LLPOH’s: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

On a recent thread, there were several comments regarding company CEO’s that are compassionate toward their employees – by retaining more employees than the business requires, or retaining poor or inefficient employees, etc. Let me tell you for sure and certain, no good deed goes unpunished is the likely outcome of any compassionate act.

First, let me address the issue of keeping more employees than the business requires. I simply do not do this. I will not do this. And I believe no business should do this. It is prohibitively expensive. It costs me around $60,000 per year per employee. For every one I keep beyond requirements, it will cost me that amount PLUS it will cost me possibly that and more as a result of the overall slowdown that will occur throughout the organization. You see, people like to work a bit of overtime. Excess people means no overtime. No overtime means people’s wages are affected. People respond by slowing down sufficiently that they believe overtime will be provided to catch up. So if I keep excess employees, in a show of compassion, I will get screwed. NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED will absolutely apply.

However, I do try to retain/hire/employ people that are very often otherwise unemployable, especially in jobs such as I offer that do provide middle-class income and benefits. I try to fit them in and work around their limitations. In general, it costs me perhaps three or four dollars per hour per each of these folks. To put that in perspective, it costs me – and by me I mean me personally, out of my own wallet – between $6000 and $8000 per year per each employee of this type that I have. As you can imagine, I do not let the number of these employees get too high. Perhaps three or four are on the books, at the most, depending on economic circumstances. It is charity on my part, pure and simple, and I do it as a public service, as a means of giving to the community, and as I think it is the right thing to do. But here are some of the results of trying to do a good deed:

1) I get my other employees stomping into my office complaining that so and so does not pull their weight. Which is true. I cannot tell them the reason why those folks are employed, or immediately upon leaving my office the aggrieved would go to so and so and tell him/her “You are only employed because the boss thinks you are a charity case and you need help” or some such. That would be great. So I basically have to tell the aggrieved to mind their own business, to pay attention to their own work, etc. And thus I get a disgruntled employee because I try to do a charitable thing. And disgruntled employees cost me money. Add some more to the $6k or $8k I am already funding.

2) These marginal employees make inordinate amounts of mistakes – quality, tool damage, etc. Add a bit more to the cost of employing them.
These marginal employees tend to get worse the longer they are employed. Some of them are as cunning as junkyard rats. They innately know that they are poor performers, and yet they continue to be employed. So they become even worse performers in order to see how far they can push it. Not very far is the answer, but it costs me time, and money, to show them the error of their ways, and usually, the door.

3) On the other end of the scale, some of them come to think they are actually God’s gift to an employer. After all, they have a job, so they must be ok, right? We recently had a softening in sales, and I had to reduce workforce. In these situations I will not continue to employ these marginal employees – no way in hell will I employ a marginal while having to lay off a good employee. That is totally unfair to the good employee. So what happens when I lay off one of these marginal? They jump up and down, scream that I am treating them unfairly as they are good employees and that surely I have something against them, tell me I am obliged to keep them on as they will not be able to find other work, threaten to sue, etc. Contrast that to when I have to lay off a good employee: they almost always understand (they are lots brighter and understand economic circumstance), they are thankful for the opportunity they have and the promise make to call them back as soon as conditions improve, and they are gracious in the face of adversity.

Again, it goes to show NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED!

As I get older, it gets harder and harder to do the things that I believe in. I believe in these small acts of charity. I get no accolades or rewards for them – I do not care for those in any event. But I am sick and tired of being punished for doing what surely are good deeds. For my actions, not only do I pay a significant financial cost, but I pay an enormous personal cost. Each day I am less prepared to pay the price. At this point, I have advised managers that we will no longer employ substandard employees. Of course, I tend to relent when I see a sad case. But I believe it is far less likely that I will do so now. I am simply not as psychologically strong today as I was 10 years ago. The bastards have worn me down – the steady drip, drip, drip of water on the rock has had an effect over 35 years in manufacturing.

So, I say to those who believe that employers have an obligation to be compassionate and charitable, that there is much you do not understand unless you have been in the chair yourself, and have put up your own money, and have to deal with the problems that come along with trying to do the right thing. It is easy to tell business owners what they should do, but people need to realize that there are (almost) ALWAYS consequences for doing the right thing.
Make no mistake – NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED. It may not always be true. But it is substantially true, especially when dealing with employees.