The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston was recently faced with a painful but all too familiar task these days – handing out pink slips. The economy was forcing cutbacks at the hospital and CEO Paul Levy was going to have to fire scores of hourly workers who desperately needed their jobs. He racked his brain for a solution.
At a company meeting Levy stood before his employees and asked them for help.
According to Boston.com, he said “I’d like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners – the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don’t want to put an additional burden on them. Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice, it means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.”
The response was amazing. The entire auditorium stood up and applauded Levy, knowing that protecting these employees was the right thing to do, even though they had to sacrifice to do it.
In order to shrink potential layoffs from 600 to no more than 150, hospital staff accepted a wage freeze and cuts in benefits. The medical center’s lowest-paid workers are exempt from the wage freeze, while 13 chiefs of the clinical departments collectively accepted pay cuts of $350,000 to create a fund supporting the medical center.
It’s an inspiring story. Would you be willing to make the same sacrifice at your workplace in order to protect lesser-paid workers?
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