Firing contest backfires on local biz owner
When this convenience store owner asked his workers to guess who the next cashier to be fired would be, did he actually think something positive would occur?
William Ernst, the owner of QC Mart convenience store, recently made national news because of a contest he created for his cashiers.
The contest, which Ernst explained in a chain email to QC Mart employees, encouraged workers to predict which cashier Ernst would fire next.
What did these lucky employees win if they guessed correct? Winners would earn $10 — $2.75 more than the federal hourly minimum wage — and the contest would then start up again.
Rather than motivating his workforce, Ernst’s contest caused a number of employees to quit — and file for unemployment.
Ernst tried to appeal, but an Iowa administrative law judge ruled in favor of the former QC Mart workers because the convenience store owner had created a “hostile work environment.”
The judge also called Ernst’s unorthodox motivational contest “egregious and deplorable.”
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