The other day I was walking through the cafeteria and bumped into an employee that I have long admired. I describe this employee as hardworking, engaged, always grateful. He's an interesting success story. He came to NISC without a degree and began in a very entry level position and without fanfare or much drama. This young man completed his undergraduate degree, got married, started his family, completed his master's at the top of his class, and after a couple of lattice moves had worked himself into a position of responsibility here at NISC. He's a low maintenance, accountable employee who has over time won the respect of his peers and has been identified as a high potential employee by his supervisor. He is just one of the many success stories here at NISC. Although my encounters and conversations with this employee were few and far between. I always sought him out when our paths crossed because I was so impressed with his optimism and his positive demeanor. But today was different. Something was wrong. His eyes were downcast, he was fidgety and noticeably uncomfortable. My heart sank. "Everything okay?", I asked. There was a painful and awkward pause. "Not really," he said. I motioned to a table off in the corner. He followed. We sat down, and I looked at him, and I said: "what's going on?" "Oh, nothing." He said. "Just a bit upset and concerned." "Anything I can do to help?" I responded. Up until that point he had not even made eye contact which was highly unusual. He looked at me, and there was a deep-seated pain in those blue eyes. He spoke slowly with measured words. "There was a termination in my department this week," he said. "No explanation. Just packed up his personal belongings and he was ushered to the door. It really caught me by surprise. I just wish I knew what was going on and it makes me wonder if I might be next. You see, Vern, mine is the only income in our family. My wife is a stay at home mom, and I'll be honest we live paycheck to paycheck, and if I were to get fired from NISC, we would be out of money in less than a month." The pain and the concern of this young man were evident. He was shaken to the core. Concern for his career and his ability to provide for his family. Now I will tell you in all honesty that in my career there is no question that the most difficult and dreaded situation that we deal with is when an employee just does not fit into our organization, and there needs to be a separation. It may be a performance issue or an attitude. It may be a lack of willingness to embrace our shared values or an unwillingness to serve our members or to treat their colleagues with dignity and respect. I remember reading a book entitled "Straight From the Gut" by Jack Welsh. Jack was the former CEO of General Electric, and the part of this book that really bothered me was a practice that was orchestrated and promoted by Jack when he was CEO, whereby every supervisor in that huge organization was required to rank their employees from best to worst each year. Then at the beginning of the new year, they would lop off and terminate the bottom 10 percent of the workforce. Jack said, "it kept the employees on their toes and kept the workforce fresh.". I just can't imagine what it would be like to live in constant fear of losing your job. Everyone at GE knew that if they ended up in that bottom 10 percent they were out, no questions asked. No excuses accepted. Now in contrast at NISC, we have a tradition of being very paternalistic perhaps to a fault. When an employee is in trouble, we go to great lengths to coach, encourage, to perhaps provide a lattice move trying desperately to find the right seat on the bus for this employee. We initiate a performance improvement plan. We tell them what they need to do to improve and then, and only then when all alternatives have been exhausted. For the good of the Organization, for the good of their fellow employees, and many times the employee themselves we have the dreaded separation discussion. Now one thing is certain by the time we work our way through this process and the employee is actually released there should never be a surprise. Never. And in fact many times when the handwriting is on the wall the employee will actually leave the organization on their own. But I will never get over the feeling of failure on NISC's part when there is a termination. I find myself second guessing the process of interviewing, hiring, screening, checking references, onboarding, coaching. WHERE DID WE GO WRONG? What was the root cause of this? For the good of the employee, for the good of the NISC. What are the lessons learned and how can we prevent this from happening again? In the end, I always have this hollow and frightful feeling inside. And the question. Could this happen to me? Could I be on the wrong side of a separation conversation? The most difficult aspect of this dreaded process is when an employee is terminated, you will never hear the rest of the story from NISC. We will never disparage an employee as they leave the organization. It's our goal to let them leave with dignity and the confidence that we would never share the specifics that led to their termination. If there ever was a time where the employees needed to trust management, it is in the case of a separation. You can rest assured that we have done everything possible to salvage that employee, to work with them, to coach them, before there would be a termination. And in the end, we have a responsibility not only to the terminated employee but also those around him and to our members who may be adversely affected by the performance or the demeanor of that employee. While there are no guarantees for any of us as employees, myself included, I am reminded that the average tenure for a CEO is less than 36 months. But our employees should feel comfortable that they can go about their work serving our members without the distraction and the concern of losing their job. If there is a problem, you will know about it months in advance, and you will be given every opportunity to correct the situation and get your career back on track with termination being only the very last resort. The fact is this, with almost 1,300 employees, there are bound to be times that, for whatever reason, there is just not a match between the employee and NISC. And when that happens, we admit that there was a mistake that was made and we allow NISC to get on with our business and the affected employee to get on with their lives. Our employees should rest assured that providing a stable work environment is one of our most important tasks. As I consider our history and how volatile the work environment is in corporate America. I have seen the historic stability here at NISC to be our very best predictor of the future. As we parted, I shook this young employees hand and in my heart I had hoped that our conversation had provided the reassurance to this troubled employee that would allow him to roll up his sleeves and throw himself back into his work with the assurance that his job and his ability to provide for his family was secure. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you, Vern.
