Pink Slips and Parting Gifts

by Deb Hosey White

  The employment staff was seasoned enough to know that layoffs were never easy. Sometimes, however, it was a necessary process organizations had to endure to reach the next level of performance.

  What was causing the closed doors and whispered discussions in human resources wasn’t about the twenty-three administrative jobs being eliminated. The layoff program was part of the company’s less publicized annual goals to decrease payroll costs at headquarters – something investment analysts had been criticizing Easton for during the past year. The mystery was the sudden addition of the three executive positions to headquarters staff with instructions from the most senior levels to fill the jobs immediately.

  No sooner had the HR recruiters developed the sketchiest of job descriptions for the new positions than the employment manager received a call from the vice president of marketing. He was sending over a resume for a “prime candidate” for one of the two new director level positions on his staff.

  “Please set up an interview with this person as soon as possible. I’ve already talked with him. I’ve worked with him in the past and he’s good. He’s who I want. So let’s not waste any time getting him on board.”

  Generally this wasn’t how hiring a six-figure executive went down at The Easton Company. There were protocols, processes and various checks to go through. Now the employment staff was getting the hurry-up by the hiring executive to fill a new position with a pre-selected colleague. Not good.

  Then it got worse. Within two days the same scenario had played out with the other two new positions. Another call from the marketing VP, another resume, and clear direction that no further search was necessary. The vice president of development was more direct.

  “Hire the guy I’m sending you. I’ll send over his resume but the interview is just pro forma.”

  The directness of instruction to hire without a proper search process made the employment staff infuriated and uneasy. Given the power and position of the hiring executives, the lowly Easton recruiting staff fumed, but followed directions. After interviewing both candidates for the two marketing positions, the recruiters met offsite to compare notes in a quiet corner booth at a local Chinese restaurant.

  “I can’t believe we’re hiring these guys. They’re both first class idiots,” Sean began in a loud stage whisper.

  “The first one was a real flamer with the kind of ego we normally avoid like the plague, unless they’re a rainmaker, and there’s absolutely no evidence of that. The second one didn’t even begin to meet our director level qualifications,” Terry added. “And I wouldn’t be surprised to learn his resume is full of faux credentials.”

  “He’s definitely not director material.”

  “Do you think the second candidate will pass the drug test?”

  “Are we really going to pay these losers $116,500 base pay?”

  “Since when do we suddenly need a restaurant marketing director and a hotel marketing director? Are we getting into developing restaurants and hotels now?”

  “And what about those signing bonuses and the rest of their lucrative packages?” Terry hissed. “Since when are we enriching the packages more than twenty percent?”

  “What I’d like to know is how will we justify these hires on the heels of the layoffs. The most any one of those admins was making was $38,200. It’s gonna look bad no matter how it gets dressed up by management.”

  “So Terry – what did Larry have to say when you asked him if we were really hiring these guys?”

  “He was super grumpy but he said yes, we were hiring them ASAP. Period. Then he told me to stop asking questions and that we should all stop chattering about it. Just pull up our big kid pants and get on with it.”

  “I think this is the year we’re sinking to a new low. If they want to hire whomever they want, what the hell do they need us for?” Sean seethed.

  “Check please,” Terry said to the waitress passing their booth. “Time to pull up our big kid pants and get back to work.”

  After completing their new hire paperwork and benefits enrollment materials, the three new executives were never seen again in the headquarters offices. They didn’t even show for mandatory orientation. Excuses were made – they were already on the road doing their jobs – but the employment staff remained suspicious.

  Health Care Country Club

  SUMMIT EXECUTIVE CARE

  Privileged and trusted access to the

  highest quality health care in the world

  As a senior executive for a Fortune 500 company, the last place you ever want to be is in a hospital emergency room. Your time, your health and your life are too valuable to be left to chance. Confronted with a health issue – large or small – you and your family deserve the best care available, no matter where it’s provided or when, or how. You need access to the very best medicine delivered by the top one percent of medical professionals in the world. Your lifestyle demands nothing less. That’s why you need Summit Executive Care. Your lifetime membership awaits.

  Flipping through the exquisite brochure one more time after reading that paragraph, Jeffrey Elkins sighed and felt his face relax into a slight smile. Spending time looking at the Summit Executive Care literature stirred in him the same euphoric feeling as studying the newest Mercedes catalog or a Relais et Chateau destinations booklet. He wanted this. He needed this. No, he deserved this.

  Here was a company that had figured out how to get the best health care into the hands of those who most deserved it – important, top-tier executives like him. People who didn’t have time to waste on anything less than the very best health care delivered in the best settings by the more experienced hands and minds in their fields. And all of it available with immediate and unlimited access – anywhere, any time.

