Death Panels for Employees an Idea Whose Time has Come

With all the talk of health care reform, it occurred to me that we should implement death panels for employees. The death panel could be made up of 5 people – three executives and two employees voted in by their peers. Better yet, the members of the death panel could be made up of employees appointed by the president of the company with a committee of all of the other employees who would have the opportunity to grill the appointees with questions for days at a time. The employees could then vote on the appointees to confirm or deny their membership on the death panel.

There are a number of cases in which a death panel would be justified. Obese employees, hypochondriacs or people who are accident prone could be candidates for the death panel. These people are costing you 10 times more in medical expenses than those who are in good shape. Employees who are using more of their fair share of the medical benefits, they could be put in front of the death panel to plead their case on why the company should keep them employed.

Others to be brought in front of the panel could be the screamers, bullies or those who can not carry out a civil conversation without raising their voices and having temper tantrums. A management employee who falls into this category should get an expedited visit to the death panel.

We can also see those employees who do not do their job and make it more difficult on their co-workers. The harder working employees would have to nominate their do-nothing co-workers and get at least five other employees to sign a nomination form. These no good employees would then have the option of resigning (so the company does not have to pay for unemployment benefits or provide a COBRA subsidy) or going in front of the death panel.

Others who could be nominated are the chronic complainers, the ones who come in 15 minutes late every day or miss every Monday. Those who are the constant harassers could also be brought up to the death panel. I am sure if we brainstorm for a while, we will be able to come up with a number of other employee types to put in the mix.

What a concept. The more I write about this the more I get excited by it.

Before implementing a death panel, we must keep such things as whistleblowing laws, and equal employment opportunity in mind as we do not want to violate these laws when bringing employees to the death panel. For example, we cannot send an employee who filed a complaint with OSHA on the death panel because this would be retaliation and against he OSHA whistleblowing statute. We must also keep records of the sex, race, age, religion and sexual orientation of the individuals brought in front of the death panel to ensure there is no adverse impact for any particular protected class.

Obviously, this is all tongue-in-cheek and not something that would be done. The reason I bring this up, is that just like the health care plan, there are a number of rumors, untruths and downright lies told through workplaces. Many conflicts are caused by mis-information that is being spead throughout the organization.

I am truly amazed and disheartened at the immature way this health care bill is being handled on both sides of the political aisle. If this is the example of how we handle conflict in this country, than we are all in deep trouble.