This entrepreneur offers 10,000 dollars and plane tickets to her 500 employees

By Édouard LAMORT

Sara Blakely is generous. On October 22, this American, founder of the underwear company Spanx, announced that she was going to distribute to each of her 500 employees $10,000 and two plane tickets for the destination of their choice. With this gesture, the head of the company wished to reward the work of her teams.

In some companies, the bosses sometimes offer a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates to reward their teams. Sara Blakely has raised the bar. This American businesswoman has decided to offer each of her 500 employees a check for $10,000 (approximately €8,600) as well as two first-class plane tickets to the destination of their choice.

A remarkable generosity, which aims to "reward its teams", reports the online media The HuffPost . Founder of the women's underwear brand Spanx, Sara Blakely wanted to mark the occasion after the partial takeover of her company"by the investment company Blackstone", recalls the Belgian daily 7sur7.be. At the same time, the value of the company, known for its shaping panties, reached $1.2 billion. that is more than one billion euros.

A real success story for this fifty-year-old American, originally from Atlanta, Georgia, who founded her company in 2000 with just $5,000 in her pocket. According to Le Journal de Montreal, the businesswoman started her business because she “couldn’t find suitable underwear to wear under cream-colored pants for a party”. More than twenty years later, Sara Blakely has obviously found the right formula.

An announcement posted on social networks

If this news is a great financial operation for the employees of the brand, it is also an excellent communication operation for Sara Blakely. The announcement of this XXL surprise was the subject of a long video which was then posted on the businesswoman's Instagram account. The video quickly went viral with no less than 630,000 views in just three days.

“I really want every employee to celebrate this moment in their own way,” says Sara Blakely, who is also a mother of four. By doing so, she wishes to create for her teams "a memory that will last all [their] life".

Precedents exist

In 2015, a Chinese boss had no hesitation in inviting his 6,400 employees to the Côte d’Azur for a weekend for services rendered. The cost of the operation? Between 13 and 20 million euros. More recently, in 2019, the 198 employees of the American company St. John Properties were surprised to receive a generous bonus of 10 million dollars, distributed according to the seniority of the employees.