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A retail chain my friend worked for wanted to boost sales of a membership that included benefits like free shipping and preferred pricing. They gave each employee a small bonus on 1 paycheck equal to the price of the membership and employees were told the bonus was to be used to buy a membership for themselves. Apparently, they believed it would help employees sell the membership if they experienced the benefits themselves.

From the company's perspective, sales of the membership at POS were an important metric for the company; there were long-term company goals for membership sales. Presumably they gave employees money for the membership instead of the membership itself so they could transact more sales and claim to be closer to hitting their total sales goal.

Was it legal for the company to make this additional payment while requiring it be used to buy their own service?

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    I wonder why the company didn't simply give the membership benefits to their employees for free? My instinct is either something related to taxation, or some manager seeking to increase their sales figures.
    – Neil Tarrant
    Commented Aug 7, 2023 at 21:57
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    Did employees have the option to not take the bonus if they didn't want the membership? Are there subsequent membership fees later that the company would not cover?
    – Michael Hall
    Commented Aug 7, 2023 at 23:37
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    Why wouldnt it be legal, as far as it concerns you. By accepting it you have agreed to the terms. So what is the problem ? The reason for doing it this way would be to show that they have independent clients signing up.
    – Rohit Gupta
    Commented Aug 8, 2023 at 5:55
  • @NeilTarrant sales of the membership at POS were an important metric for the company; presumably they gave employees money for the membership instead of the membership itself so they could transact more sales and claim to be closer to hitting their goals.
    – The Kraken
    Commented Aug 8, 2023 at 15:50

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If the employee has the choice - bonus and membership, or no bonus - then I expect the offer to be legal. Since it is a real bonus and part of your salary you will have to pay income tax on it.

What might be illegal, but not your concern, is if your company tells investors how well the company is doing, and how well the membership scheme is doing, when in reality 80% of members are employees paying effectively nothing.

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    – Dale M ♦
    Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 0:19
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It is unlikely that the company can compel existing employees to enter into an additional personal membership contract with them, or use their facilities in a personal capacity.

However, I wouldn't necessarily presume ulterior motives.

It is extremely useful for anyone involved in customer service, to understand what exactly the customer sees and experiences as part of the interaction.

Arranging to make a small payment to the workers through the payroll so that they can follow the exact sign-up process, is not just the most thorough approach, but (I imagine more importantly to the bosses...) probably perceived to be the cheapest and simplest approach.

In terms of salesmanship, it probably would have been a better approach for the bosses to invite willing employees to sign up for personal membership, and to have made available the facility for an employee to request a small subsidy for the purpose.

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  • See if Hanlon's Razor applies. "Do not attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by incompetence." - Key word here is "sufficiently". It does not suffice when incompetence is only a partial explanation.
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Commented Aug 8, 2023 at 17:51
  • So it might make sense for Amazon to give some employees $100 to test their website, whether delivery works, whether returns work, by making genuine purchases under realistic circumstances.
    – gnasher729
    Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 7:25

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