The company is more focused on growth than taking care of their employees. They have made 2 major acquisitions during the covid pandemic and will soon close on a 3rd totaling hundreds of millions of dollars at the same time telling employees that because of financial stress they were suspending many of our benefits and we shouldn't expect to see substantial salary raises this year. To be honest they have rarely offered substantial pay raises so that wasn't a surprise. Well I take that back. Regular employees don't get big raises, but the CEO sure did. His total compensation package went up by about $4.1 million or 79% during the pandemic. His compensation is probably a lower right now because the stock he was awarded has decreased dramatically in value. Jon Kessler likes to tell us in all hands meetings that there's no predicting stock value and what will make it go up or down. The stock market has been crazy (think AMC and Gamestop as examples), but when the company issues 5 million additional shares of common stock it doesn't take a genius to understand that this will dilute the value of the existing stock via supply and demand. They raised over $400 million from this stock offering and yet they still felt they needed to suspend our benefits and cut back on raises.
The company also raises some interesting privacy concerns. They work overtime to protect their customers' data. However, when it comes to their employees it's a different story. When they sent us home to work remote because of covid they required us all to sign a working from home agreement. In that agreement was a clause that allows HealthEquity to come and search our home office whenever they want. There were no limitations in the clause. It did not say that they needed probable cause, or it was only during reasonable hours of the day, or even who is allowed to perform the search. I'm not lawyer, but the way it was written makes it seem like I could barge into my coworkers home and tell them that I represent HealthEquity and I am there to search their home office.
In their ongoing employment agreement there is another clause. This clause gives HealthEquity the right to search any electronic device that is on HealthEquity property. So they can search your phone or tablet or personal laptop if you happen to bring it with you. It also give them the right to search your backpack and your car. So basically you have to give up all rights to privacy to work for HealthEquity. I don't know if this is becoming common among companies, but it is the first time I have ever had to sign such agreements just to work for a company.
