Wayfair CEO: Employees need to work longer hours

New York –

Wayfair’s CEO has an end-of-year message for workers of the web furnishings firm: Don’t draw back from doing extra work and mixing your work together with your life.

“Winning requires hard work. I believe that most of us, being ambitious individuals, find fulfillment in the joy of seeing our efforts materialize into tangible results,” CEO Niraj Shah mentioned in a notice to staff earlier this month celebrating the corporate’s current success, and which an organization spokesperson confirmed to CNN. “Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from. There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success.”

Shah additionally inspired Wayfair staff to consider the corporate cash they spend as their very own and negotiate costs. As of December 2022, Wayfair had round 15,000 staff, in line with its most up-to-date submitting.

“Would you spend money on that, would you spend that much money for that thing, does that price seem reasonable, and lastly — have you negotiated the price?” he mentioned in an e-mail to Wayfair staff earlier this month. The notice was first obtained by Business Insider.

Wayfair’s business surged early within the pandemic as dwelling certain buyers ordered furnishings, desks and residential items on-line.

But the corporate struggled starting in 2022 as individuals returned to buying in particular person and shifted their spending from bodily items to experiences.

In 2022, Wayfair introduced it was slicing 5 per cent of its workforce.

But Shah instructed staff in his e-mail that the corporate is again to being worthwhile.

“Together we can win much faster than we are winning now if we all row in this direction together,” he mentioned. “Let’s be aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer oriented, and smart.”

Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics, instructed CNN’s Richard Quest in an interview Thursday that “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 per cent to pay them for it.”

“I don’t see this as being successful for the typical employee,” Bloom mentioned, noting that the roles market is robust and staff have choices.

An organization spokesperson was not instantly accessible to reply to CNN’s questions on pay.