The CEO of Europe’s most valuable company is linking his pay to a personal mission to boost employee morale.
Christophe Fouquet, the CEO of Dutch tech firm ASML, said last week that the company will incorporate employee satisfaction into its compensation strategy for top executives in an effort to quell discontent over a major reorganization, per a memo to employees obtained exclusively by Business Insider.
Fouquet was responding to the results of an annual survey that polled more than 38,000 of ASML’s roughly 44,000 employees.
The survey results, seen by Business Insider, show that ASML’s employee engagement index — a measure of worker satisfaction — fell from 78% last year to 73.5% this year.
In the memo, Fouquet said that the declining employee engagement scores “reflect a period of significant change” and acknowledged that it had been a “disruptive and emotional year” for the company.
He added that ASML’s executive team had highlighted six questions in the survey and combined them into a new Workplace Experience Index, which would be incorporated into the company’s Long-Term Incentive plan for executive compensation.
“In the coming years, it will directly influence the remuneration of senior leaders, including the Board of Management,” Fouquet wrote, adding that strengthening the company’s culture and reinforcing its values would be a personal priority in the coming year.
ASML declined to comment.
The six questions include whether employees feel they can share their opinions without fear of retaliation and if they have confidence in ASML’s senior leadership team.
Employees will also be polled on whether they have a clear understanding of their role, whether they think their teams are operating efficiently and are well organized, and whether they feel their direct manager shows they care about them as an individual.
It comes as ASML, the only firm on the planet capable of building the advanced EUV lithography machines critical for chipmakers like TSMC and Intel, attempts to slash bureaucracy with a sweeping org chart reorganization.
ASML announced in January that it could cut 1,700 jobs to reduce management layers and focus on engineering. Leaked documents previously reported by Business Insider show that these ongoing efforts have focused on reducing the number of managers at the company. The company later said it expected to cut fewer jobs than initially planned.
Going against tech’s ‘hardcore’ trend
Major companies tying executive pay to employee satisfaction is uncommon, but not unheard of.
Companies like IBM and Aviva have previously included employee engagement in their compensation targets for top executives.
ASML’s decision, however, runs counter to the cultural winds of Big Tech, which have seen some companies embark on relentless layoffs and push employees to work longer hours as part of a “hardcore” working shift.
Meta was an early, prominent leader of this push, with a series of layoffs that began in 2023 during Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” and, last year, cutting “low performers.” CTO Andrew Bosworth at one point suggested that employees who disagreed with the company’s direction should “consider working elsewhere.”
Executives have since acknowledged internally that Meta went too far with its efficiency push, with Bosworth telling workers that morale at the company was almost the worst it has ever been.
Fouquet’s memo to employees came days before ASML raised its 2026 sales forecast and pledged to accelerate production of its unique lithography machines as the AI boom fuels surging demand.
The company’s machines are vital for producing the advanced semiconductors used to train and run AI models, and the rapid buildout of AI data centers has pushed ASML’s shares up 45% this year.
One major prospective customer for the Dutch firm is Elon Musk, who is racing to build a massive semiconductor factory dubbed “Terafab” in Texas. Business Insider previously reported that Musk gave a virtual presentation to a private ASML employee conference in June to pitch Terafab, which is a joint project by Tesla and SpaceX.
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