Sharing is caring: Hermès pays all employees €4,000 bonus

After a stellar year of growth at Hermès, where sales increased in four consecutive quarters, the Paris-based luxury house is sharing the windfall with its employees. After also upping the dividend for its shareholders with 63 percent, it is one of the company's highest ever payouts.

With sales surging more than 20 percent to 11.6 billion euros of consolidated revenue at current exchange rates, a buoyant Hermès has achieved record profits. As part of its value sharing culture, Hermès CEO Axel Dumas said all 19,700 employees worldwide would receive an exceptional bonus of 4,000 euros at the end of the month.

According to French newspaper Le Monde, the bonus follows a previous 6 percent wage increase for the company’s French-based employees and a 100-euro increase granted in January 2022 and again the following July.

As part of its value sharing policy, Hermès said the bonus goes ‘hand in hand with an increase in the dividend distributed to shareholders’ which was increased to 13 euros from 8 euros for 2021 fiscal year payout, and is estimated to be around 1.4 billion euros.

The payment echoes bonuses of companies in other sectors, such as Shell, where record profits gave staff one-off wage increases and higher than usual bonuses.

With the Hermès family holding the majority of shares at approximately 66 percent, one notable industry investor who will benefit is the Arnault family, the owners of LVMH. As a 1.87 percent shareholder, Mr Arnault can expect the family coffers to be boosted with 26 million euros.