What happens when people can’t afford to actually get to work?

[Standbylove]

We have this scenario potentially cropping up, one of our team members is struggling for money since the cost of living has risen - they are tied into a large mortgage and even though we are paid well she’s finding it hard to find the money to make the 50 mile commute daily. It’s starting to make her stressed and anxious.
We don’t really have a WFH policy but the job could be done WFH but then that would open the can of worms for the whole organisation.
Surely this is going to crop up more and more. I wonder how sympathetic businesses will be….

Oh fgs, you have no idea how long that person has been working in the company. They might have been working here for 20 years like DH is. Things change. Covid has changed the way we work. The cost of fuel is very new.

Whatever the situation was when they accepted the job, things are different now. Having a go at them for not been able to read the future is crap (and that’s me being gentle tbh)

@Standbylove to answer your question, I think the impact of fuel cost will be different from one company to the other.

There has been articles about nurses not being able to afford the cost of doing home visits - because ‘fuel’ is reimbursed at HMRC prices and NOT at real cost. This could impact many other jobs where people have to move around (I’m thinking carers too for example, sales people etc….) and they don’t have company cars.

Its easy for an employer to say ‘well it’s your issue’ but again, depending on where the company is, finding suitable housing (or suitable people living in a let say 15 miles radius) might not be easy. Nor is it always possible to use public transport - again very variable depending in where you live.

Another side to it is that, if fuel cost are getting horrendous plus childcare is becoming night on impossible (due to utilities cost), it might well soon become financially more interesting to claim UC than to carry in working. That won’t be a company issue but certainly is a country wide issue. No brownie point to guess what the Tories answer to that will be though.

Or even better - working from home! Which the wonder of technology allows!

I live in a large-ish county town but unless you're a nail technician, teacher, estate agent or hairdresser you would struggle to get a job locally as many businesses have shut down over the last few years.

Thank you for your unsolicited shite advice.

I have grown a business from 0 to over 100 staff now and the more we value our staff the greater our profits have been. In a previous business it was 500.

it is possible for a business to be developed around its staff. In fact we employ about 3 to 4 people a year with no visible role and develop one for them.

This isn’t possible if your mindset is stuck in Norman Tebbitt’s 1980s.

@Plantstrees working close to home is only possible of BOTH partners can find a suitable job nearby. What are the chances of that happening?

Unless you want to be back to the 1950 and expect the woman to stay at home. And then you only have one person to cater for.

Presumably this person knew there was a 50 mile commute when they took the job

Are you this blinkered in all your thinking? Did the possibility that the company had moved location occur to you?

Ultimately it’s the employee’s problem. That said, if you as an employer really want to retain people in this situation, it’s worth putting in place a general policy around working from home for some of the time (if that’s something which could be done without a negative effect on the organisation).

I would actually happily pay more tax. I think we should. I also think big businesses should be made to pay more tax as well.

How much more, per year? That is what I asked.

You’re not one of those people who thinks that ‘an extra 1p in the pound’ means an extra 1p per month, are you?

Interesting that you think part time unskilled workers don’t deserve a nice house.

Personally I do think everyone does deserve to live in a nice house/flat/dwelling/whatever. And I think it ought to be possible to afford that on average wages. What’s so outrageous about that?

That’s why I said people should be paid a fair income for their labour and be able to live reasonably comfortably from that.

No one is getting a fair income for their labour right now, unless they just got a big pay rise, everyone has essentially just taken a massive pay cut as costs rise around us and wages stay stagnant.

If you were once able to comfortably afford a house and your commute to work, and now through no fault of your own, you can’t, that’s fucking shit and unfair.

Hahaha at Norman Tebbit! Do you behave like this professionally? I dread to think what your business is.

Will you be giving your staff 12% pay rises to deal with inflation? Or paying their gas bills? You bang on about ‘valuing your staff’ but upthread you claimed that employers should negotiate with employees if the employees thought petrol was too expensive. That’s many steps further on from ‘valuing employees’. Which you can do without entering into individual negotiations over petrol costs when an employee threatens to flounce off, taking what they consider to be their unique skills with them.

