The world's richest persons and companies are best employers too

To be very rich, powerful, and famous aren't necessarily opposites to being outstanding employers. In fact, the wealthiest employers are the most pro-people in terms of Organizational Justice and Compensation. These are our main topics in a twin summit we are holding virtually here in Cebu City. Vice President Leni Robredo was the keynote speaker yesterday after she was welcomed by Governor Gwen Garcia and Mayor Edgar Labella. Vice Mayor Mike lectured on people leadership in the government.

This is the Philippine HR community's biggest event this year, a twin summit focusing on two of the four diamonds in leading people and managing business organizations. These are Organizational Justice, the new buzzword for Labor and Employee Relations, under the chairmanship of this writer, and Total Rewards, the new name for Compensation and Benefits, chaired by Freddi Marquez, the nation's top expert in compensation. We feature the world's greatest and richest employers on how they care for people during the pandemic and all the time. These companies were also affected by the global pandemic but they continued to prosper because of their excellent people leadership and business management. The ten richest people are featured as great employers based on employee relations as well as total rewards.

These ten richest persons are: first, Elon Musk of TESLA, maker of the world's cleanest cars, with net worth of $195 billion; second, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon with a net worth of $185B; third, Bill Gates, (formerly the richest of them all until he and his wife Melinda gave most of his wealth away to charity including the war against COVID-19), of Microsoft, with $132B; fourth, Bernanrd Arnault of Louis Vuitton and Sephora, $110B; fifth is Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook with $100B; sixth, Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway with $85B; seventh, Larry Page of Google with $83.6B; eighth, Larry Ellison of Oracle with $79.7B; a close ninth is Steve Balmer, formerly of Microsoft too but now owner of the LA Clippers which he bought at a whopping $2B; tenth is Sergey Brim of Alphabet with $78.8B.

The companies that prospered in 2020 are: Amazon, amassing $401.1B at a time when many other companies ended in bankruptcy and closures. Second, Microsoft, which earned $269.9Billion, while Apple got $219.1B. These are big billions at a time when people were working from home and their virtual offices were their mobile phones, using multiple digital platforms and leveraging their unique value propositions by using cloud and web apps and doing business while other firms floundered and declared financial insolvency. Fourth is TESLA earning $108.4B; fifth is TenCent, which generated $93B; sixth is Facebook getting $85.7B. I can go on and on with Nvidia, Alphabet, PayPal, T-Mobile, Pinduoduo, and Netflix.

The Philippines' richest businessmen who were hit by the pandemic but remained strong and formidable are first the Sy siblings led by Tesie Coson of Shoemart and BDO with $13.9B net worth. They lost no less than $3.3B in 2020 but they remained on top and will continue to dominate Philippine business, as long as they do not start bickering and squabbling. Following the Sys is Manny Villar, the former Tondo fish vendor who built his fortune in real estate and has $5B after losing $1.6 Billion in 2020. Third is Enrique Razon of the port operations business empire that he dominates. He lost $700 million in 2020 but he rose to no third with a net worth of $4.3B. Following them are the Gokongwei siblings with $4.1B; Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, $3.6B; Andrew Tan, $2.3B; Ramon S. Ang, $2B; Tony TanCaktiong of Jollibee, $1.9B; Lucio Co of Puregold, $1.7B; and the Ty siblings $1.4B.

My greatest hero is Edgar or Injap Sia. He started Mang Inasal in his early twenties inside their garage. It grew into a business empire and Jollibee was so terrified that it purchased three-fourths of Mang Inasal. Injap became a self-made millionaire in his twenties and a billionaire in his thirties. He will be a trillionaire in his 40's. Then Injap partnered with Tony of Jollibee and they embarked on Double Dragon which is giving Manny Villar, Lance Gokongwei, and Tessie Coson big headaches. Injap Sia earned $300 million in the IPO of Merry Mart. Our twin summit highlights these guys because of their geniuses in people leadership. That really is the Twin Summit on Organizational Justice and Total Rewards.