Last week we saw company stock prices tumble, rise and tumble again (e.g., Facebook, Paypal, Amazon). Many of these tech companies employ your patients who have a compensation package heavily based on company stock.
Why should you care?
Well, think about a client of yours that works at Netflix or Facebook whose stock price dropped +20% overnight. For those employees whose majority of compensation is stock, this is not an easy event to stomach. Many of these employees use tools such as Mint or Wealthfront to track their net worth. Equating financial net worth to self worth is not all too uncommon. And so seeing that drop overnight is devastating.
Given how much of these tech stocks have risen in the last 4-5 years, many of these tech employees accepted a 4-year package for let’s say 200K a year, with 25% of the promised stocks released annually. With the stock price rise, they are now seeing their 4th year income rise as much as 400-500k. THIS IS THEIR NEWLY PERCEIVED NET WORTH. Anything below this is inferior.
Salary is relative to many of them.
Something else to consider is that many of these tech employees are on the anonymous social network known as Blind. Here people post salaries, interview questions, company advice, and complaints. Your client could be earning $500K annually, but when they see posts by 25-year-olds who are making more, depression and self-doubt grow.
Advice to consider during sessions.
Remind them of other means of perceiving self-value and success. For example, managers take pride in promoting their people and contributing to their career trajectory.
Why should you care?
Well, think about a client of yours that works at Netflix or Facebook whose stock price dropped +20% overnight. For those employees whose majority of compensation is stock, this is not an easy event to stomach. Many of these employees use tools such as Mint or Wealthfront to track their net worth. Equating financial net worth to self worth is not all too uncommon. And so seeing that drop overnight is devastating.
Given how much of these tech stocks have risen in the last 4-5 years, many of these tech employees accepted a 4-year package for let’s say 200K a year, with 25% of the promised stocks released annually. With the stock price rise, they are now seeing their 4th year income rise as much as 400-500k. THIS IS THEIR NEWLY PERCEIVED NET WORTH. Anything below this is inferior.
Salary is relative to many of them.
Something else to consider is that many of these tech employees are on the anonymous social network known as Blind. Here people post salaries, interview questions, company advice, and complaints. Your client could be earning $500K annually, but when they see posts by 25-year-olds who are making more, depression and self-doubt grow.
Advice to consider during sessions.
Remind them of other means of perceiving self-value and success. For example, managers take pride in promoting their people and contributing to their career trajectory.
- Remind them of the big wins they had at work such as launching a new feature and how customers’ reacted to it.
- Remind them of the tribe and community they have at work. The alliances, partnerships, debates etc. This last point is much more difficult lately to practice given the remote working arrangements.
- Finally, ask them to consider what really changes in their life when a net worth number fluctuates. Do their kids become less healthy, their cars stop working or roof starts leaking? Nothing changes.