When I look back on my brief tenure at that union law firm, the irony wasn’t 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–employee relations: no employer ever thinks they’re underpaying, and no employee ever thinks they’re overpaid. That tension is the permanent fault line in every workplace.
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’t 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’d need two attorneys to do my work. Turns out, I was being generous—after I walked, they had to hire three.
And that’s the moral here. Employers sometimes think they’re saving money by squeezing more out of a good employee without compensating them. In reality, they’re writing their own pink slip. You can’t 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—often spending far more than the “extra” $25,000 it would’ve taken to keep that person happy in the first place.
In the retirement plan business, good employees are gold. They’re not easy to find, they’re not easy to train, and when you lose one, it costs you in time, money, and client confidence. If you’ve got someone who’s doing the work of two or three people, you’ve got two choices: pay them fairly now, or pay dearly later. It really is that simple.
