The Ethics of Family Leave

There's been a case in the news lately that points up just how thorny the whole "family leave" situation really is. If you're pro-business you probably regard these laws as putting the good of the individual (and their family) ahead of the company, the other employees, the economy, and society as a whole. If you're anti-business you probably regard these laws as the only thing standing between evil company owners who would skin their employees and sell the hides for footballs if they thought they could get away with it and basic human dignity. As usual, the truth lies somewhere between these extremes...

The case in question seems a bit far-fetched, and the fact that it's being reported by the New York Post does not help. According to the story, the employee was working 60 hours per week up until she began experiencing difficulties with her pregnancy, her doctors required her to spend several months on bed rest, and then only return for 30-hour weeks or less, but the company was not willing to agree to short work weeks, stating that the position was exempt and they would therefore work the poor woman for as many hours as they like. Almost makes the company's managers sound like they should be wearing black capes and twirling long mustachios, doesn't it?

The company isn't commenting on pending litigation (of course there's pending litigation. What made you think there wouldn't be?), but you can imagine how the other side of this story would go: it's a key position; we can't afford to pay two people to work it; we cooperated with the three months plus of family leave and vacations, but we can't just screw around for an undefined number of additional months/years; we understand the importance of family (and health) concerns, but we also have an obligation to our shareholders and the rest of our workforce (who will be unemployed and uninsured if we tank the company); it's not fair to our other exempt personnel, and so on.

So is it a case of somebody trying to achieve work-life balance and being screwed by their (now former) employer, or is it somebody who wants to get paid for 60 hours a week but only work 30, and also sees the opportunity to sue for a huge punitive settlement if they don't get their way? I can't tell you without seeing the actual documents of the case, but it does raise the question of what would you do if it was your company -- and your money? All else being equal -- the hours and working conditions are industry standard, and the employee isn't just trying to scam the company -- at what point do we have to declare that employing this individual is not practical, and request that he or she find another job?

I think we can probably agree that some jobs just aren't well suited to new parents; something that takes you away from your family for 60 hours a week isn't a good choice if you want to maintain a normal family life, and if you've just had a baby it's not likely to work out. By the same token, there are going to be some jobs that can't be split up among multiple employees and require an irregular (and large) number of hours each week. My question is, if you're the owner (or CEO) of a company with that problem, where would you draw the line? And how many people on either side of this issue will be flaming you on the Internet and burning you in effigy in the parking lot, regardless of where you draw it?

It's worth thinking about...

The Ethics of Drug Testing

I know; most of you have been reading essays, rants, screeds, and in some cases legal briefs on this subject for years now, and you’re sick of hearing about it. Well, I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t comment on the legality of drug testing in the workplace; and I’m not an ethicist, so I can’t really comment on whether the entire process is really ethical or not; I’m a management scientist and a strategy scholar, and that does qualify me to comment on the management implications and strategic value of these testing programs. And just on those bases, there’s still a lot worth commenting on…

Now, I understand all of the points about invasion of privacy and unreasonable searches and so on, but the fact still remains that I really want the pilot of an airliner I’m flying on, the bus I’m riding on, or even the gasoline truck I’m driving behind to be clean and sober. Unfortunately, if the person operating a vehicle of this type has a bad drug trip and winds up killing dozens (or hundreds) of people, the fact that the operator can be sent to jail for long periods of time and sued for the wrongful deaths of their victims (assuming the pilot/driver survives in the first place!) isn’t going to matter to those who are killed, and it won’t matter much to their families, either. The stakes are so high, and the consequences of failure are so completely irreparable, that there is no way to “fix” the situation afterwards.

The problem is, drug testing is no real guarantee of safety, either. Any test method devised by humans can be beaten (if only by having somebody else provide the test samples), and even if someone does test clean, there’s nothing to prevent them from going out the NEXT day and getting hammered just before getting behind the wheel. A good manager, who works closely with his/her pilots or drivers and knows who is reliable and weeds out anyone likely to do something suicidally/homicidally stupid will help, but even the straightest people do slip off that straight and narrow way sometimes. I can tell you from personal experience that there’s no judging a book by its cover on this issue – and that sometimes the last person you would ever expect will turn out to be the one with the secret drug problem.

Then there’s the issue of false positives. Everybody knows these happen; there was even a segment on Mythbusters a few years back where they determined that you can get a false positive for at least 12 hours (possibly 18) after eating a poppy seed cake or roll. So you might find yourself watching an innocent hippie (who just happens to love poppy seed cakes) like a hawk, while a straight-arrow prig who irons and starches his underwear does a big pile of blow the day after a drug test and then crashes a tour bus into a corner market. It happens, folks. Drug and alcohol users have to be lucky every time; failure causes under critical conditions only have to get "lucky" once...

From a management standpoint, a drug test will never replace the need to know your people, keep a close watch over them, and help the ones who are making bad choices make better ones. This will always be part of the manager’s role, and if you don’t want to do those things, you may want to consider another line of work. From a strategic standpoint, random drug testing may or may not help your company avoid fines, legal exposure, and other problems (check with your corporate counsel), but it won’t replace the need for good line managers, and it can’t make you completely safe from drug-related problems. If you feel that the potential savings to be realized by preventing possible drug-related incidents (or just being able to demonstrate in court that you’ve made every effort to prevent them) exceeds the costs of lowering morale, generating employee resentment, losing valuable personnel, and being sued for invasion of privacy, then go ahead, but rest assured, no matter which way you choose to go, someone somewhere will tell you that you should have done the opposite.

Sometimes there really aren’t any good answers. It’s worth thinking about…