Recruiting.com

With all of the hullabaloo in the blogosphere this week regarding treatment of employees, I thought I'd offer an alternative perspective.

Where is the line of caring TOO much? Is there a line?

The month of December was complete hell here at our agency - people were literally working 20 hour days to try and launch a project before year-end. This is not the norm, and hopefully will never happen again, but unfortunately it was the case leading up to the holiday season of 2006. Management saw it, recognized it, and took action.

We brought in a massage therapist to give full-body massages in our own pseudo-spa, we bought teams breakfast, lunch and dinner of their choice - steaks, lobster, you name it - whatever they wanted, they got. We bought spouses and significant other's gifts to show that we appreciated them as well. We gave these team members extra days off during the holidays. We bought a Wii for their office. (Yes, we were actually able to get our hands on a Wii before Christmas!) We gave raises, we gave bonuses, we promised our first born children.

Why did we do this? Because we appreciated the hard work and dedication of the staff. We didn't want them to feel taken advantage of - as much as we possibly could. Does this mean we were buying their dedication? Probably so, but after all - it is work and people expect to get paid for work, right? But at some point, it begins to appear a bit desperate and fear-motivated. Not that it's the case, but it appears as such. Also, is a precedent being set? That every time we need someone to pull out all the stops we have to go out and buy the newest video game system for them? Maybe. But when talent is few and far between, I suppose buying someone's love isn't as bad as simply expecting them to love you, or else.

I don't know if there is such a thing as being TOO nice, or TOO caring. But if there is, I would much rather work for a company that is, versus the one that doesn't give a crap. At the end of the day, in a service based business, people are all we have - without them, our company can't survive - so taking care of our human capital should be our number one priority.