Often, employees make their most meaningful connections with coworkers in informal, unplanned ways: dropping by each other’s offices for a chat, going out for lunch, or making small talk in the elevator.

Many companies and departments plan structured events like happy hours to encourage staff to interact. But, even with the lure of free booze on the company dime, those efforts aren’t always successful.

Kameron Rezai, CFO at Verkada, a provider of security equipment, wanted a more creative way to foster connectivity. His solution was the 3-3-3 program: Employees who meet up at local businesses in groups of three or more after 3pm can receive $30 each in reimbursements. They don’t have to get prior approval for these meetups, and they have pretty much free rein over the food and drink they choose.

Since the program launched in April 2023, most of Verkada’s 1,800 staff have taken advantage of it, Rezai said. He estimates that the company has spent $300,000 on the program in the Bay Area and $500,000 enterprise-wide. That’s money that was reallocated from the “fun fund” the company used before to bankroll structured events.

Click here to continue reading about investing in employee interaction.—CV

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Let’s make a deal: We’ll use one (and only one) Amazon Prime pun, and then we’ll tell you what happened in the company’s Q4 2023 earnings.

Deal? Here goes. Based on the report, it’s clear the company is priming itself to take advantage of a new era of tech. The tech giant reported net sales of $170 billion, a 14% increase from $149.2 billion in Q4 2022.

There were a few main drivers behind the company’s solid report, the most obvious of which was Amazon’s massive holiday shopping effort.

“This Q4 was a record-breaking holiday shopping season and closed out a robust 2023 for Amazon,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. Globally, customers bought more than 1 billion (yes, billion) items on Amazon during the company’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events, per the report. Taken together, it was record-breaking: Customers bought more on Amazon over the course of this holiday season than any other.

For more on how Amazon delivered, click here.—NP

Boeing’s troubled 737 Max 9 airplanes may have returned to the skies after collecting dust in the hangar for three weeks, but the company has delayed its 2024 financial outlook while it grapples with the fallout of the Alaska Airlines incident, the company’s chief executive said.

“Now is not the time for that,” CEO David Calhoun told investors during an earnings call on Wednesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered Max 9 planes grounded after a door panel flew off a Max 9 plane operated by Alaska Airlines mid-flight in early January. The crew made an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon, and nobody on the flight was injured. However, the incident raised questions about the safety of the Max 9 model, according to the New York Times. One former Boeing manager told the Los Angeles Times he “would absolutely not fly a Max airplane.”

Calhoun said he could not comment on the ongoing National Transportation Safety Board investigation as to what may have caused the incident.

Continue reading here.—AZ

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: $9,850. That’s the average ticket price for this year’s Super Bowl, as of this writing, a 70% jump from last year. Flights and hotel prices in host city Las Vegas are seeing big price spikes, too. No word yet on price increases for falling asleep on the couch before halftime but we’re sure that there’s bound to be some kind of “couch-flation” this year. (CNN Business)

Quote: “The prudent thing to do is to just give it some time and see that the data continue to confirm that inflation is moving down to 2% in a sustainable way.”—Fed Chair Jerome Powell on not rushing interest rate cuts, citing the continuing risk of inflation. The stock market sank on the news. (Business Insider)

Read: Samsung executive chair Lee Jae-yong, South Korea’s richest man, was acquitted of accounting fraud and stock price manipulation charges. Prosecutors alleged that Lee rigged a merger deal to consolidate his power over Samsung, but the court said prosecutors had not proved their case. (Associated Press)

Insights—in insight: Finance teams leveraging automation regain two days every month. Use that extra time to surface insights, become a strategic partner, and transform how you work. Learn how in Sage’s report.*

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