FAT CATS THREATENED BY LAUNCH OF "EASYBOSS"
The flamboyant entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou has created a new business
which he claims will finally put an end to the scandal of fat cat pay.
The company, called 'easyBoss', will hire out chief executives to companies
for a flat annual fee, competitively priced so as to appeal to Britain's increasingly
thrifty shareholders. Speaking at the launch of the new enterprise yesterday,
Stelios explained that he wanted to challenge the myth that companies could
not recruit decent managers for less than £100K per year. "Here
at easyBoss, we can let you have an executive for £99K ...or £90K
if you book online." The move was immediately slammed by the CBI. Chairman,
Digby Jones, told us "This goes completely against market forces.
In today's competitive economy, you have to be prepared to pay people what
they're worth ...unless of course they're manual workers in which case you
can sack the lot of them and move your factory to China."
A spokesman for the Institute of Directors was equally dismissive. "Where
the hell are they going to find chaps prepared to work for less than £99K?
That's barely enough to buy lunch, particularly if one's drinking a half-decent
wine. Frankly, I think this Stelios fellow's a bit out of touch with the way
most people live." According to Stelios, the secret to recruiting talent
is to avoid it altogether. By employing 'complete dunderheads', easyBoss aims
to keep overheads low so that it can pass on its savings to the customer.
"All companies are doing badly at the moment, so what difference is it
going to make if you've got a complete idiot at the top? Obviously for safety
reasons we have to ensure that they have some basic skills so that's where
the training comes in".
All recruits to easyBoss undergo an intensive 10 week training programme to
prepare them for the rigours of the modern boardroom. The syllabus starts
with the core skills of embezzlement and fraud, together with a role-playing
session in which they have to blame all their mistakes on their predecessor.
In addition to these 'traditional' subjects, the course also covers more modern
topics such the basics of dismantling pension funds, how to waste millions
on changing the company name and how to sack an entire workforce by text message.
Despite his critics, Stelios feels confident that easyBoss will succeed, and
claims that he's already received promising enquiries from HSBC,GlaxoSmithKline
and Tesco.
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