with your teams, with your employees, sooner rather than later. Part of me is curious. If a lot of what's happening right now is learning curve on Starbucks, it's parts around. How do you react Right Well, productively and constructively when your employees want to unionize?

Mel: 14:44

Yeah, how do you bridge the gap and have a good relationship with your employees when they want to do this? Right One to watch Stay tuned folks. Yeah, one to watch. Stay tuned. I'm sure we'll be talking about it again once the ruling comes out. So more to come, more to come.

Francesca : 15:03

Well, mal amazing to talk with you today. As always, you too. It's been delightful. Yeah, we'll be back next week with new week, new headlines. Thanks so much for joining us today. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends. Thanks, friend. Finally, the day where 8rovids can be useful to families, due to Covid-19 Mirema.