Simon Says

Ethics is not a game

Remember the kid’s game Simon Says? The idea was to get the players to respond to a command, but only if the command was preceded by the phrase, “Simon Says.” If you goofed you were out. A fun game and a good way for kids to develop disciplined response skills. It is not, however, a game that belongs in business.

According to media reports it appears that Spherion, the temporary staffing company, acted within the law in denying the widow of one of their employees the benefits she –and her late husband– believed she was due. When Thomas Amschwand was dying of cancer he was naturally concerned that the life insurance benefits that he had been paying for were in order. He dotted all the “i’s” and crossed all the “t’s”. At least those he knew about.

But when his widow tried to collect the $426,000 Amschwand believed he had when he died at 30, she discovered that there was a “Simon Says” that nobody had told them about. It seems that Spherion had switched insurance companies while Amschwand was fighting cancer, and for his insurance to be valid, he had to come into the office for at least one day. Sick as he was he would certainly have met that requirement, ridiculous as it appears.

Seven years later his widow’s options were used up when the Supreme Court refused to review the lower courts who had followed the law and denied her claim. Actually there was nothing the courts could do. Spherion had every legal right to do what they did.

Reading their brief code of ethics it becomes clear that they have no understanding of the meaning of the word. It was obviously drawn up by their legal minions who are trained to look for the edge of the law. Doing the right thing never crosses their minds. So far as they are concerned anything you can get away with is OK. While that’s fine in fulfilling their responsibility to provide counsel to even the worst criminal, it has no place in the world of ethics.

It is perfectly legal but totally unconscionable to throw this kind of Simon Says requirement into the last days of a colleague. Adding insult to injury, Spherion gave back the premiums paid prior to his death. My guess is that by the time they paid their legal bills to take this case all the way up to the Supreme Court, Spherion didn’t save much.

But that isn’t all they will pay. Who would want to work for a smarmy company like that? I would lay odds that all of their best people are on the hunt for a job. The cost in productivity and efficiency for a company of their size will be in the tens of millions of dollars. What customer would want to deal with someone who might be looking for a way to rip you off within the law?

Simon Says, ethics pays off on the bottom line. Anybody should jump at that.