U.K. has work shy workforce?
Discussion
More and more employers I talk to say they struggle to get many of their workforce to turn up to do a week of hard graft. Many seem to turn up for 3 or 4 days but want 5 days money ! They seem to do cash jobs on the side
Try to contact any major company and you can spend an hour on the phone trying to get hold of someone sensible who can deal with your problem. Your call is very important to us! Yeah right!!
Tradesmen often don’t turn up on the day they say to do a bit of work blaming the rain or shortage of materials
Employers don’t want to take on apprentices as they say too much hassle and many of them don’t want to stick at it
Too many roles these days fail to give a breath of training. Spoke to a Bank Complaints dept the other day person couldn’t deal with my complaint as she was only trained in payments ! She would pass it someone else but they were working from home so I couldn’t be passed over to them. They contacted me 2 days later!
Many over 55’s haven’t gone back to work post covid
No matter who is in Government we have zero chance of growing the country at rates comparable with Asia
So there will be less money generated for services and not much scope to raise big sums from more taxation
Country has become lazy post covid yet we are told millions can’t afford to pay their bills. Doesn’t add up
How big is the cash economy now?
Try to contact any major company and you can spend an hour on the phone trying to get hold of someone sensible who can deal with your problem. Your call is very important to us! Yeah right!!
Tradesmen often don’t turn up on the day they say to do a bit of work blaming the rain or shortage of materials
Employers don’t want to take on apprentices as they say too much hassle and many of them don’t want to stick at it
Too many roles these days fail to give a breath of training. Spoke to a Bank Complaints dept the other day person couldn’t deal with my complaint as she was only trained in payments ! She would pass it someone else but they were working from home so I couldn’t be passed over to them. They contacted me 2 days later!
Many over 55’s haven’t gone back to work post covid
No matter who is in Government we have zero chance of growing the country at rates comparable with Asia
So there will be less money generated for services and not much scope to raise big sums from more taxation
Country has become lazy post covid yet we are told millions can’t afford to pay their bills. Doesn’t add up
How big is the cash economy now?
I don’t think we’ve had a properly dynamic workforce (in comparison to most other western democracies) for at least 50 years.
IMHO we have a far too generous welfare state, it’s no longer a safety net for those who genuinely need one, with too many people using it as a lifestyle choice……
IMHO we have a far too generous welfare state, it’s no longer a safety net for those who genuinely need one, with too many people using it as a lifestyle choice……
Is part of it employers being too exacting? I mean I can understand why, but it seems like a lot of places don't want to train anyone or have anyone that perhaps could pick up the role after a month or so (i.e. lots of transferable skill, but not got experience in exactly the niche they're looking for). So plenty of people who could do the job just don't get a look in because they want someone who is "turn key" and "ticks all the boxes" and will just slot in without much intervention. I find that very short sighted in some cases, especially for R&D type roles as it limits perspective, you just get a load of people who all think the same.
I think it is a mix.
People get away with what they can.
The really lazy will rely on the welfare state.
The trades will turn up depending on the weather, other customers shouting and material supply.
Employers abuse employees with false promises of reward / promotion. It only works a couple of times.
Employees will work to what they can get away or what they feel they deserve.
There are two motivators fear and money. There are loosely more jobs than people, so fear is only there for the overpaid. Employers that don't pay employees competitively won't have motivated employees unless they are in an otherwise very rewarding job.
People get away with what they can.
The really lazy will rely on the welfare state.
The trades will turn up depending on the weather, other customers shouting and material supply.
Employers abuse employees with false promises of reward / promotion. It only works a couple of times.
Employees will work to what they can get away or what they feel they deserve.
There are two motivators fear and money. There are loosely more jobs than people, so fear is only there for the overpaid. Employers that don't pay employees competitively won't have motivated employees unless they are in an otherwise very rewarding job.
cc3 said:
More and more employers I talk to say they struggle to get many of their workforce to turn up to do a week of hard graft. Many seem to turn up for 3 or 4 days but want 5 days money ! They seem to do cash jobs on the side
Try to contact any major company and you can spend an hour on the phone trying to get hold of someone sensible who can deal with your problem. Your call is very important to us! Yeah right!!
Tradesmen often don’t turn up on the day they say to do a bit of work blaming the rain or shortage of materials
Employers don’t want to take on apprentices as they say too much hassle and many of them don’t want to stick at it
Too many roles these days fail to give a breath of training. Spoke to a Bank Complaints dept the other day person couldn’t deal with my complaint as she was only trained in payments ! She would pass it someone else but they were working from home so I couldn’t be passed over to them. They contacted me 2 days later!
