It’s going to happen to you:

“Sir, I’m really embarrassed but I need to ask for a loan”

I’ve talked about using your judgment when it comes to deciding whether or not you should give your VA a loan. 

This isn’t easy. Especially when you know that your VA is already in a bad place financially. Is giving them a loan going to do more harm than good? By lending them money, are you just helping them dig an even deeper hole that they can’t get out of?

Karen had an innovative solution:

Hi John,

I had a situation earlier this year.

A 2-year hire was needing more money to cover the material blow outs on the house she was building.  She asked for an advance.  Everything inside me screamed NO.  I told her to let me think about it.

Next morning the answer came to me out of the blue, not worrying about it or even thinking about it.   So, this is what we did………..

We had 2 big deadlines approaching that she could help a lot more with …

• We paid out her annual leave she had accrued
• We paid pro-rata on her 13th month
• Her regular hours are 8 am to 5:30 Mon to Thurs and 4 hours Friday.  40 hour week.
• She worked an extra 5 hours Friday and a full 9 hour day on Saturday
• We had 4 crazy public holidays coming up.  She got the public holiday pay, BUT she also worked 3 of them and picked up an extra 9 hours pay.
• She accrued leave on the extra hours worked.

She achieved her goal and wasn’t put in pay back mode.  We have checked her leave will be sufficient to get her through our 2-week Christmas shut down.

Everyone won!

Karen

What I really like about this is that she gave her VA every opportunity to avoid losing face and earn every cent of that money.

It’s not a loan. It’s extra salary she earned by doing more work.

I like this option because it empowers everybody. You’ll get more work from your VA and your VA isn’t indebted to you or anyone.

Have you tried something like this with your VA? Or have you tried something different?

John