Do you remember that Pantene commercial in the 1980’s when the girl in the shower said, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Don’t worry, when you are in the job market, employers in most cases will love you when you are beautiful.  Advertisers know that sex sells stuff.  Sex appeal helps those in the job market as well.  Bottom line, beautiful people go to the front of the employment line.

Have you ever been seated in the lobby of a doctor’s office and watched as the pharmaceutical sales representatives wait for their appointment? I have noticed I would not qualify for their job.  First, most are beautiful women.  You know, the kind of women who could wear a feedsack and still look terrific. Secondly, the pill selling men could pose for GQ Magazine.  Does this give you a comfort feeling? Could it be our trusted doctors and their staff prescribe the latest medicine based on the good looks of the pharmaceutical company’s sales staff?  “Oh, I think that blonde rep. is so hot. If I prescribe tons of Zoloft maybe she will go out with me.”

Overweight People Must Work Harder
I remember a comedian telling his audience, “Fat people have to work harder.”  Overweight comedians might be funny but in the office it’s not so comical.  You remember elementary school? Children are brutally honest and will routinely make fun of overweight kids. Bullying might be a better term for this. Those same bully kids who called fellow students “fatso” grew up and now work in the corner office.

If you are overweight and/or beauty challenged, working relationships might get a little rough for you in the workplace.  You might have to produce more than your beautiful and thin coworkers to obtain the respect they garner.

Timeout
At this point I suspect those who feel overweight or not-so-beautiful understand this article. I am saying things people know but just don’t verbalize in writing. If you are a workplace beauty, on the other hand, you may not be convinced you have an upper-hand in the career game. Some good-looking women may feel they are discriminated against because they are too good looking.  I suppose that could happen too.  According to CNN.com, a recent study has shown attractive people earn five percent more than their average-looking counterparts. Let’s move on.

My Story
Before you come unglued and think I am totally insensitive and have lost my mind, let me tell you my story. Keep in mind I am a workplace consultant and this is my line of work; organizational behavior.  Neither do I consider myself outwardly good-looking or thin. In other words, I am not meddling.

One time a businessman told me I needed to lose weight.  Was he concerned about my health? No, he was concerned about his image.  He simply was trying to gain a political advantage over me. Besides, at the time I did not even consider myself to be overweight. And secondly, my weight was none of his business!

Several years later a CEO mentioned to me I had gained some weight and I needed to lose it.  At the time I was dealing with some personal issues and had actually gained some weight, however, that kind of advice should never be given by an employer.  A spouse can give this kind of feedback.  Even if it is your spouse, tread very carefully.  Guys, did you hear me?

Business leaders, I do not recommend telling an employee, “Hey, do you know we have an on-site workout facility? I suggest you use it and lose some weight.”  This creates an unfriendly, if not hostile, work environment.  Overweight people rarely take advice from ridiculously thin people who constantly eat Ho Hos and drink real Pepsi like the world is coming to an end.

Beauty, Weight and Disability Challenges
Beauty, weight and disabilities are all areas where employers should tread carefully.  Keep in mind I am talking ethics, not laws. It is perfectly legal to discriminate against ugly and overweight people in the U.S.  However, it is not ethical.

Who gets invited to the company’s annual report photo shoot?  Beautiful employees.

Who receives an invitation to the employee benefits video filming? Beautiful employees.

Who receives second and third notices about the weight watchers program? Overweight employees.

Are weight management programs realistically for the health of the employee or under the radar company image compliance programs? You guessed it. Workplace health programs are typically aimed at thinning up overweight people and improving the company’s outward image.

Serious About Healthy Workplaces?
Maintaining a healthy weight is a good, individual goal. However, if companies were truly concerned about the health of their employees, they should fire their workplace bullies who cause, anxiety, fear, clinical depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and a host of other costly medical and business expenses.  I suspect workplace bullies cost as much if not more in turnover, time off, business interruption expenses and cause nervous people to overeat than overweight people cost the company’s medical and time-off plan.

Legal to Discriminate
Did you know it is perfectly legal to discriminate based on good looks in most U.S. jurisdictions? There are companies who seem to be unusually focused on the outward appearance of the employee.  These employers are not simply concerned with an applicant’s wardrobe, social and job skills, they are enamored by beauty, attractiveness and good looks, both male and female.

Eye Candy as Requisite Skill
I once met an executive who demanded the company’s receptionist be hired as eye candy for the other executives.  Was this an illegal demand? No, it was not illegal but certainly an unethical hiring practice if one is not basing hiring decisions on skills and capabilities.  In America, it is perfectly legal to hire only beautiful people and drop kick ugly and overweight applicants, assuming the beauties have the requisite skills.

