16% of our staff is completely dumb

CGI Group's basic belief is that, when you own something, you simply take better care of it. Proof is, when you get a rental car for a week you allow yourself to drive recklessly, do off-road in the desert and eat quarterpounders while driving. You might even drop a dead body in the trunk and disregard any permanent coloration and odours it could leave. You don’t care, because it’s not yours.

So we’ve put in place a plan where employees can purchase company shares traded on the public market (up to 2% of their salary for regular employees) and CGI chips in for the same amount. Bottom line, you buy one share and you get one free. It’s a great program, there’s no vesting period so you can sell the stock at any time and pocket the profit. We’re actually fucking generous if you ask me.

So as an employee, you own a share of the company, and the idea is that you’ll take care of it (the company, not the shares stupid). Ownership creates a deeper, more personal involvement and brings incremental value to all stakeholders.

So as an outsider, you’d figure Jee, ALL CGI employees must be shareholders, their company is giving them FREE SHARES they can sell at ANY TIME.

Wrong. Only 84% out of 26,000 employees actually benefit from this voluntary program, meaning 16% of our staff is simply saying NO to free money. I’ve been giving a lot of thinking about these numbers, trying to figure out why someone would decline our stock purchase program. Do they think the stock market is a creature of Satan and money is evil therefore the less they get the better they feel? That might be it.

The other hypothesis is that a sizeable portion of our employees is simply dumb beyond all explanations, yet they manage to be billable. If we had 5 douchebags like this worldwide, my mind would be at ease. But 16%? That's 4160 douchebags. It’s a not a constant number throughout the company, some business units have a much lower rate (closer to 1-2%), but some BUs are just off the chart. Could it be the water? Could there be a deep cultural thing where owning shares of the company you work for goes against Buddha’s philosophy?

50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong, but apparently 4160 of our employees are wrong. If you know the motives more than I do, please give me a cue.