How to deal with boss that ignores their company?

Question

I work for a somewhat small business (8 people), which I will refer to as "Company A". The CEO of Company A also happens to be the CEO of "Company B" which has only a couple more on-site employees than Company A, and many more off-site. Both Company A and Company B are sharing the same office, with us in Company A kind of sectioned off by only a glass wall which can be seen through. Part of our duties in Company A is to handle all of the development work for Company B alongside our other clients.

Company A was CEO's original company, and Company B came to fruition some time later, but now generates a lot more revenue and growth than Company A, so naturally the CEO's attention has shifted to focus more over there. The problem we are having is that now we in Company A are completely ignored. We rarely get more than a quick "good morning" from the CEO nowadays, whereas just across the glass wall, we see and hear loud group conversations he is involved with several times a day. Not just work-related conversations either, casual ones too.

Company B gets multiple team meetings/catch-ups per week. Usually more than 30 minutes long each. Company A hasn't had a single team meeting/catch-up this year, despite needing one badly at this point. The CEO has been approached about this multiple times, but the response is usually just "Yeah we should do that" or "Just been too busy".

Anything Company A needs done (such as invoicing clients) is pushed aside and forgotten about for months at a time, despite repeated reminders. However anything that needs to be done for Company B will be done immediately.

Company B's employees were all given Christmas presents, and although we don't have any expectation that we are entitled to presents, we got nothing. At the time, we were told "we will do your christmas next week when X is back in the office."

There are countless more examples where Company B gets the absolute top priority from the CEO, and we are left ignored in our corner.

What is the best way to approach this situation? The direct approach has not worked. Is there anything we can do? We are assured that Company A is not going to be dissolved or anything, and pay rises still occur.

Answer 1

If the direct approach has not worked, no other approach will.

Your best bet is to put a curtain across that glass wall and just focus on A instead of comparing it with B or any other company. Even if you were in B, you would start comparing it with some other company C who has lot more benefits than B.

You have to make a decision if working with A in its current state motivates you and then decide to continue working there or not. No comparison with any other company.

Answer 2

Figure out what exactly is wrong and what the solutions are. Don't raise problems, propose solutions.

From your questions it's hard to tell if the real issue is the contrast (successful company next to an stagnant company), the lack of direction, or being implicitly told that you are not valued.

If the problem is the contrast, a good solution is to move to a different office. This could be easy to pitch, or near impossible, depends if company B needs more space or not.

If the problem is lack of direction, a possible solution is to hire a CEO, or a C?O, or a VP, as needed. That would need to come with a concrete value proposition. If there's a chance the position might be yours, it's certainly worth a try.