Australian Bus Company Shells Out $16 Million in Employee Bonuses

You might not have ever dreamed about being a bus driver in Australia, but this week it was a very good thing to be -- staff members of the Melbourne-based bus company Grenda Corp. received bonuses of between $8,300 and $31,800 after the company was sold and the owners shared the profits with employees.

Chief executive Geoff Grenda said,

[My father Ken and my brother Scott and I] sat down and thought: 'how can we thank the people that have got us to where we're going to end up?' and it was a fairly easy decision for us. We've had lots of loyal people over our 66-year journey and this was our way of rewarding the ones that are still with us."

All told, the Grenda family shelled out almost $16 million to loyal workers. Better still, these weren't severance payouts -- the new owner of the company is keeping all the employees.

Patriarch Ken, who has been dubbed the ''best'' and ''most generous'' boss in Australia, said, "We have had people here who are second generation, and one fellow in the same job for 52 years,'' adding, "A business is only as good as its people and our people are fantastic ... Look after your staff and they'll look after you."

A bus driver identified only as Heath told the Herald Sun newspaper that some of the 1,800 staffers who got the bonuses called their banks assuming an error had been made after the cash was direct-deposited into their accounts.

"Good bosses are hard to find and Ken was a very good boss -- one of a kind," he said.

[BBC]