Two stories of bad behavior caught my eye this week. I get that it’s “business” not “charity” but there are examples every day of businesses with a heart – Costco, Lowes and Starbucks offer benefits to part time employees for example but President Obama singled out office supply retailer, Staples, for trying to prevent its employees from getting health insurance. I’m not saying that I always agree with the President or with his health care policies but you can read the story here: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Obama_slams_Staples_big_companies_on_healthcare_Shame_on_them.html

Here’s a quick summary of the situation:

• The Affordable Care Act requires companies with more than 50 employees to pay for health insurance for people who work 30 hours a week or more. Reuters has reported that some businesses are keeping staffing numbers below 50 or cutting the work week to less than 30 hours to avoid providing employee health insurance.
• Staples, the No. 1 U.S. office supplies retailer, who just announced a merger with Office Depot worth $6 billion, has told its employees not to work more than 25 hours per week, according to a Buzzfeed report on Monday. Oh, by the way, Staples CEO Ronald Sargent brought home $10.8 million in total compensation in 2013. The company reported net profit of $620.1 million through Feb. 1, 2014.
• President Obama said, “There is no reason for an employer who is not currently providing health care to their workers to discourage them from either getting health insurance on the job or being able to avail themselves of the Affordable Care Act.”
• Staples responded with a snarky statement indicating that the president did not have all the facts (not sure I agree with them either).

It sort of all starts with leaders right? Leaders have to care and insist that their companies adopt policies that are people first. What if we use pay as a measure of fairness. Seattle-based REI has more than 12,000 employees and it’s CEO makes $750,000. That’s a pretty flat pay scale that most employees would look at and say, “well the CEO has more responsibility than me so he/she is entitled to make a little more.”

To quote some famous pop song, “it’s not all about the money, money, money…” right? What about how you treat people – are you nice to the people around you? Do a search for “who are the nicest business leaders?” The results include, the greatest, the best, the most innovative, but not a single result for “nicest.” I found a person who wouldn’t make the list this week.

Amy Pascal, former co-chairman of Sony Pictures who was involved in the now infamous cyber-attack on the studio and subsequently lost her job, commented publicly for the first time this week. Here’s the full interview with the BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31434419

I don’t want to work for her. She doesn’t sound like a nice person or the kind of business leaders that we need in this world. She said things like:

• “If we all actually were nice, it wouldn’t work.”
• “Here’s the problem: I run a business,” she continued. “People want to work for less money, I pay them less money.”
• And she closed out her master class on leadership (and niceness) saying that she “learned a lot from the hack about how to relate to people.” And said “You should always say exactly what you think directly to people all the time,” she said. “In the moment, the first time.”

So, do businesses have to make more net profit than $620 million to pay for their employees healthcare? Would it all work if we were actually nice?