Execs Out of Touch - Engineer Viasat Employee Review

I have been at Viasat for nearly 20 years. The company has changed tremendously over that time. In the early days it was like a family and the top execs were admired since they worked along side everyone else and appreciated personal sacrifices employees made for the company. This is no longer the case. The executives have lost touch. When COVID hit, they promptly laid-off or furloughed hundreds of people and announced a salary freeze. Everyone could understand the rationale given by the execs at the time. But then the annual report was published in early August and it showed they accepted huge bonuses, stock awards and salary increases in June, just two months after the lay-off. Every colleague I talked with is outraged to see how well they were taken care of while the rest of us were asked to sacrifice and some of our most respected colleagues were shown the door. To add to the frustration, they released a surprisingly good financial report for the April-June 2020 quarter, which is not consistent with the message they gave to justify the lay-offs. Are companies across the country not being asked to do everything possible to keep their workforce employed during these tough times? Decisions by Viasat executives are clearly being made to maximize financial performance and increase their personal wealth. All execs could have taken a 50% bonus cut and kept a hundred or more Viasat family members employed for the remainder of the year while still earning multi-million dollar compensations. To them, cash clearly wins over compassion. Latest rumor is they are preparing for another lay-off and elimination or reduction of benefits to further optimize company financial performance. Why? Viasat is not in financial hardship. They are doing this while many projects are short staffed and managers are not allowed to hire and constantly pushed to be more productive with fewer people. I am personally conflicted because my team and low to mid level supervisors are great. The attitude of the top execs is now flowing down so I am actively looking for other opportunities as are many of my colleagues.