  The brochure explained that in serious situations, Summit Executive Care members were transported for services by medical helicopter, private medical jet, or ambulance limousine. For doctor’s appointments, Summit provided transportation by chauffeured town car for local care or by private jet or first class air travel, depending on the distance.

  A dedicated personal health care advisor, serving as both liaison and care coordinator, was assigned to each member. The advisor’s duties included accompanying the member to appointments and services, keeping track of necessary medical records, providing the member with comprehensive progressive medical intelligence, and securing and delivering prescriptions and medicines to the member’s home or office. Each member’s personal advisor was the 24/7 conduit to all the fine services Summit provided and assured access and continuity of care without the member’s involvement – other than supplying oneself for the actual appointments, tests and procedures. No more waiting rooms, insurance forms, or health questionnaires. Advisors even filled the role of communicating with other designated family members about health care situations. One member was quoted saying that having his advisor was like having his own health care employee. It all added up to the ideal health care experience.

  “How much is it worth to have someone you trust take care of all your health care needs, enabling you to focus on other matters?” the brochure posed. Both individual executive memberships and family memberships were available. There was a one-time initiation fee and then an annual membership payment. There were two levels of membership – diamond and platinum – with significantly different initiation fees. The platinum level was a lifetime membership, which was highly encouraged, since membership availability was limited not just by ability to pay but also by a set of status criteria. Summit was definitely interested in knowing and serving an established, exclusive membership base. It reminded Jeffrey of his Augusta National Golf Club membership, only this Summit membership was even more elite.

  The fees seemed reasonable to Jeffrey. After all, what was the true value of a CEO’s good health? With this type of arrangement, top executives could remain undistracted knowing their own care and the health care of their family members was being provided by the industry’s be
st. It was well worth the fees to eliminate the worry and distraction.

  Why hadn’t someone thought of this concept long ago, Jeffrey wondered. The quarter million dollar initiation fee was a no-brainer as far as he was concerned. It would be money well spent. Not to mention just in time. Actually, time was the only factor Jeffrey was concerned about regarding the Summit arrangement: How to add it to his executive employment agreement in a timely manner and have it all in place before selling the company. Executing it might require offering the benefit to a few members of the change in control group who met Summit’s personal membership criteria – and only some of them would make the grade. The key would be to assure the memberships were secured, fees paid and paperwork completed in time for the Summit membership to be included in the change in control documents. The specifics of Summit’s benefits would need to be carefully couched for stockholder consumption, but that could be handled when the time came. He’d leave the details for others to sort out.

  Jeffrey penned a quick note on his personal company memo stationary that simply read:

  June 23

  Larry —

  How quickly can we get this in place? Make it happen. Pronto.

  Jeffrey

  Jeffrey attached his note to the brochure. He also included the Summit representative’s business card with the embossed gold lettering that had been given to him by one of his golfing compatriots. How very timely, Jeffrey thought once again.

  “Gloria,” he called quietly. His secretary sat immediately outside his door.

  “Yes, Mr. Elkins?” Gloria replied as she promptly appeared in his doorway.

  “Drop this in one of my For Immediate Attention envelopes and have it delivered directly into Larry Baxter’s hands as soon as possible.”

  Medicine Man

  Larry Baxter shook his head and sighed audibly when he opened the maroon envelope. It was marked CONFIDENTIAL – FOR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION and displayed Jeffery Elkins’ monogram in the upper left hand corner. How redundant, Larry thought. Who in their right mind would not give their immediate attention to anything sent to them by the CEO? Now here was one more project added to the stack of new human resources initiatives related to the merger that required his immediate attention.

  With the merger news yet to be announced, everything in the stack was solely Larry’s responsibility. He could not delegate any of it to his extensive staff as long as the negotiations remained undisclosed. It made him frustrated, anxious and angry all at once. The key was to hold it together just a few weeks longer and give Jeffery everything he was asking for, with hopes of being rewarded with a richer change in control package. The challenge was that much of what Jeffrey was requesting required detailed knowledge beyond Larry’s expertise. If he could only pass some of these projects off to the appropriate staff members, the work would get done in no time. But that wasn’t going to happen.

  Flipping through the brochure Jeffrey had sent from Summit Executive Care, it almost seemed like a bad joke. Larry had recently reminded the CEO about the need to address the future of Easton’s retiree medical benefits in the ongoing negotiations with Pratt-Miles. Easton provided retiree medical and Pratt-Miles didn’t. Jeffrey’s reaction had been dismissive.

  “Matters like that can sink a deal if disclosed too early. I’ll raise the issue when the time is right,” Elkins had indignantly responded.

  Now Jeffrey was looking to secure his own health care benefits for life. However, maybe this was a good thing, Larry mused. It could be a sign that Jeffrey wasn’t forgetting about the retiree medical benefits. Time would tell.

