Do What You Love

     #205, November 2, 2011

Social workers don't see many happy endings.  Children and youth workers are forced to separate families.  Mental retardation and mental health care managers are frequently faced with "things not getting worse" as the best achievable outcome.  Even our colleagues working geriatric care management and in medical social work frequently are trying to make the transition to the inevitable as smooth as possible.  These are all valuable people who deserve our thanks and they are a special breed of human being.

My wife, a social worker, is one of these special breed, however she cherishes happy outcomes as well.  She worked as a mental retardation case manager serving people living in group homes, often recently transitioned out of state facilities.  One of their target goals was reducing the number of "behavorial episodes" where a client would respond negatively to stimuli in the community or in their home.  Basically, a positive outcome was keeping someone with an IQ below 70, often with behavioral issues, as stable as possible.

After six years, she made the decision to change jobs.  She accepted a position and the $6000 pay cut that accompanied it to work with adoptive families. She would place high risk children, who have often spent the entirety of their lives to that point in foster care, with permanent parents.  Her organization, a faith-based organization, had many social workers who chose not to place children with same-sex parents.  When word got out that she treated gay couples with dignity and respect, and was able to match them with children in need of loving parents, she rapidly became the most valuable social worker in the organization, generating substantially more revenue than any of her coworkers.

Unfortunately, my father and I were also launching Leading Home Care around the same time.  Coupled with the fact that Kristen and I were also working diligently (and enthusiastically) on starting a family, money was tight.

Every time I paid the bills, I looked at her and said, "You love your job, right?"
"Yes", she'd say with a smile.
"Okay", I'd say, "Just checking."

Our one bedroom house was tiny.  So tiny, in fact, that when we were told we were having twins we had to convert a walk-in pantry into a nursery.  By the way, having a nursery off of the kitchen is quite convenient for late-night feedings.

She returned from maternity leave to discover a massive caseload waiting for her and also learned that she was now, after only three years, the senior member of the social work field staff.  Her company had made a habit of bringing in underpaid fresh college graduates, paying for them to get masters degrees, then losing them to higher paying jobs.

She chose to stay, because she was doing what she loved.

Getting Paid For What You Love
I've always been a firm believer that when you do what you love, you do better work.  When you do better work, you eventually reap the benefits.  If you look at the highest paid people in their fields, in virtually any field, you'll find that they are the most passionate about their work.

The time had come in my wife's career to ask for a raise.  Her company had been struggling financially.  The adoption agency was a small piece of a much larger social service structure, whose principal revenue came from skilled nursing facilities.  This was an era where many SNF's were reducing beds in light of raising nursing costs and increased use of home healthcare.  After several years of absorbing profits from their subsidiaries to pay for deficits, the organization was forced to restructure financially, imposing hiring freezes and wage freezes for all non-unionized workers. 

In an era where nurses' salaries were increasing at triple the cost of living, social workers were being forced to pay 50% of their health benefits.  Since starting with the company, my wife's net income had dropped by nearly 12% and that was including the original 20% reduction she accepted to take the job in the first place.

She asked for a 12% raise.  She wasn't asking for the moon, she was simply requesting that they increase her salary to the level when she was initially hired.

The company offered her 1.2%.

She returned a week later.  She had documented all the revenue she generated in the past three years.  She documented how that exceeded the second most valuable employee by double.  The seven new hires in her department (seven of the eight total social workers) had each failed to be profitable in the first year, and only one was profitable in year two.  Additionally, the five of the seven were currently enrolled in masters programs, increasing their benefit package by 50%.  When it came to total cost, she was the second least expensive worker.

The company's response.... "It is our policy that we no longer give raises based on merit."

Her response... "Should the social workers no longer do work based on quality?"

They gave her a 3% raise.

After a long discussion, Kristen and I crafted a memo.  The memo cited her reasoning for requesting 12%.  It stated that a 3% raise felt like a slap in the face.  The memo closed by requesting that human resources remove the 3% raise.  Additionally, she told them in writing that she would be searching for other work in her field.

The next day the CEO of the organization, along with three supervisory staff, sat down with her.  Yes, there were three supervisors that managed only eight social workers, in three separate facilities.

She got her 12% raise.

Within the next 12 months, two of the three offices closed, and two of the three supervisory staff were released.  The most efficient supervisor now managed all eight social workers.  The cost savings was more than enough to purchase a company vehicle for every staff member.  By doing this, they also reduced travel costs.

When they looked at the department closely, it made sense to increase focus on revenue-generating social workers and eliminate the bloated budget.

Revenues rose and department profits soared.  They created automatic bonuses for social workers studying for their Master's degree, and developed contracts that included subsidized loan programs rather than outright educational reimbursement.  This encouraged MSW's to work for the organization for an additional three years after completing their education.

When it came time to expand they offered her the opportunity to focus on training.  Kristen turned it down.  You see, while she was very good at her job, she also enjoyed doing that job.  Those happy outcomes fired her passion.  She wanted to place children with loving parents.

She still wasn't highly paid.  But she was treated fairly, generated value for her company, and absolutely loved her work.

Focus On Value When Giving Raises Or Requesting Them
Many of you are owners or managers of home care organizations.  You probably don't love the fact that I'm sharing an example of how your employees should ask for raises.

However, there are lessons here to be learned from both sides of the paycheck.

• People are our products.  You have to maintain margins, but remember to include all costs related to your revenue generating staff.  In Kristen's case, they not only examined the benefits packages, but the cost of supervisory staff and facilities.
• Put your mouth where your money is!  Make sure you take care of the people who generate the revenue.  In her case, revenues were generated by home studies, with bonuses post-placement.  She had an excellent track record of placement success and placement rate.
• Upgrade productivity first, capacity last.  Her company had made the mistake of opening three offices in three communities, with three supervisors, and three clerical staff.  Unfortunately, there are only a certain number of children needing placement and a certain number of families adopting.  They tripled capacity without tripling production.
• Make exceptions for exceptional people.  Kristen received a raise.  The others didn't.  Eventually they were treated more fairly, but none of them received a pay increase comparable to Kristen's.  They recognized exceptional talent.
• Passionate people don't come cheap, but they're worth it.
• Make sure incentives, raises or bonuses are paid based on profit generating goals.  They were happy she loved her work, but loving her work didn't pay the bills.  Kristen demonstrated real value in dollars and cents, revenue and expenses.

And Now...
Three years later, my family relocated.  Kristen took another job back in mental health case management.  It doesn't have as many happy outcomes, but the pay is much better.  And she stills enjoys the work.

My business has grown.

The twins are nine, going on 16.  They each have their own room.  We have a guest room that "Papa Steve and Nonni" affectionately refer to as the Grandparents' Suite.  And Max, our Labrador Retriever and I share a Man Cave.

We love our work and we no longer question our career choices, even on bill paying night.

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