When I started Spatial Networks in June of 2000, one of the first administrative tasks was to get the company set up on a medical benefits plan. We chose Paychex Business Solutions at the time, and when I met with my account manager, I endured a withering cornucopia of choices, options, plans, etc. After a couple of hours and feeling like my head was going to explode, I simply asked them to pause and tell me what plan matched my desire to have 100% company paid premiums for all employees and their families that had the least impact on employees in terms of copays and “out of pocket” expenses.
They didn’t quite know what to say or how to respond. They had never been asked that before. I said, “You’re kidding me, right?”
No, they weren’t kidding.
I said, “Well, this is my company and I want to take care of my team.” Mind you, I was the only employee but my goal was to grow the company and knowing that I would be adding people with spouses and children, not to mention my own, I wanted the very best possible coverage for everyone, regardless of role in the company or tenure. I didn’t care what it cost the company, I would simply work hard to make more money to offset that increased expense. It was a no-brainer to me.
Every annual renewal cycle, I am asked and pressured to move our benefits plan to a “cheaper” option, because our account managers at whatever PEO we use always think that I would want a cheaper plan to save the company money. Every year, they get stiff resistance from me to the point where I fear that I have been overly curt or even rude in insisting that “no, I don’t want cheaper, I want better — so stop talking and just make it happen.”
In 2005, one of my company’s software engineers came to me in confidence and told me, through tears, that his wife had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. He wanted me to know that he had not truly appreciated the value of that corporate benefits package until that diagnosis, because, as he said, “the company’s rich benefits helps us to focus on getting the best treatment options rather than forcing us to make tradeoffs, and I can actually sleep better at night and try to focus on normality, including trying to keep up with work assignments.”
I was stunned into silence as he shook my hand and quietly went back to his desk. I knew then that the additional costs that the company had paid for the best health care plan was well worth it, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I got another morale boost in October 2018, during our fall “all hands” week at our St. Petersburg, FL headquarters. As we have customarily done, I hold an “ask me anything”-type town hall meeting to provide undivided attention to the questions and concerns of anyone in the company, directly and in real-time. Someone asked me whether the company’s rich benefits package (including 401K match, medical, dental, etc.) would be held steady as the company continues to grow and new economic pressures develop. I appreciated the question and the chance to reinforce my commitment, and while I don’t recall my actual answer verbatim, I simply said something along the lines of: “so long as I am CEO, you have my unwavering commitment to maintain that aspect of the company’s benefits, no matter what the cost, because it is the right thing to do and it’s important to me that it’s important to each of you.”
The spontaneous eruption of applause by everyone took my breath away. It was all I could do not to excuse myself because I was going to break down. That’s the first and only time I’d gotten that kind of positive response on any issue at any previous town-hall discussion. I was floored and truly humbled. I had no idea that the team felt that way, and it instantly validated just how important that decision was 18 years earlier — and it is one that I will carry with me in to the future, no matter what comes our way.
