Marketplace ministers with the spiritual gift of compassion help business professionals never to forget that people are not merely consumers, employees, prospects, investors, subscribers, etc. First and foremost, people are people, so they should not be treated merely like numbers, objects, or cogs to get things done in the marketplace. Each person has a story that needs to be heard and needs that need to be met.
As the owner and CEO of a manufacturing company named Polydeck, Peter Freissle setup a “Caring Committee” for his employees. This Caring Committee is responsible for implementing and managing numerous care and compassion programs to meet emergency financial needs for the employees in his company. These programs included an employee home repair fund, employee emergency loan fund, employee car repair fund, and a medical emergency fund to meet specific needs among the company’s staff members and their families.
Jerry, one of the Polydeck employees who received compassionate assistance from the company during his time of dire need said,
“The company surrounded me at a time of difficulty, helping me with my daughter that has osteoscaroma, which is bone cancer. The Caring Committee presented an envelope to all the employees in the plant, and everybody pitched in, and it came out to be almost two thousand dollars.”[i]
[i] Dr. Steve O. Steff, The Business Card (USA: Lanphier Press, 2012), 149.