I don't know who took this decision to just give away money and free time to employees, and maybe it's good PR after all, but I do hope this is not announcing a trend.
I've found it costs an employer an average of $3000 to hire someone for $8/hour and it costs an average of $26k to hire someone for $80/year. If you can pay someone a few weeks of salary and buy goodwill during a life event like this you keep your company competitive in the competitive tech space.
TL;DR This will probably save them money in recruiter fees.
Basic Humanity. Belief that existing laws in the US are pathetic and don't go nearly far enough.
Or staff retention, if you insist on degrading human relationships to purely economic terms.
As you put it, it's a "Belief". I'd rather call it a point of view or even a political opinion.
I disagree strongly. When shareholders purchase their shares, the rights they get with it are clear. Very, very commonly, they do not include the right to set renumeration. Not theoretically. Not practically. Not at all. Non-voting stock very deliberately gives shareholders no power.
"If somehow the shareholders were left out of this decision, via some authoritative action from the executives or something, it's wrong."
I disagree very strongly. It is the job of the executives to make these decisions. Their first duty is not to shareholders, despite the pernicious myth that there's some kind of legal obligation to do the best for shareholders. Shareholders do not need to be consulted.
Shareholders literally own the company. They have influence on everything, at least indirectly. They vote the board of directors, so if they are not happy with the way employees are thrown money at, they will sack the directors and elect a board that will not do the same thing.
Not only are shareholders not supposed to make such decisions, they also actually don't make those decisions. Literally owning the company doesn't actually mean they can do what they like it, and that's how it should be. It's not as if they're liable for anything the company does wrong, so even calling it "ownership" is a leap.
Secondly, I am a shareholder and I applaud this. I'm not pissed off. I take a long term view and I find the attitude of shareholder value above all to be backwards and damaging.
I also know that the best shareholders could do is put up their own nominations for directorship positions. It would damage the company and should be done, frankly, only if the company was already a slow motion car crash. Sometimes you see activists doing this as a prelude to getting as much money as they can out of a healthy company.
Here's a company doing its job, looking after its employees and investing in its future.
I'm a shareholder as well. I'm willing to believe this decision was made for good reasons so I give the executives the benefit of the doubt, but to me it is slightly worrying.
You applaud this, fine. We disagree, still fine. There is no right or wrong here, in the end it's only the votes that count. Because, if what the executives do pisses enough shareholders, they will be voted out and unlike you I believe this is all right.
Not saying it is a bad thing, but in the end such decision are likely made to attract talents and/or limit turn-over more than anything else.