The PlayBear Billionaire: A Bear Shifter Romance by Maria Amor Read Free Book Online Page B

through on the other side of this.”
    He outlined what he wanted; he was willing to make specific compromises on the level of quality and sustainability on the manufacturing end, cutting back on oversight and sourcing of materials standards to lower cost. He also gave a maximum number of employees to either have their hours cut back or their jobs temporarily furloughed.
    He outlined that if the decision came to lay off an employee, they would receive half-pay for the first three months of their layoff, as a gesture of goodwill; if their layoff lasted longer than that, they were of course welcome to seek other employment opportunities, and Oberon Industrial would fill the openings as needed.
    The decision wasn’t one that Alex particularly liked, but it was one that he could live with, that made sense and at least wasn’t as devastating or foolhardy as any one of the paths alone would have potentially been. He sent off the recommendation email and plunged into his next report.
    This one concerned Lasko as well—they were, according to a personnel manager—poaching talent from Oberon. Alexander shook his head; Oberon had been in competition with the Lasko Corporation for as long as he could remember, but they had never been so mercenary in their attempts to get an edge. At essence, Lasko and Oberon tackled two ends of the same markets.
    In the last several months, however, Lasko had been encroaching on Oberon Industrial’s territory in as many ways as they could—increasing their manufacturing, targeting new clients, moving into areas of business they had never gone into before but which Oberon had been involved in for at least a decade. It seemed as though Lasko was actively trying specifically to hurt Oberon Industrial’s interests—not just an act of competition but almost one of corporate malice.
    The poaching of employees was just another part of what seemed to be a larger mission to drive Oberon’s performance down. The personnel manager stated that it was particularly galling that Lasko was poaching candidates from high-level positions, people who knew the inner workings of different departments, who knew secrets.
    There was a non-disclosure agreement that every employee was required to sign, but enforcing it—if they could find evidence that there were trade secrets disclosed—would require court battles, and would bring negative attention to the company.
    Alex decided that he would have to not only make sure that his defecting employees weren’t giving Lasko information that could help the corporation push Oberon to the brink of bankruptcy; he would also have to take proactive measures to make sure that more of his staff didn’t leave the company in favor of greener pastures at Lasko.
    He authorized the personnel manager to discover what kinds of new benefits would be enough to entice people to stay—or potentially to win them back to Oberon Industrial.
    If he could get some of his best management talent back, it would be a major coup. Alex’s father had long been a proponent of the idea that employees who felt valued, who thought that they were treated like part of a corporate family instead of being just another worker, were much more likely not only to stay, but also to work better and harder.
    Alex was mulling over the results of the last report that required his attention, considering the move of opening up into a new area of business in supply, when his phone buzzed, alerting him to an intra-office call from his assistant.
    “Yes?” Alex was irritated at the interruption; the last report was just as important as the first two, though for different reasons. If Oberon Industrial could keep ahead of Lasko, it wouldn’t matter if the other company was trying to encroach on their territory. They could out-maneuver Lasko until the other company had to give up its attempts and settle for its secondary position in the pecking order of the industry.
    “A Mr. Eric Neems is on line one for you, Mr.