Many over 55’s haven’t gone back to work post covid
No matter who is in Government we have zero chance of growing the country at rates comparable with Asia
So there will be less money generated for services and not much scope to raise big sums from more taxation
Country has become lazy post covid yet we are told millions can’t afford to pay their bills. Doesn’t add up
How big is the cash economy now?
We’re talking about MP’s aren’t we?Try to contact any major company and you can spend an hour on the phone trying to get hold of someone sensible who can deal with your problem. Your call is very important to us! Yeah right!!
Tradesmen often don’t turn up on the day they say to do a bit of work blaming the rain or shortage of materials
Employers don’t want to take on apprentices as they say too much hassle and many of them don’t want to stick at it
Too many roles these days fail to give a breath of training. Spoke to a Bank Complaints dept the other day person couldn’t deal with my complaint as she was only trained in payments ! She would pass it someone else but they were working from home so I couldn’t be passed over to them. They contacted me 2 days later!
Many over 55’s haven’t gone back to work post covid
No matter who is in Government we have zero chance of growing the country at rates comparable with Asia
So there will be less money generated for services and not much scope to raise big sums from more taxation
Country has become lazy post covid yet we are told millions can’t afford to pay their bills. Doesn’t add up
How big is the cash economy now?
Stop moaning FFS, they may get better. As a tradesman who always turns up when he says and works hard with a young apprentice who is polite always up and ready to go in the morning and also works hard, life could not be better. If everybody worked like us, we would not be able to take our pick of the best, most rewarding work... 
pork911 said:
Wow! There are some real brains behind that book. 
Otispunkmeyer said:
Is part of it employers being too exacting? I mean I can understand why, but it seems like a lot of places don't want to train anyone or have anyone that perhaps could pick up the role after a month or so (i.e. lots of transferable skill, but not got experience in exactly the niche they're looking for). So plenty of people who could do the job just don't get a look in because they want someone who is "turn key" and "ticks all the boxes" and will just slot in without much intervention. I find that very short sighted in some cases, especially for R&D type roles as it limits perspective, you just get a load of people who all think the same.
Far too often the case. I can’t remember a single job where the essential requirements were anything less than being able to do the whole job, and the desirable were above and beyond the job.We undersell ourselves in these arguments.
I nowadays work for a company that also have domestic installers in France and Germany, both held up as being examples of great productivity.
The Germans can't work more than 8 hours so end up travelling to the job, doing a couple of hours and then travelling home as they cannot bust 8 hours
The French often do as they like as any kind of disciplinary/employment termination for failing to do the job is impossible and poor performance cannot be managed.
UK installers on the other hand just get on and earn their installation bonuses.
We are a lot more motivated and productive than we give credit for.
Why have we attracted so many foreign companies here? It hasn't been just luck, sure Brexit will present some additional challenges but we are a G7 country for good reason.
I nowadays work for a company that also have domestic installers in France and Germany, both held up as being examples of great productivity.
The Germans can't work more than 8 hours so end up travelling to the job, doing a couple of hours and then travelling home as they cannot bust 8 hours
The French often do as they like as any kind of disciplinary/employment termination for failing to do the job is impossible and poor performance cannot be managed.
UK installers on the other hand just get on and earn their installation bonuses.
We are a lot more motivated and productive than we give credit for.
Why have we attracted so many foreign companies here? It hasn't been just luck, sure Brexit will present some additional challenges but we are a G7 country for good reason.
Electro1980 said:
Otispunkmeyer said:
Is part of it employers being too exacting? I mean I can understand why, but it seems like a lot of places don't want to train anyone or have anyone that perhaps could pick up the role after a month or so (i.e. lots of transferable skill, but not got experience in exactly the niche they're looking for). So plenty of people who could do the job just don't get a look in because they want someone who is "turn key" and "ticks all the boxes" and will just slot in without much intervention. I find that very short sighted in some cases, especially for R&D type roles as it limits perspective, you just get a load of people who all think the same.
Far too often the case. I can’t remember a single job where the essential requirements were anything less than being able to do the whole job, and the desirable were above and beyond the job.I seen huge swings in capability from industry into consultancy becuase industry just isn't prepared to pay the necessary wages... So end up forced into paying 1 to 1.5k per diem rates.
There's also a perversity to how the city values businesses with regards to headcount vs turnover and profit.
cc3 said:
Many over 55’s haven’t gone back to work post covid
The truth on this point is that many over 55's have taken stock of their finances and realised that they no longer need to work. A revelation to many. Ask me how I I know.Financial Planning in the UK is so poor that many people work for way longer than is necessary (meaning they had already passed the point of having sufficient money but never realised). Covid encouraged people to do some maths. There was a book called "'What Is Your Number' (or something like that) about this.
