The company changed when the founder retired. Previously there was a clear attempt to balance the interests of shareholders, customers and employees - now it is clear that the company is extremely focused on shareholders. The message to employees for 5+ years is that leadership knows there is a compensation gap to market, and they want to close the gap, but there is always some 'headwind' that means there isn't enough money. However as soon as the stock price started to sink due to lack of profitability, the company suddenly found the funds to massively increase profitability within two years. This included laying off employees after their 'best financial year ever'. My opinion is that compensation will never increase until voluntary attrition increases, otherwise there is no incentive for leadership to close the compensation gap. With layoffs as the new normal, and the uncertainty of the ongoing acquisition, I would think most employees should at least be evaluating what options are out there. High level strategy is very short sighted and extremely centralized, I saw directors who didn't have the authority to decide the features going into their products. As a result, a lot of strategy decisions are made far away from the products themselves.