Outward Appearance vs. Inward Character
Sunday School teaches you a great deal about life when you are young. When I was a young boy I remember being taught an Old Testament scripture. It comforts me to know that according to the Bible’s teachings, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” In the game of life, people may look at our outward appearance but God looks at our inner character.

I suspect the Great Workplaces across America have also tapped into the character of employees rather than their outward appearance.  Great character comes in all shapes and sizes.  As an employer, I would much rather recruit those with high moral character, a servant’s heart, a strong work ethic and the desire to treat all people with trust and respect. It’s what is inside that really matters.

Why Open this Can of Worms?
With the rising unemployment rate there will be increased competition as more workers apply for fewer jobs.  It is likely many unemployed workers will be unprepared for the new wave of vanity that will sweep across American workplaces.  You have heard, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I submit to you, beauty and jobs are in the eye of the employer.

This is why you should choose your employer carefully.  I suggest you start with the Fortune 100 Best Companies To Work For List.  They are not perfect but are likely better than those not on the list.

Watch for another upcoming article on this topic on The People Group Blog, assuming there is not a contract killing placed on me by a good-looking assassin.

Women cannot always depend on their female leaders to be their mentors or role models. In fact, female bullies tend to target other women an astounding 70% of the time.

Our good friend, Dr. Gary Namie, founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, was recently interviewed by Good Morning America concerning the silent epidemic of workplace bullying.  According to Dr. Namie, employees should not have to deal with an environment of fear and anxiety that leads to clinical depression and post traumatic stress disorder.  The effects of a bully’s treatment can last for the rest of a target’s life without the proper medical care.

The insightful Good Morning America interview is posted at this link: Women Bullies in the Workplace

A Bottom-Line Issue

Why should business leaders be concerned about workplace bullies? These office terrorists present a significant bottom line issue.  Bullying in the workplace reduces productivity, stifles innovation, squashes risk-taking and increases costly employee turnover.  In fact, bullies typically target the best and brightest people under their supervision.

Soccer Moms Can Be Bullies Too

In my career as a human resource executive, I have observed soccer moms turn into bullies by inserting a lucrative incentive compensation plan and a supervisor who rewards aggressive behavior.  A certain number of working moms will set aside civility because in their minds they love those little kiddos and will bully their way up the corporate ladder to win the economic struggle in the workplace.

Bully Tactics

Workplace bullying is much more hideous than an unlikeable boss who has a few quirks.  An office bully follows a deliberate strategy and possesses similar methods in how they pursue their targets.  According to the ABC News report, the following are documented bully tactics:

• Humiliation - Humiliating comments to the target in front of coworkers.
• Yelling – Excessive yelling intended to intimidate and cause anxiety and fear.
• Work Status - Undermining the target’s status by excluding them from meetings, email, important decisions, etc.
• Health – Negative health affects, i.e., high blood pressure, anxiety, fear, clinical depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, etc.

Reformed Women Bullies?

Even the reformed women bullies GMA interviewed were quick to give excuses for their behavior. It is likely a bully will revert to their behavior unless the office tormentor is willing to completely acknowledge the error of their ways, the harm they have caused, and truthfully admit their behavior was wrong.  Bullying is never justified in business or life.  Unfortunately, I did not see a sense of remorse in these women bullies in this report.

Work Should Not Hurt

As Dr. Namie states, “work should not hurt.”  The results of repeated bullying can lead to clinical depression, debilitating anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Namie.  These are very high prices to pay for a job.  Joan Frye, 62, the target interviewed by GMA, endured her bully for two years and now has suffered physically, mentally and financially because an employer was unwilling to monitor the work environment.  After six years she is unable to work due to the mental torment.

Healthy Workplace

As a business leader are you aware of any workplace bullies navigating their way throughout the ranks? Bullies are very deceptive and experts at brown-nosing their supervisors while tormenting their subordinates.  According to a Harvard Business Review article, “Bullies manage up and terrorize down the corporate ladder.”

A great deal of emphasis is being paid to Healthy Work Environments. Typically, these programs concentrate on physical exercise, nutrition, weight loss, etc.  Unless companies begin to deal with the workplace bullying epidemic, which will likely grow worse in the current economic climate, a healthy workplace will be a moving and unobtainable target.

Note: My sincerest thanks to Dr. Gary Namie, founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute and author of The Bully at Work, for notifying us about this ABC News/Good Morning America story.  We greatly appreciate the fine work Dr. Namie is performing for the worldwide workplace.

As a business owner, I can tell you starting a business is not for the faint of heart. It takes patience, perseverance, determination and a little bit of insanity.  Understandably, there are people who want a stable job where a paycheck arrives every two weeks. My parents worked for their companies a very long time and they never quite understood entrepreneurship. My father worked forty-four years and never used a sick day because he was dedicated to his company.

