Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah has big plans for his employees in 2024, and it involves cracking down on “laziness.”
The CEO recently informed employees that further blurring the line between work and life is the recipe for success and is pushing for staff to put in more overtime, according to an email Shah wrote to his employees, which was obtained by Business Insider last week.
Related: Tech company CEO delivers a stern warning to its remote workers
“Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from,” he wrote in the email. “There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success. Hard work is an essential ingredient in any recipe for success.”
Shah informed staff that this is a change that will be pushed for in the “weeks and months to come,” citing that the most successful people he knows follow this work culture.
“Everyone deserves to have a great personal life – everyone manages that in their own way – ambitious people find ways to blend and balance the two. I think that is what we all should do,” he wrote.
He is also encouraging staff to be “aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer oriented, and smart” and to be more careful with spending company money going forward.
“I would also encourage you to think of any company money you spend as your own. 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? Everything is negotiable and so if you haven't then you should start there,” he wrote.
How Wayfair plans to bridge the gap
The email comes after Wayfair reported increased revenue in its third-quarter earnings after facing nine consecutive quarters of declining revenue. The company brought in a net revenue of $2.9 billion during the third-quarter, which is a 3.7% year over year increase.
“Wayfair is now in a place where we can drive profitability while simultaneously investing for growth,” said Shah in the earnings report.
Despite the company’s growth, Shah indicated in the email to employees that they “still have some work to do” to fully bounce back.
Work-life balance has been a top priority for employees across the nation ever since the Covid pandemic opened the door for remote work to become more widespread. Employees were able to spend more time at home, catering to their wellbeing, while meeting productivity goals at work, further creating a separation between personal and professional life.
Shah’s efforts to encourage employees to blend together work and life may generate some pushback as it appears that workers worldwide will continue to seek out work cultures that prioritize wellbeing going forward into 2024.
According to a new report by Gympass that surveyed 5,000 full-time employees worldwide on their opinions on work-life wellness, it was revealed that 96% of the employees that were interviewed will only consider working for companies that “place a clear emphasis” on wellbeing during their search for their next job.
Also, 93% of employees said that wellbeing is more important than their salary, and 87% said that they will quit working for a company that does not focus on wellbeing.
Investing can be hard. We make it easier. There are thousands of stocks you can invest your hard-earned money in. Our pros help you decide what stocks to buy and when to buy them. Sign up to find out what stocks we're buying now
