The CEO of Europe’s most valuable company is linking his pay to a private mission to spice up worker morale.
Christophe Fouquet, the CEO of Dutch tech agency ASML, stated final week that the corporate will incorporate worker satisfaction into its compensation technique for prime executives in an effort to quell discontent over a significant reorganization, per a memo to workers obtained completely by Enterprise Insider.
Fouquet was responding to the outcomes of an annual survey that polled greater than 38,000 of ASML’s roughly 44,000 workers.
The survey outcomes, seen by Enterprise Insider, present that ASML’s worker engagement index — a measure of employee satisfaction — fell from 78% final yr to 73.5% this yr.
Within the memo, Fouquet stated that the declining worker engagement scores “replicate a interval of serious change” and acknowledged that it had been a “disruptive and emotional yr” for the corporate.
He added that ASML’s govt workforce had highlighted six questions within the survey and mixed them into a brand new Office Expertise Index, which might be included into the corporate’s Lengthy-Time period Incentive plan for govt compensation.
“Within the coming years, it should instantly affect the remuneration of senior leaders, together with the Board of Administration,” Fouquet wrote, including that strengthening the corporate’s tradition and reinforcing its values can be a private precedence within the coming yr.
ASML declined to remark.
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The six questions embody whether or not workers really feel they will share their opinions with out worry of retaliation and if they’ve confidence in ASML’s senior management workforce.
Staff will even be polled on whether or not they have a transparent understanding of their position, whether or not they assume their groups are working effectively and are properly organized, and whether or not they really feel their direct supervisor reveals they care about them as a person.
It comes as ASML, the one agency on the planet able to constructing the superior EUV lithography machines important for chipmakers like TSMC and Intel, makes an attempt to slash forms with a sweeping org chart reorganization.
ASML introduced in January that it may reduce 1,700 jobs to scale back administration layers and deal with engineering. Leaked documents beforehand reported by Enterprise Insider present that these ongoing efforts have centered on decreasing the variety of managers on the firm. The corporate later stated it anticipated to chop fewer jobs than initially deliberate.
Going towards tech’s ‘hardcore’ development
Main firms tying govt pay to worker satisfaction is rare, however not extraordinary.
Companies like IBM and Aviva have beforehand included worker engagement of their compensation targets for prime executives.
ASML’s determination, nonetheless, runs counter to the cultural winds of Huge Tech, which have seen some firms embark on relentless layoffs and push workers to work longer hours as a part of a “hardcore” working shift.
Meta was an early, distinguished leader of this push, with a collection of layoffs that started in 2023 throughout Mark Zuckerberg’s “yr of effectivity” and, final yr, slicing “low performers.” CTO Andrew Bosworth at one level recommended that workers who disagreed with the corporate’s route ought to “think about working elsewhere.”
Executives have since acknowledged internally that Meta went too far with its effectivity push, with Bosworth telling employees that morale at the company was virtually the worst it has ever been.
Fouquet’s memo to workers got here days earlier than ASML raised its 2026 gross sales forecast and pledged to speed up manufacturing of its distinctive lithography machines because the AI growth fuels surging demand.
The corporate’s machines are very important for producing the superior semiconductors used to coach and run AI fashions, and the fast buildout of AI information facilities has pushed ASML’s shares up 45% this yr.
One main potential buyer for the Dutch agency is Elon Musk, who’s racing to construct an enormous semiconductor manufacturing unit dubbed “Terafab” in Texas. Enterprise Insider beforehand reported that Musk gave a virtual presentation to a personal ASML worker convention in June to pitch Terafab, which is a joint mission by Tesla and SpaceX.
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