Thanks to my father’s company where he retired, my mother has the best in health insurance and a retirement plan.  Benefits like that are hard to get in today’s economy.  Unfortunately, that kind of employee-employer loyalty is rare in today’s business environment.

Would I be more comfortable working in a 9 to 5 career with business risks falling on someone else’s shoulders? I can honestly say “no.”  And here are a few reasons why:

People Issues

There is no shortage of people and leadership issues in the workforce. Unfortunately for American workers, most people are unfulfilled, unsatisfied, unrecognized, under-utilized, under-appreciated and unengaged. Why? Leaders typically rank financial issues and a host of other concerns higher in priority than people issues. Address your people issues, on the other hand, and other business concerns will begin to come together.

Mission-Based Living

I’m on a mission to help create Great Workplaces across America.  Employees will enjoy their work life much more if they see a higher meaning attached to it. Most companies say they want employees to enjoy the experience and be passionate about their work, yet that is not the case most of the time.  I am very passionate about treating people with trust, dignity and respect at work. When I confront an untouchable executive about their bully behavior, all of a sudden this passion is considered insubordination.  It doesn’t work to have high moral values and passion about developing a great company culture unless there is true independence as a consultant.

Greed is Alive and Well

Greed destroys lives. Along with many good people, I helped build a nationally recognized company that was destroyed by the uncontrolled greed of a few individuals.  As a result, I learned a very hard lesson: organizational leaders should be held accountable for their behavior.  Leaders should understand how their decisions will affect the hard-working people inside a company. If leaders start veering off a moral path, someone should be able to throw up a red flag.  If their warnings are not heeded, the leader(s) should be shown the exit. Greed has hurt a number of good, innocent people in our country and city recently.  Great Workplaces help to weed out toxic influences like greed. Making money, being profitable, incentive plans, etc., are all extremely necessary. Greed, however, must be kept under lock and key.

Take a few minutes to think about what you are working for in 2009.

“We cannot afford it,” stated the executive in a meeting after our department proposed a profit sharing plan to include all company employees. With the industry’s harsh competitive environment, our expense reduction mandates, along with the absolute requirement to get every employee moving the same direction, I assured the room full of executives we could not afford to pass by the opportunity to place all company employees on the proposed profit sharing plan.

What was the downside, I asked.  The plan only paid if the company hit the established revenue target.  And we needed to hit the target.  For the company to reach its goals, the company couldn’t afford to pay incentives only to management.

Even with the lone executive’s disapproval, there was enough support to obtain profit sharing plan approval.

One Year Later

The results were in after the first twelve months.  The first year was an incredible success as the company exceeded its revenue targets while also cutting costs; truly a winning combination. Employees were finally part of the big picture and were compensated for their contributions.

There are many successful examples this profit sharing process works. Consider the example of Cynthia Bertucci Kaye, CEO of Logical Choice Technologies, Duluth, Georgia. Featured in Fortune Small Business magazine’s February 2009 edition, Kaye shared her painful experience of implementing and then killing a successful profit sharing plan.  She dismantled the plan the second year, wrongly thinking the company couldn’t afford it.

What Happens When You Kill a Profit Sharing Plan?

After writing $770 checks to nearly every employee the first year, the second year Kaye decided to invest profits entirely back into the company. “We posted average revenues of $37 million in 2006, but expenses were unusually high. With no motivation to save money and no email updates on the company’s financial situation, my employees became less careful about controlling costs,” said the CEO. “Losses topped $1 million that year,” according to Kaye.

Why Profit to Loss?

The CEO speculated the reason for the company’s losses was related to employees not feeling plugged into the business like the previous year.  Regular email communications stopped because there was not an incentive payment on the line for everyone. Never underestimate the multiplied power of all employees focused on the same goal. The combined force of employee heads, hands and hearts focused on a winning strategy is amazing.

Profit Sharing Plan Returns

“So in January 2007 I announced the profit sharing program would be reinstated,” said Kaye.  The results? According to Forbes, “It worked like a charm: Everyone found a way to contribute, from the receptionist who took checks to the bank daily – so the funds could start collecting interest as soon as possible – to the in-house travel agent who suggested that a colleague stay at a certain hotel because it was 25% cheaper than the others.”

Revenues hit an all-time high that next year (2007) and employees each received $1,300 incentive checks. Their business future looks brighter now that every employee has a vested interested in the financial performance of the company.

Note: At the time of this post’s publication a link was not available to the Fortune Small Business article, “Reviving Incentive.” When it becomes available, The People Group will provide the link.