Of course they don’t “deserve” a nice house. Stacking shelves for ten hours a week has never bought you a “nice” house, and it’s ludicrous to think that it should.

Your ideas about the value of labour, and land, and building materials make no sense at all, and nor does the ludicrous concept of “deserve.”

Who exactly do you think is expected to supply the land and the materials and build this nice house for the person earning £100 per week? Pixies?

Working from home could be some of the week. If it saves £10 of fuel each day, that would add up even if just two days a week.

If a company won't entertain even two days a week when it can be done, perhaps on a basis of a trial period, they are dinosaurs.

The thing is, you’re talking as if the rise in the cost of living is an inevitability that people have just failed to properly plan for because they’re thick.

I reject that idea. It’s not an inevitability. People are not stupid for failing to anticipate such a massive drop in living standards. It’s a result of very, very poor government and ordinary people are having to really suffer the consequences.

It’s not the fault of the government at all. The government are not to blame if you’ve over-extended yourself on your house. The government didn’t make you have children, or force you to spend your entire wage as it came in, rather than building up a good savings pot.

It’s so frustrating seeing people who’ve Franky been fools, blowing all they earn, buying cars on credit, having nice holidays, and buying the four bedroom house now bleating that times are tough.

Delay having children, priorities your career first. Buy a smaller house, ensure you have savings before even thinking of trying to conceive.

Expecting the government to just tax the families more who did everything right is not an acceptable response. It is not those families fault if you have made bad decisions; they should not névraxes more to make your life nicer.

I find it hard to contemplate how any successful business could now be so behind the times that they don't have a WFH provision or at least a policy in place...obviously only for those companies or roles within a company for which WFH is doable and reasonable.

Since covid, WFH at least partially is now an accepted norm for millions. Now with the CoL crisis I can only imagine the number WFH will increase.

Hypothetically, and given my very sketchy experience in employment law...given WFH is now so widely accepted, if an employee made a request to WFH that was reasonable and was declined, leading to them having to end their employment...I would hope that the business has a cast iron reason in place for the decline. Because if the employee had a good reason for asking for such a reasonable adjustment, I think there's a liklihood nowadays they'd have a decent case for constructive dismissal.

I forsee 'But the contract says so' becoming less and less acceptable as a sole reason to prevent WFH in future.

The government not managing the cap on the energy costs is a problem. The government not properly investing in infrastructure so that there’s adequate public transport outside of big cities is a problem. The government’s utter mismanagement of leaving the EU is a problem. The stupid furlough scheme during the pandemic and the billions wasted on useless PPE - all of which is now being passed into us in the form of inflation and rising interest rates. That’s the problem. Not people backing themselves to make their lives a bit better and take a step up.

All of which means that people who were doing their best trying to get on and improve things for themselves, are now having to take a massive hit.

Because if the employee had a good reason for asking for such a reasonable adjustment, I think there's a liklihood nowadays they'd have a decent case for constructive dismissal.
Would "I can't afford the bus fare" really be considered good reason?

CoL is going to turn into a national crisis...honestly, I think in the near future, yes it might be a good enough reason.

What if the person the OP mentioned did all of that though and is still struggling? We don't know anything about her apart from that she has a large mortgage and is well paid (no idea what her salary is) and lives (for whatever reason) 50 miles from her workplace. She may have been widowed, her husband might have walked out on her, she might have massive childcare costs etc, elderly parents she cares for and can't move away from.

Also, if costs keep increasing at this rate then each week more and more people will find themselves 'struggling'. You may also find yourself struggling. How far is society willing to let this go? We may all find ourselves in negative equity and unable to 'just' move somewhere smaller or up to our eyeballs in gas and electric bills. And when we are we really won't appreciate others telling us that we should have just been more prepared.