Why are there so many crap employers?

[GaryBaldbiscuit]

I have two jobs, the other job, smaller, is quite badly run, the boss is mean as are her minions.
My other job has quite a good team and the smaller job, a private business, could learn from them. I went to a meeting recently with the smaller job, most employees there new, high turnover of staff.

I discovered the fact that employers mainly want to be appreciated in their work when it comes down to it.
I wish the smaller job could learn from this.
Hold me back from telling them, or should i?

I hear you Gary. I am currently experiencing difficulties at my very small place of employment. I have worked for much larger, well structured companies. After a year at my current place my Boss has recently turned on me. We have hardly any structure to our work and very little managerial input. Feel I am being made a scapegoat and I want out. I have years of achievement and good references but I am now regretting taking up this latest post.

crap isnt it

In my experience, it's only ever about profit. I've been naive in the past, thinking companies actually give a shit about employees. They don't. Even the ones who pretend to.

My advice: join a union and don't do a stitch more work than expected of you.

It’s all about money. That’s why we have employment laws to place limits on how craply employers are allowed to treat people. Some still manage to wriggle through loopholes, eg zero hour contracts or making employees register as self employed to absolve the employer of responsibilities.

Because it's all about profit, and once you start earning good money yourself and are loaded you forget how the poorer half live/struggle!

I've seen this in many very small businesses. They also have no clue how to run things in a professional way, so constantly break the law. There are some great ones though too, so my advice would be to leave where you are and find one of those places that know what they are doing and respect their employees contribution. The smaller company will not learn how to do things properly if they have staff willing to put up with their shit. When you leave, as you already have a good reference from your second job, you can delight in telling them exactly why you're leaving!

I'm always a bit cynical about high turnovers. It does imply that it's just seen as a revolving door job with no intention of looking at what's going wrong and how it can be better.

It's not always just about money - you wouldn't believe the extent dh goes to to look after his employees - of course in the long run it's in his interests but genuinely treating people well is something that is core to his value system. Taking on new roles he has been offered the quick fix of sacking a few challenging members of staff but he has never done it - instead he has spent the time doing his job properly and that is coaching these people to become better at their jobs - good bosses are hard to find but they are out there.

Employers can treat you like crap because they can get away with it (thank you David Cameron) and because many aren't in unions. Protect yourself! People have home, car, pet insurance etc. Being in a union is essentially employment insurance (whereas you have support if things go wrong).

I went from a huge multinational, which I loved, loved the thousands of staff I come into contact with, was stressful as hell, but worth it!

Went to a company of a hundred, who’s profits were tiny compared to my old company, and you would think the ‘owners’ were God, the way they thought of themselves. Treated staff like crap, massive turnover. I vowed never, ever, to work for a small company again, unless I could get clear reasssurance from employees/past employees that they were a good company to work for. It’s not worth the headache!

I don't think it's always about money, a lot of the time it's short term thinking. My last employer (not a small business) was crap at retaining staff and crap at recruitment and you got the feeling management was just lurching from crisis to crisis rather than doing any long term planning.

its not just small companies that are a problem - I worked for a large national charity and was made redundant. Since I had been working there for 7 years, 11 months and 25 days then I got 7 years redundancy and not 8.

It was technically legal for them to do so but left a very bitter taste in regards to that charity. HR were bloody useless and didn't care in the slightest - what was worse is that I had ten days of holiday left so they paid that to me at a normal rate. Never again will I give my all to a job as no-one will appreciate any sacrifices you make.

How can you generalise small companies? My husband ran his own small company for 30 years, kept the same staff for many of them and when things became hard took a huge pay cut (which made things tough for us) so he could keep paying their wages even when they had sod all to do.

I get the impression small companies are often either really good or really bad so I guess it's a bit of a gamble. Bigger companies seem more likely to be clued up on employment law.

Large companies are just as bad. All comes down to management and profit.

I think it's because many managers haven't had any management training and these skills actually do not come naturally. People are good at the technical side of the job then get promoted because if it to a role that needs a new set of skills and barely uses the old skills. Daft!

And it will get much worse post brexit
As far as I know there’s an intention to ‘reshape’ employment law since we wont be bound by E.U. laws anymore
So less holiday/maternity/employee rights/ etc etc
And yes it’s all about the money
Although there will still be good employers who genuinely want to treat staff well. I suspect eventually they’ll be in the minority

There must be loads of decent employers asking "why are there so many crap employees?"

I think in very large companies you are seen as a number and not a person. I’ve been screwed over more than once working for a large company (too long to explain in this reply). I now work for a small company and I feel a lot more valued as an employee. The pay is less and overall the opportunities for progression are non existent but I do feel happier overall. Staff turnover is around the same in both places mentioned - I think with smaller companies it just feels more noticeable as the staff pool is much smaller. My current place has a staff of 8 so if 2 left within the space of a month we would notice it as a huge change but in my last office of 600 it would be a drop in the ocean.

I do think overall it’s an employers market at the moment as there are more people than jobs so they can afford to be choosy and if somebody leaves then plenty of people will be lined up to replace them.

Having said that, the worst bullying boss I ever had was CIPD qualified!

I think in very large companies you are seen as a number and not a person.

That's a huge generalisation. Some big companies treat their staff brilliantly, and some small firms treat them badly. And visa verca.

Often managers are chosen on their knowledge not ability to manage people, a skill not every one has.

There are good and bad businesses both large and small.
My dh has his own retail business, it is really tough, but you wouldn't believe the things we do as a family to look after our staff.
Sometimes you wonder why you do it because I can assure you there are some crap employees too.
We have had a number of issues over the years where you think Christ what else can i do?
I swear there are some people who, if you bought them a Ferrari would complain that it costs them money to put fuel in it.

I have worked as a manager for the past year and 1 part of the job i do enjoy is interviewing. Lots of crap employees out there!! I would also agree the more you give some staff members the more they expect.

Labour is cheap and disposable, casualisation is a growing trend and most jobs take little native skill or training or are so routine that they can be picked up comparatively easily. Employers can treat workers like shite on the sole on their shoe and if they don't like it? Tough, fuck off, there's plenty more to take their place.

That's a very harsh sweeping generalisation.