Cameo’s $10,000 RTO incentive

In the never-ending fight over RTO mandates, different companies have committed to different strategies. Some have tried to lure employees back with bespoke new offices, free lunches and happy hours. Others have taken a more austere approach, promising badge swipe audits and a swift exit for workers who don’t comply. But one company is taking things to a whole new level by offering its employees cold hard cash. 

Cameo, the video messaging platform that makes it possible for a celebrity to wish you happy birthday, is offering workers a $10,000 annual raise if they work from the Chicago-based office four days a week, writes my colleague Sara Braun. The company is also offering staff who live outside the area a $5,000 bonus if they move to the Chicago area, in addition to more basic perks like free lunch and free parking. 

“What we really wanted was for working at HQ to be a FOMO-inducing perk,” said Cameo CEO and co-founder Steven Galanis .

It’s rare to see a company lean so hard into a strategy that favors reward over punishment. Part of the reason that Cameo can pull off a cash giveaway is the size of its workforce. After several layoffs, it now has around 50 employees total, 26 of which are based in Chicago. 

So while a money giveaway may not be feasible for bigger businesses with sprawling workforces, Cameo’s foray into the work-from-home debate is a refreshing change from the sternly-worded emails and ominous warnings from managers. And it could be a template for other companies more interested in playing the hero than the villain. 

Leadership tip of the week 💡

The great DEI rollback is upon us, but companies that ax their programs could be doing long term damage to their brands, writes my colleague Brit Morse. New research out of Columbia Business School found that companies that once boosted DEI, only to turn their backs on those policies, could be risking their reputations. 

Leadership Next

When Bill Anderson became CEO of the German pharmaceutical conglomerate Bayer AG in 2023, he found a company with a long history and a robust corporate bureaucracy.

The company handbook was 1,300 pages, and layer after layer of management too easily stifled innovation. Anderson, who worked at Genentech earlier in his career, wanted to instill more of an ownership culture, where decisions and information moved more nimbly. Almost two years in, the changes have been significant: The entire company now runs on 90-day review cycles—allowing for quicker course correction and more of a startup feel for the 161-year-old firm.

Anderson is this week’s guest on #LeadershipNext. He spoke to Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller about the current state of the health care system, the U.S. regulatory environment, and Bayer’s newest advancements in Parkinson’s treatment, as well as the company’s own complicated history.

Listen to the episode and subscribe to Leadership Next wherever you listen to podcasts, or read the full transcript here.

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