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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Business
Sam Barker

'World's best boss' gives all staff £8,300 bonus - and two first-class plane tickets

A boss who has given all her staff £8,000 and two first class plane tickets as a bonus has been dubbed "the world's best employer".

Sara Blakely, who set up underwear company Spanx, is handing out $10,000 (£8,300) bonuses to each of her employees.

The US businesswoman created Spanx, which is valued at $1.2billion.

A video has gone viral of the moment she announces her gesture to staff.

"I'm spinning a globe because to celebrate this moment I have bought each one of you two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world," she said.

"You know, if you want a trip, you might want to go out to a really nice dinner, you might want to go out to a really nice hotel so, with every one of those two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world, you are each getting $10,000."

Addressing the room, she said: "This is a very big moment for each and every one of you, and I want to also toast the women that came before me and all of the women in the world who have not had this opportunity.

"So at a moment like this, I think of my mom and my grandmother and their lack of options and all the women that came before them."

“It was an emotional announcement filled with happy tears acknowledging how far we’ve come,” Blakely wrote in a caption posted to Instagram.

Earlier this year The Mirror reported how the hero boss of an engineering firm gave each of his workers an extra £1,000 to help with the rising cost of living.

Matt Fletcher said he hopes the extra cash will help towards helping 86 employees deal with rising energy and fuel costs.

Matt, the managing director of Stoke-on-Trent firm Fletcher Moorland, said the business was fortunate enough to have thrived during lockdown, taking on 18 new members of staff since the start of the pandemic.

Meanwhile the boss of a PR firm has also given all his staff a £1,000 pay rise to help with the cost of living crisis.

Stone Junction, based in Stafford, has raised the salary of everyone in the company following a huge increase in energy, fuel and weekly shopping bills.

Another boss, James Hipkins, has handed all of his workers £750 to help them with the rising cost of bills.

Hipkins, 51, is managing director of Emerys Timber and Builders Merchants.

He spent £45,000 in total on 60 members of staff.

The boss said he knows "everyone is suffering” and wanted to “share back” the success of the business, which has depots in Staffordshire and Shropshire.

"With everybody struggling we just thought we want to share some of that good fortune with the staff," he said.

"They weren’t expecting it and they were overjoyed. I think they’ve found it’s a great help when everything’s a bit bleak."

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