National Clothesline

I am sitting in the observation deck of the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport as I write this. I flew in two days ago on a Sunday, and it took nearly 45 minutes for my bag to show up in the baggage claim area. I arrived at the hotel around dinner time, and a major storm whipped through as I was eating. The power went out and stayed out until 4 a.m.

The next day, I went to a hearing on two age discrimination cases, and the lawyer for the two former employees said: “I know that this is not a very strong case, but I think you should give us a trial, your honor.” Oh, did I mention that on my flight the day before, I got two bags of peanuts and club soda for my overpriced ticket?

So, I suppose I should do the following:

1. Complain to Northwest about baggage service and the food.

2. Complain to Embassy Suites that given the power failure, they should have credited me for something, like the wireless internet I could not use.

3. Ask the Court to impose sanctions on my nemesis in the age cases for making my client pay so much to win two cases that never should have been filed.

4. Try to learn from these experiences.

It really has become a problem in this country that we are willing to accept less than the best. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the workplace. The number of mediocre employees is so great that most employers are willing to accept less than perfection from their workers. The result is slow baggage, bad travel experiences, frivolous lawsuits, and no incentive among good employees to remain good.

My experience is that bad employees have a greater influence on good employees than good employees have on them. Even the most conscientious employee will start coming in late if everyone else shows up whenever they feel like it. Why should I care about the quality of my pressing when my worst effort is better than most of my coworkers’ best efforts? Bad work ethics are contagious.

Unless you are a union shop where the philosophy of the union is to protect the worst employee, you should take steps now to reward the best employees, tolerate the satisfactory employees, and discipline and discharge the poor performers. The best way to do that is to develop a wage program that rewards objective performance criteria. The best employees should be paid more for their efforts, and they should know that they are being paid because of their hard work. Satisfactory should result in a satisfactory wage rate.

Such a wage program, however, requires regular evaluations, and the setting of goals for employees. It requires more work, but if you are persistent, you will keep good employees happy and give lesser employees a real economic incentive to do better. I do not recommend, however, keeping low-paid poor performers on the payroll forever. After one or more poor evaluations, those performers should be shown the door.

In your business, some customers complain, but most unsatisfied customers just stop coming in. Those are the people poor employees drive away before you even have the chance to do something about it. Improving the workforce overall may keep some of those customers coming back. Unfortunately, customers rate your business on their last experience. Good performance needs to be rewarded. Bad performance needs to be punished. Employers should not tolerate less than the best. You and your customers deserve better.

Frank Kollman is a partner in the law firm of Kollman & Saucier, PA, in Baltimore, MD. He can be reached by phone at (410) 727-4300 or fax (410) 727-4391. His firm’s web site at www.kollmanlaw.com has articles, sample policies, news and other information on employee/employer relations.