This assumes that, given a choice, most people would stop work if they could. It's different for the lucky few who love their jobs (which often correlates with exciting jobs with high pay).
I think this country has a real cultural inflexibility in some ways. Employers seem set on hiring someone with directly relevant experience, which they invariably need to because they hadn't planned for the last person moving on. This is a vicious circle which dooms both employers and employees to a narrow pool of options.
With a bit of forward planning, flexibility and improvisation employers could have a much broader range of potential candidates and people changing jobs could have far more options. Skills and knowledge can be transferred and adapted.
From what I've seen Australia and the US seem much more willing to train people into a role and move people around different disciplines.
I'm not saying you just pluck someone from the job centre and let them loose on designing a suspension bridge but a bit of investment and lateral thinking on this could be a benefit to employers and employees.
With a bit of forward planning, flexibility and improvisation employers could have a much broader range of potential candidates and people changing jobs could have far more options. Skills and knowledge can be transferred and adapted.
From what I've seen Australia and the US seem much more willing to train people into a role and move people around different disciplines.
I'm not saying you just pluck someone from the job centre and let them loose on designing a suspension bridge but a bit of investment and lateral thinking on this could be a benefit to employers and employees.
cc3 said:
More and more employers I talk to say they struggle to get many of their workforce to turn up to do a week of hard graft. Many seem to turn up for 3 or 4 days but want 5 days money ! They seem to do cash jobs on the side
I think you might be onto something here. Fascinated to know how you came to talk to so many employers, maybe a little background on type of business, number of employees etc. and the setting for your research. Add to that the detail of questions you posed in the course of your research and if you can reveal the responses prior to formal publication (presuming you’ve done a deal), it would be of great interest. I’ve felt British workers are idle for years, until now I’d only got under researched (file under idle), poorly presented, biased crap from Raab and Patel (I assume you’ve read and dismissed their half arsed effort), so this could be the breakthrough I’ve been hoping for.
Just for the record, could you qualify ‘hard graft’, as an employer (now retired) of a permanent workforce of 40 and a simultaneously contracted workforce of almost 300, I always struggle to get this point across to the lazy gits. Thanks in advance.
cc3 said:
More and more employers I talk to say they struggle to get many of their workforce to turn up to do a week of hard graft. Many seem to turn up for 3 or 4 days but want 5 days money ! They seem to do cash jobs on the side
Sounds totally made up. I think I prefer your dredging up of misery from the press to you making it up. Dingu said:
cc3 said:
More and more employers I talk to say they struggle to get many of their workforce to turn up to do a week of hard graft. Many seem to turn up for 3 or 4 days but want 5 days money ! They seem to do cash jobs on the side
Sounds totally made up. I think I prefer your dredging up of misery from the press to you making it up. It's generalised but their is an issue with a percentage not having a good work ethic.
I'm currently contracting for an organisation with around 500 employees and can look at it with a more objective viewpoint.
The problem I see aren't the people on the "shop floor". It's the new generation of managers. I can see job roles being created for people because they fit the clique. Also people being promoted because they get on well with the managers ie chat b
ks to them all the time. The ones grafting and doing the day job won't get a look in, The managers are lazy. They are expecting people to work and will pull them up on chatting, when currently I can look across the office to see 4 of them chatting themselves since 7am. In reality the managers are more of a HR team dealing with sickness with little management. When they are at their desks they are often looking at the next career development opportunity.
When you have NuManagers like this, no-one on the shop floor has respect for them, especially when there are people with decades of experience as the go to. Demands are always made of the workforce. Can you stay late this week? But slack is rarely cut the other way. I remember being asked to work weekends for about a month by a manager in a previous job. I said yes, but only if he was in himself. There were lots of grumblings from him about how busy he was etc. He turned up on the first weekend and didn't show on the second weekend, so I went home.
The problem I see aren't the people on the "shop floor". It's the new generation of managers. I can see job roles being created for people because they fit the clique. Also people being promoted because they get on well with the managers ie chat b
ks to them all the time. The ones grafting and doing the day job won't get a look in, The managers are lazy. They are expecting people to work and will pull them up on chatting, when currently I can look across the office to see 4 of them chatting themselves since 7am. In reality the managers are more of a HR team dealing with sickness with little management. When they are at their desks they are often looking at the next career development opportunity.When you have NuManagers like this, no-one on the shop floor has respect for them, especially when there are people with decades of experience as the go to. Demands are always made of the workforce. Can you stay late this week? But slack is rarely cut the other way. I remember being asked to work weekends for about a month by a manager in a previous job. I said yes, but only if he was in himself. There were lots of grumblings from him about how busy he was etc. He turned up on the first weekend and didn't show on the second weekend, so I went home.
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