When I look back on my brief tenure at that union law firm, the irony wasn\u2019t lost on me. We were representing labor, but as associates, we were treated so poorly that the running joke was that we ought to unionize ourselves. That early experience cemented my view on employer\u2013employee relations: no employer ever thinks they\u2019re underpaying, and no employee ever thinks they\u2019re overpaid. That tension is the permanent fault line in every workplace.<\/p>\n
I never once thought I was overpaid in my career. Quite the opposite. When I was the head attorney at a TPA, I knew full well the guy I replaced was pulling in about three times my salary. That didn\u2019t sit well with me, especially when the paralegal was let go after the GUST restatements. Suddenly, all that work fell in my lap. No extra help, no extra pay. I joked with colleagues that when I eventually left, they\u2019d need two attorneys to do my work. Turns out, I was being generous\u2014after I walked, they had to hire three.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the moral here. Employers sometimes think they\u2019re saving money by squeezing more out of a good employee without compensating them. In reality, they\u2019re writing their own pink slip. You can\u2019t keep piling on work without recognition or reward and expect loyalty. Eventually, that employee will find a better situation, and the company will be left scrambling\u2014often spending far more than the \u201cextra\u201d $25,000 it would\u2019ve taken to keep that person happy in the first place.<\/p>\n
In the retirement plan business, good employees are gold. They\u2019re not easy to find, they\u2019re not easy to train, and when you lose one, it costs you in time, money, and client confidence. If you\u2019ve got someone who\u2019s doing the work of two or three people, you\u2019ve got two choices: pay them fairly now, or pay dearly later. It really is that simple.<\/p>\n
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