If You Had 19 of Me, Your Company Would Have Collapsed

Why ROI calculators are fiction (and why you need one anyway)

My ROI calculator says: "Based on your inputs, 19 employees are experiencing presenteeism at 65% productivity."

Clean math. Conservative estimate.

But here's what it SHOULD say:

"If you had 19 versions of Chris Coulter after he lost Maddie, your company would have shut down."

Not 65% productivity. Maybe 5%. On a good day.

You Can't Average Grief

The calculator assumes everyone responds to crisis the same way.

Apply 35% productivity loss. Multiply by salary. Done.

But you can't average grief.

If you had 19 of me? Company's done.

If you had 19 people like Maddie's mom, who worked HARDER to avoid feeling? Record numbers while they quietly burned out.

The calculator gives you a number. Reality gives you chaos.

It's Never Just One Thing

Here's the calculator's biggest lie: It assumes crisis exists in isolation.

"This employee is dealing with their child's mental health."

As if that's the only thing happening.

But it's NEVER just one thing.

The parent dealing with their kid's suicide attempt? They're ALSO three months behind on mortgage, going through a divorce their kid blames themselves for, watching their business partner walk away, dealing with their own health scare they've been ignoring.

Life doesn't queue up catastrophes politely. It dumps them all on you at once.

When Maddie died, that wasn't my only crisis. I was already dealing with business stress, financial pressure, marriage strain from years of not addressing her struggles.

Then she died.

It wasn't just grief. It was grief on top of already being at my breaking point.

Some people would have survived that. I barely did.

You Don't Know Until You're In It

We don't know how crisis will impact us until we're drowning in it.

You might think you'd be fine. "I'm resilient. I handle stress well."

Maybe you would.

Or maybe you'd be me—staring at a screen for 8 hours unable to write a single email.

Or maybe you'd show up at 6am and leave at midnight because sitting still means feeling something.

Or maybe you'd function fine for 3 months then wake up one day unable to get out of bed.

You. Don't. Know.

Even the "Clean" Data Is Messy

Want to know how ridiculous it is to calculate the impact of crisis?

Let's look at kids.

Researchers love studying kids because you can measure outcomes: grades, test scores, graduation rates. Clean data. Controlled environment.

So what happens to kids' academic performance when parents divorce?

A 20-year Canadian study tracked 9,400 students. By age 20, only 60% finished high school (versus 78% of peers from intact families).

Clear impact, right?

But wait.

A University of Florida study found that girls from high-conflict marriages scored 8 points HIGHER on standardized tests if their parents divorced than if parents stayed together fighting.

Ending the conflict helped them focus.

Meanwhile, boys in the same study? No lasting grade impact either way.

Same crisis. Three completely different outcomes.

Why the variation? Age when crisis hit. Younger kids suffered more. Socioeconomic status—wealthy kids hit harder than poor kids. Level of ongoing conflict. Quality of support. Individual coping mechanisms.

It's unpredictable.

Even when studying kids. In controlled environments. With measurable outcomes.

Now try to calculate ADULTS dealing with their CHILD'S crisis while also managing work stress, financial pressure, marriage strain, health issues, aging parents.

And you're measuring "productivity" which is subjective, varies by role, influenced by everything, impossible to isolate.

You can't.

The Compounding Effect

Business failure takes its toll. Nasty divorce takes its toll. Financial hardship takes its toll.

Then losing your child? That's not another toll. That's the thing that breaks you when you're already barely holding on.

The parent who's "only" dealing with their kid's depression might be fine. But that same parent, plus a failing marriage, plus money stress, plus job insecurity?

They're not operating at 65%. They're one more thing away from not operating at all.

What You Don't See

When you look at your team, you see: "Sarah is dealing with her son's anxiety."

What you DON'T see: Sarah's going through a divorce. Her dad just got diagnosed with cancer. She's carrying $80k in student loans. She's been passed over for promotion twice. Her marriage is falling apart BECAUSE of her son's anxiety.

Her kid's crisis isn't separate from her life. It's on TOP of her life.

And you have no idea which Sarah you have. The one who can handle it? Or the one who's already at capacity?

The Calculator Assumes Baseline

The calculator assumes everyone starts from the same place. Stable. Healthy. Resilient.

But nobody starts there.

The parent dealing with their teen's crisis today was already burned out from pandemic stress, exhausted from caregiving aging parents, stretched thin from understaffing, anxious about layoff rumors.

The teen crisis isn't the first domino. It's the last one.

So Why Build the Calculator?

Because CFOs need something.

Because "people are suffering" doesn't get budget approval.

Because I have to speak the language of business if I want to help anyone.

But let me be clear about what that calculator actually is:

It's not truth. It's a conservative estimate of a fraction of the impact.

The real cost? Incalculable.

The Real Question

Do you care about your people or just your bottom line?

"Both. Obviously both."

But if you need a calculator to justify supporting parents in crisis, you've already answered the question. The bottom line comes first.

And that's fine. I get it. That's business.

But don't pretend the calculator tells you the whole story. It doesn't. It CAN'T.

Because humans are too complex. Crisis is too variable. Life is too messy.

What the Smartest Companies Do

The smartest companies don't ask: "What's the ROI?"

They ask: "How many of our people are struggling right now?"

They don't calculate: "Will this program pay for itself?"

They decide: "Our people are dealing with hard things. We should help."

And THEN, when finance needs numbers, they use the calculator.

But the decision was already made. Not because of ROI. Because of humanity.

The Only Honest Thing I Can Tell You

Is presenteeism real? Yes.

Does it cost companies money? Absolutely.

Can you calculate how much? Not really.

Not in a way that captures individual variation, compounding stressors, or the context that makes the same crisis devastating for one person and manageable for another.

Even researchers studying kids—with grades, test scores, controlled environments—found outcomes ranging from "40% never graduate" to "grades improved after crisis."

Same crisis. Opposite results.

The calculator gives you a number. But the number is fiction.

Useful fiction. But fiction nonetheless.

If You Had 19 of Me

If you had 19 versions of me on your team when Maddie died, the cost wouldn't be "35% productivity loss."

It would be 19 people unable to function. Projects that don't get done. Clients that don't get served. Teams that collapse.

And you wouldn't know which 19 employees would BE "me" until it was too late.

Because we don't know how we'll respond until we're drowning.

Or skip the calculator entirely and let's just talk:
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