Shroud Sourcing

Breathing New (After) Life Into the Staffing Industry

According to his supervisors, Jebediah Coulton is a model worker whose productivity leaves his much younger co-workers in the dust.

“He’s always on time, doesn’t take vacation or sick days and doesn’t need insurance, ” Clement Rice, manager at the Regal Group said. “He doesn’t even take a lunch. ”

He works in records department of the Chicago insurance brokerage where he tirelessly sorts and files documents 24 hours a day, seven days a week & 364 days a year.

And Coulton does all this in spite of the fact he died in 1840.

“May fourth is the anniversary of, well, some rather unpleasant events in Jeb’s life, let’s leave it at that,” Rice said. “We’ve found it’s just easier to close down the office when that day doesn’t fall on a weekend. It’s a small price to pay, really. Even with the overtime our janitorial staff logs cleaning the blood off the walls, when you do the math, it’s a no brainer.”

Rice said the most amazing thing about their star employee is that he was right under their nose. In fact, he had been in the building longer their business has. Records show that Coulton owned a butcher shop which was located where the Regal’s lobby now stands.

“He’d been haunting the building for decades, but it wasn’t until Spiritworks stepped in that we were able to put that to work for us, ” Rice said.

Spiritworks, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is pioneering the technique of helping companies fill gaps in their workforce with individuals most would call ghosts.

“We don’t use the ‘g-word,’” Emily Stuart, VP of Recruiting at Spiritworks, said. “We prefer the term ‘Formerly Alive’ or ‘F.A.’ Death is a natural part of life, and our employees are just people who have gone through that process but find it hard to completely let go of the life they left behind.”

Stuart says clients were understandably skeptical when Spiritworks opened its doors back in 2006, but the results they’ve delivered have made them one of the fastest growing staffing companies in the country.

“The businesses get dedicated employees at a significant discount and the Formerly Alive get to bring purpose and activity to what can be a dreary and listless existence,” Stuart said. “And that leads to lower prices for the consumer, so really it’s a win-win-win.”

Rice agrees. “It’s helped bring our bottom line back from the grave, so to speak,” he said.

While Coulton himself doesn’t speak, Rice said he thinks he enjoys his work in his own way.

“If you look him in the eye, there does appear to be, back behind the icy mists of death and occasional flashes of violence, rage and regret, a dim flicker of peace that wasn’t there when he started working for us,” he said.

Stuart said that Coulton is just one of their many success stories.

“Being from an earlier time, F.A.s often have a work ethic that puts us living people to shame,” she said. “Opal is one of our best, and works right here in our company. She’s the glue that holds my department together.”

“Are you Henry?,” Opal Richmond, Stuart’s personal assistant, said. “Have you heard from my Henry? How goes the war?”

While she appeared to work efficiently and conscientiously, she kept up this line of questioning for the better part of an hour.

“You’d be surprised how quickly you get to used to that,” Stuart said. “We’ve all just sort of tuned it out.”