  As Larry turned to the pricing sheet included at the back of the brochure, his mouth fell open.

  “Good Lord,” he said out loud. How could Jeffrey justify spending this kind of money to secure high-end health care benefits for an elite few while leaving the fate of the retirees’ health care plan in jeopardy? Larry could feel his blood pressure rising. He took three slow deep breaths and looked out his window at the tree line. OK, he thought, maybe securing this executive health plan for the top tier will make guaranteeing the existing retiree medical benefits an easier sell. Certainly the actuarial cost for the entire Easton retiree population would be less than the cost of this executive medical plan for a dozen or fewer senior employees. Maybe this was part of Jeffrey’s strategy. Larry could hope so anyway. He certainly wasn’t about to call the CEO to initiate a discussion about it. The note had said, “Make it happen. Pronto.” Not “Call if you would like to pick my brain about what the hell I’m thinking.”

  Larry got up and shut his office door, then returned to his chair and picked up the gold embossed business card from the Summit marketing representative. Looking at the card and at Jeffrey’s hand written instructional note, he muttered, “It’s not like I have a choice in the matter.” Larry sighed again, reached for his phone and dialed the number on the card. “Hello Trevor? Larry Baxter here from The Easton Company. I’m calling on behalf of our CEO Jeffrey Elkins.”

  Security Matters – Monday Before the Announcement

  It was a rough week for Brad Mather in the hot days of August just before the merger announcement. Brad was Easton’s corporate director of property management. He negotiated and managed the regional service contracts for the malls that the company developed and still owned. Within the property management profession, his was a plum assignment. Brad’s job focused primarily on the macro issues related to third party contracts for property maintenance, landscaping, heating/air-conditioning, and security. These functions were much more attractive from a plush office at corporate headquarters than they were up close onsite. Brad had done his time in the world of single property management and he was certainly glad those days were over. Better to contract out property services and leave personnel issues to the contractors.

  Unfortunately, The Easton Company still maintained a few smaller properties in parts of the country where it was difficult to contract security services. When security personnel problems arose at those facilities, the property managers came to Brad. He could usually resolve most issues without consulting Easton’s corporate human resources or legal staff. Brad had a wealth of expertise to draw from – enough that he often joked he could fill a book with his stories about the adventures and escapades of his property management days.

  One such Easton property was a modest-sized shopping mall located in a middle-income Midwest suburb. This was an older mall with less prestigious anchor stores and fewer national chains than the big city malls. However, with limited other shopping options available in the area, this mall remained the community hub, maintained fairly good sales numbers, and it was fully leased. The primary reason the property was still in Easton’s portfolio related to its history. It was one of the first properties Easton developed outside the Washington area, and it had been one of the first enclosed malls in the American heartland. But these days, this mall was more a pain in Brad Mather’s side than anything else. It certainly didn’t add value to the cache of high-end diamond level properties that comprised the bulk of The Easton Company’s assets.

  Long before 9/11, U.S. shopping malls were already experiencing their share of security challenges. Security staff often consisted of younger police academy dropouts and older local law enforcement retirees – cop wannabes and cop retirees. The two groups brought different strengths and weaknesses to mall security.

  Hiring the right people to provide dependable security staffing was a perpetual struggle. The picture of mall security had been the same for years, and it was the property manager’s job to effectively utilize the staff available to handle the ebb and flow of crowd control throughout the day.

  This Easton mall ran three 8-hour security shifts. The morning shift assignments were coveted jobs. First shift arrived a few minutes before 7 a.m., just in time to relieve the bleary-eyed night shift. After conducting their first rounds and completing a bit of paperwork it was time to open the merchant entrance doors. An hour later, the main doors
were unlocked by security to accommodate access to the coffee shops and admit the mall walkers. Especially in colder months, the mall let locals use the enclosed shopping area as a morning exercise walking track. At that hour the mall attracted mostly retirees, and if they stayed around after walking to buy a cup of coffee or make a small purchase, all the better. At 10 a.m. first shift security unlocked the remaining mall doors and the retail day began in earnest.

  On weekdays, mall customer flow was fairly predicable. Just as the walkers were departing, the stroller brigade arrived – young parents, grandparents and care providers with babies and preschoolers. For this group, visiting the mall wasn’t about the shopping. The stroller brigade used it as a place to escape for a couple hours, sometimes in the company of other parents and tots. Their presence made for easy work for the morning security staff: lost teddy bears, a band-aid for a tiny finger, a friendly presence in the parking lot while diaper bags, strollers and kids were unloaded or loaded into vans.

  As the stroller brigade hurried away at the lunchtime-naptime hour, they were replaced by the local office employees who arrived between noon and 2 p.m. for a quick lunch from the food court or to make a fast purchase before returning to work.