The Savior Complex

As a CEO, you instinctively want to help workers whose personal problems are interfering with their job performance. A look at how far one business owner went to help a troubled employee.

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As a CEO, your instinct is to help employees whose personal problems are interfering with their job performance. But what makes you so sure you can help?

"Once in a while, people who are on the road go out and have a few too many, and that's fine," begins the owner of a $14-million computer consulting firm, recalling an incident involving one of his employees that happened a couple of years ago. "But one Monday morning, this particular employee just didn't show up for a project, and it was like, 'Oh no, where is he?"

The company, which had about 35 employees and $6 million in revenues at the time, helps businesses design, install, and implement complex back-office software systems. Only about a third of its employees work out of headquarters. The rest, including this consultant who was nowhere to be found, operate from their homes, since the job requires traveling to the customer's site.

On this particular Monday morning, the customer was expecting his new computer system to go live for the first time. A handful of people had worked on the job, but the consultant in question was the only one left to make sure that the system worked. Until he disappeared. "They were bullshit," recalls the CEO, describing the customer's call to him. "Not showing up is pretty bad, but his not calling just made it worse."

By Wednesday morning, after calling the man's sister to help track him down, the CEO had found the consultant. "Apparently, there'd been a lost weekend," says the CEO, referring to the fact that the consultant had been too drunk to get on the plane Monday morning. "It was a quart of gin, I guess."

The company "limped through the rest of the project," finishing up the best it could. In the end, the CEO decided his company would eat half of the consultant's $200,000 fee.

But the CEO still had to decide what to do about the consultant. When the CEO and his vice-president of operations made contact with the consultant, the man foisted the mishap off on bad travel miscues, saying he'd overslept and missed his early-morning flight. By Saturday he'd broken down and called the vice-president at home to admit that he was an alcoholic. He was "basically crying and saying he needed help," the VP recalls.

Now that the CEO knew what he was up against, he faced the sort of agonizing decision that every employer dreads. Hire enough people and you're likely to grow comfortable passing certain judgments--right or wrong--on them: that they have particular skills or lack them, that they can rise to a certain potential or can't, that they fit in or don't. But the stakes are never higher than when what's under scrutiny is someone's personal behavior. Most CEOs, confronting what can often feel like life-or-death consequences, would rather sidestep such uncertain terrain altogether.

But every CEO will, at some point, have to face the problem of a valued employee whose performance is impaired by a personal problem, whether it's substance abuse, an addiction to gambling, or a debilitating emotional problem. It's hardly rare for a CEO to grapple with an employee who abuses alcohol; roughly one out of every 12 full-time workers between the ages of 18 and 49 abuses alcohol, according to a report by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. When, if ever, does a CEO need to step in? And what factors should be weighed in figuring out what to do?

Many business owners assume that it's difficult if not impossible to fire an employee who has a medical condition such as alcoholism, even if he or she frequently misses work. Actually, "absenteeism may be a basis for termination," says Jeffrey Klein, an employment-law specialist at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a New York City law firm. "The fact of being a drinker and having a hangover and not being able to come to work is not protected. What's protected is alcoholism as a disability."

But firing the employee was never an option as far as the CEO was concerned. "He made about as bad a mistake as you could make, but it was a first mistake," the CEO explains. "And people make mistakes of judgment all the time, even when they're not drinking."

This was the first time the company, only five years old at the time, had confronted such a situation. It wasn't, however, the CEO's first close encounter with alcoholism. As it happens, his father is a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 30 years. His father's recommendation: cut the fellow loose. "His logic was that people have to hit rock-bottom before they can pull themselves up," says the CEO. "And what might seem like rock-bottom to me, which is how I thought the consultant was at the time, is really not rock-bottom. But I just didn't think I could do it."

The VP, who was also in charge of personnel issues, agreed. "I'll tell you honestly what went through my head," she says. "It was, What if this guy hits rock-bottom and kills himself, and it's my fault? I just couldn't take that kind of risk."

Besides, abandoning the employee felt inconsistent with the company's team-oriented culture. "We preach and talk a lot about caring for the people here. If you tell people you're going to care about them and you're going to support them, then when you get into a sticky situation, running away from it is the worst way to deal with it," the CEO says. "Embracing it is pretty messy as well, but somebody's hurt, and you've got to do something." Something, yes. But what?

After discussing the situation with his operations VP, as well as informing his chief financial officer and recruitment VP, the CEO called the consultant and told him to find a treatment program, get help, and then come back to his job. The consultant subsequently enrolled in a two-week outpatient program near his home. The company paid for the program, since it had neither a short-term disability policy nor an employee-assistance plan. The company kept paying his salary throughout.

Soon the consultant completed the treatment program and got back to work. Everything went fine--for about eight months. "Then he just didn't show up for work again," recalls the CEO. This time he cost the company about $5,000.

Again, after consulting with his operations VP, the CEO decided not to fire the consultant. Admittedly, it was a more difficult call. But the managers decided they hadn't been tough enough with the consultant; this time they needed to make clear to him what the consequences would be if he failed to show up again. He had to get into and complete a residential treatment program--which would be covered by the short-term disability insurance that the company by then had in place--or he had to clean out his desk. If he disappeared again, he'd be fired.

The consultant was relieved but not surprised about his employer's ongoing support. "They're familiar with the disease," he says. "They understand it. They understand the lies. And they understand how difficult it is to live with."

Still, it's not entirely clear that the managers made a wise decision, at least in the view of substance-abuse experts. "To put him through a treatment program is a very good thing, but once," says Dr. James W. West, vice-chairman and former medical director of the Betty Ford Center, an alcohol- and chemical-dependency treatment center in Rancho Mirage, Calif. "After that, it's enabling. It sends a message to the person: 'Well, just keep trying to the best of your ability, but if you fall, we're here, and we'll take care of it. In spite of what it does to the company, we'll stick with you. We'll put you back in treatment and hope this will be the last time, but if it isn't, we'll be there again.' It's bad for the company, and it's bad for the employee."

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