WHAT’S THE POINT?
Time for the annual End-of-Summer festival, a time when hunks of dead animal are charred, students dread the onset of homework and tired parents bless whoever came up with the idea of public school. Yes, it is Labor Day again. This year has flown by, for before we know it, it will soon be Christmas, then resolution time and it all starts over again.
Perhaps, this year has gone faster for me than most. I’ve got two businesses I’m running — a law practice that keeps me and my partner busy, and a sleep lab, where we test for sleep apnea.
My sleep lab has technicians, marketers and administrative personnel. This has been the year of employee crises. I’ve had employees leave me in the middle of an FDA study. I’ve had employees leave me, but say that they are “going to still be around,” whatever that means. I’ve had multiple employees have deaths in their families. I’ve had employees falsify schedules, and others who let minor situations fester into major problems.
I’ve always believed that your staff can make or break you. No venture can grow, and remain a one-man band. It’s simply not possible. One person cannot be the marketing guru, the finance chief, the HR department, perform all the work and still provide a vision for advancement.
A company must have people. People who care and who take initiative. People who can see beyond the next pay period.
This year has taught me many lessons. The value of a good friend, the value of taking your time in finding the right person. The cost of being impetuous and hiring the person who looks good or who will fill a gap, versus finding the one with the right skills and personality.
I’ve hired a number of people from distinct ethnic backgrounds. I’ve had the same problem with all of them — they were unrelated by family, geography or work history. It’s not even a major problem, it’s a cultural issue. They don’t like confrontation, in any form. They want to keep a happy face on everything and that façade cost me a lot of money and a lot of time.
I don’t believe that any one of them intentionally set out to do damage to me or the company. They just don’t have the skills needed to be in a company that is in the startup phase.
Just as you need to find employees who have certain skill sets, I have learned that it is also important to match the personality of the employee with the phase the company is in, or will soon be in.
When a company is in development or startup, there is one trait that allows it to weather the inevitable crises. Brutal honesty about what is happening — good, bad or indifferent. As an employer, I have to know what is going on. I want to hear about the problems, more than an endless parade of “everything’s fine.” It’s not easy for employees to hear that. They get scared for their jobs. They are afraid that they’ll make me angry.
Which is ironic, because I am not an angry person, generally. What does make me angry is precisely what they are doing — hiding the truth from me, and then letting it become a major problem.
I have fired people for many reasons, but by far the most common is not incompetence, or thievery, but simple inability to confront a situation. The head-in-the-sand mentality works well somewhere, but I don’t know where.
As an employer, I’m under attack a lot these days. The government wants me to provide more benefits to my employees; my customers want me to do it cheaper, quick-er and with better quality; my employees want more money and better benefits; and no one wants to look at my needs.
The world sees employers in a love/hate fashion. On the one hand, they are crucial to the system, they are the source of income for most people. They are the providers for the many.
On the other hand, many people see employers as the source of the world’s sorrows, and wonder why we need them. They fail to see the crucial role that an employer plays in the circle of life. These people want to have goods provided for them and have vacation time. They want health insurance for all, but don’t see why people should have to work low paying, unskilled jobs like being an orderly.
Labor Day is about profit. It is profit for the worker and for the employer. If an employer cannot make a profit, he will soon be out of business, and that means the employee will be out of a job. The interests of the employee are linked, in a life-and-death struggle with the employer in this way.
This is a hard concept for many people. They want to limit the profits that a company can earn. They say it is immoral for a company to make vast amounts of money, at the expense of the lives and labor of others. I disagree.
Our employees depend on the checks we write them being negotiable at the bank. The money must be there when they need it. I carry the responsibility of making sure that employees are paid, so that they, in turn, can pay their nanny to provide care for their children.
There are those who would say that the level of profits should be reduced so that more people could have our services. That if more people had our services it would be better for society. Maybe. But these people are not the ones who invested the money, who worked late nights at the copy center getting the presentations ready for the salesmen, who make the company profitable.
I’ve always found it curious that those who most condemn employers have never actually been one. The people who champion the rights of the worker the loudest, and bemoan the profits of the employer the most, have never actually had it all on the line. They have not spent sleepless nights wondering how they were going to make payroll.
It is important to remember, and honor, labor this coming weekend. But let’s remember that the boss, is also part of the equation. You can’t have one without the other, and they both make society operate. CEOs have been getting a lot of abuse these days. Sometimes they deserved it. But no good CEO would forget that their employees are the lifeblood of the company. (David Pisarra or 310/664-9969.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 30, 2005. Read the original PDF.