Lightning Rods - By Helen DeWitt Page 0,96

had the simplicity of genius.

The new idea was this. Suppose you offered a firm the chance to outsource its whole human resources department to an independent contractor—a contractor which guaranteed its staff provision to be 100% lightning rod free. America is a country which accommodates a wide range of perspectives—there were bound to be people out there who would prefer to work in a guaranteed lightning rod free environment, whether because they had been brought up by religious fundamentalists or whatever. Well, where there are people with a fanatical preference you know there’s got to be money in it.

Five years ago there would have been no market in catering to that preference, because the actual concept of the lightning rod protected workplace did not exist. He had created an opening for a product, he had turned into a marketable product something people had previously just taken for granted, just by bringing into existence the opposite of that product! Well, if an opening for a product has arisen, entirely thanks to you, it’s only fair that you should be the first to profit from it.

Of course, some people would probably argue that there were plenty of reputable employment agencies already in existence that never had gotten involved in the provision of lightning rods and never would. Anyone who wanted to steer clear of proactive sexual harassment prevention could just go to Manpower or Kelly or whatever and know they had absolutely nothing to worry about.

That just showed how little they knew. Sure, you can go to Manpower and get the type of product they’ve been providing all along. But what you’re not going to get is the type of safeguard that someone who’s been in the lightning rod business from the ground up is automatically going to build into a product.

Because look. If you’re going to offer a cast-iron guarantee that no physical outlet will be provided for drive-orientated individuals, and believe you me there are just as many of those among the Christian community as anywhere else, a responsible employer has to ensure that those employees are protected in some other way.

Well, say a young woman for whatever reason doesn’t like the idea of working in a firm where there are lightning rods on the premises. She doesn’t object to provision being made for one kind of physical function, she doesn’t get up in arms about the fact that there are toilets in the building, but for whatever reason she doesn’t care for other types of physical function being provided for. Fine.

In that case there’s absolutely no reason why she wouldn’t be willing to make some concessions to a firm that was prepared to offer the kind of environment she wants to work in. As a safeguard to the firm that has made an offer of that kind, at no small risk to itself, she should be prepared to sign a waiver certifying that no sexual harassment charges will be filed against individuals or the firm if some form of behavior takes place which would not have taken place if a physical outlet had been provided.

To put it another way, a firm that has an anti-lightning rod policy owes it to itself to hire the type of employee who is prepared to offer it that kind of safeguard in exchange for the more conservative type of working environment provided.

Which is where an employment agency with an affiliate in the lightning rod side of the business has such an edge. If you’ve spent as much time as Joe had talking to people recoiling in horror and revulsion at the very idea of a lightning rod, you couldn’t help but know there was a definite market for a product that guaranteed staff would never even have the possibility of rubbing shoulders with one. No two ways about it, it had been stressful at the time—it’s discouraging to lose a sale at the best of times, let alone get the kind of looks people give you if you have transgressed one of their socio-sexual taboos. But it meant he now knew just how strong the feelings were that the original product aroused; he knew just how many people out there would think no sacrifice too great to avoid using it.

Well, if people feel that strongly about something, you know there’s got to be money in it. Manpower and Kelly and the more conventional agencies didn’t even know there was something to feel strongly about.

What it meant was that he had an edge. There