Home featured Editor's Choice Featured Growing Editor's Choice The human cost of striving for profit Guest Author July 16, 2015 Are the people who work for you no more than a means to make money? While our natural desire is to maximise profit, there is a point where the human cost is too high. Although profit is measured by dollars on the bottom line, the size of that profit can be a measure of how you treat people. Sometimes it is the processes we put in place that damage people. Dollars before dignity ‘Hannah’ is a Registered Nurse in an Aged Care facility, caring for the sick and frail, while her employer treats her like an untrustworthy teenager. When she arrives for work Hannah registers with a thumbprint to show she is on time. A computer automatically docks her pay if she is more than six minutes late. Hannah’s days involved frenetic, unceasing high stress activity: caring for dying and distressed patients, managing demanding family members and overworked staff, attending urgent staff meetings, checking and tracking dangerous drugs, briefing doctors, maintaining detailed notes of every interaction or comment (mainly to help in the event of litigation). Although Hannah is penalised for arriving a few minutes late, she is expected to work through all breaks and do unpaid overtime which averages an extra half hour on every shift. At a recent staff meeting the distressed team leader said head office had decided they were overstaffed and needed to lose the equivalent