To think employers will have to get used to treating staff better?

[Monopolyiscrap]

In my field like many, there is a shortage of experienced staff. Suddenly the shit employers are all complaining about how they can not get any staff. In a Facebook group for people who do my work, you often get employers posting asking people to advise why they are getting no responses to their job advert. When you look, it is usually because they are being unrealistic in what they are expecting for the money. But they generally do not like being told that.

Good employers are still attracting staff. I got my current job as a friend who was working at the company and told me they were a great employer, and the salary is competitive. Managers treat people well and go out of their way to praise people and offer training and support. Meanwhile, the shit employer I worked for five years ago can't find anyone.

Employers are going to have to get used to treating staff better. AIBU?

I agree with you.

Nothing annoys me more than a sad-face photo from a local cafe that's having to shut down because they can't find any staff. I think if they were paying the going rate and treated staff well they would be fine. Otherwise the business isn't sustainable.

With my work it’s going the other way. People have never been treated more like a commodity. Hence why I’m awake in the middle of the night with stress 😫

Oh yes, more and more I have noticed job adverts that I dismissed five years ago for absolutely rubbish pay for a lot of responsibility have started to become much more competitive. I work in an industry that has relied on cheap, easily replaceable labour for years, wages going up means I can get better quality employees and keep them as well.

We’re recruiting for one qualified member of staff and can’t find anyone! It’s a very small, established, reputable business!
Twice before we’ve recruited for the same qualification in the last 8 years and never had such a dismal response, don’t know what we’ll do tbh 🤷‍♀️
Have to start turning potential clients away I suppose, it’s hard atm!

@FunnyInjury

We’re recruiting for one qualified member of staff and can’t find anyone! It’s a very small, established, reputable business! Twice before we’ve recruited for the same qualification in the last 8 years and never had such a dismal response, don’t know what we’ll do tbh 🤷‍♀️ Have to start turning potential clients away I suppose, it’s hard atm!

Offer more money?

I walked out of a job after 3 months (had another one to go to!) The pay was good and on paper the perks were great.....the atmosphere was awful though. The worst thing about it was my exit interview, they asked why I was leaving so I explained that day to day the place made me miserable, the ops director said he was aware there was a problem.....ffs why employ someone when you know they will be miserable! I even went to great lengths at the interview to say the atmosphere was more important than the Job for me
Until employers stop thinking that people are desperate to work 'just anywhere' and they are not just a piece of a cog in their 'amazing' business they will struggle to retain decent people.

Too many employers have delusions of grandeur that will be hard to overcome I reckon.

It will very much depend on the local job market and the industry concerned.
There will always be low paid, low skilled jobs with high staff turnover and shit employers, and it takes many businesses a long time to learn …

Add that to leaving the protection of the EU, and I actually think it will take some time to level out ( or indeed up)

I suppose schools are the classic for this! I really can't work out why a TA is considered a minimum wage job! I've seen so many qualified TAs leave to work in a local supermarket due to pay.

@FunnyInjury

We’re recruiting for one qualified member of staff and can’t find anyone! It’s a very small, established, reputable business! Twice before we’ve recruited for the same qualification in the last 8 years and never had such a dismal response, don’t know what we’ll do tbh 🤷‍♀️ Have to start turning potential clients away I suppose, it’s hard atm!

The irony!

My boss (our CEO) is struggling with this at the moment. We’re really having issues with recruitment but he can’t seem to let go of his way of thinking which is that everyone should he forelock tuggingly grateful for a job. This isn’t a small business either, we turnover about 200 million a year. He just can’t see things are changing.

I’d love for this to be true. Some recent “perks” I’ve seen listed on job adverts:

Pension (er, you mean the mandatory minimum pension scheme?)
Statutory holiday allowance
Free fruit bowl in the office
Half a day off on your birthday (just half, mind)
1 day a week WFH! (Treat yoself)
Wine Friday with colleagues (would rather die)
Newly decorated London office (???)

Yet the responsibilities are vast and the salary pathetic. Just pay people properly so they can afford their own manky bananas, offer decent holiday, and flexi as standard FFS.

But with a cost of living crisis, energy crisis, housing crisis, climate crisis, pick your own crisis, impending war, inflation, etc, I think it’s going to go the way of employer’s choice and be grateful for your free bruised fruit and £22k for a senior role that was £22k 15 years ago.

Until employers stop thinking that people are desperate to work 'just anywhere' and they are not just a piece of a cog in their 'amazing' business they will struggle to retain decent people.
Agree I’ve worked for a couple of companies that they think you should be lucky to work there and treat you so , they don’t grasp it works both ways.

Companies might need to offer higher salary, but if the money isn't in the budget then it will have to come out of other areas. So expect to see companies dropping to statutory minimum sick pay, annual leave, parental leave, travel/subsistence allowance frozen, bonus schemes removed, subsidised canteens removed, free parking withdrawn, no budget for staff events, the cheapest fixtures and fittings possible...

Maybe my experience is different because I would like to go back to work, and I am finding it very hard. I am not sure that the staff shortages are extending much beyond the hospitality industry, it is still extremely competitive market for the job hunter as far as I can tell.

To think employers will have to get used to treating staff better?

Sadly it won't last. On any thread about employment conditions you get loads of people insisting the OP should do whatever their employer tells them, no matter how unreasonable (or even illegal).

Until the UK develops a culture of employees expecting to be treated like human beings there will always be a lot of shit employers. In turn we will continue to have low productivity compared to similar nations.

School support staff generally - not just TAs. I manage a school office, manage all the support staff, basically run the school from an admin point of view,
the stress and responsibility is sky high, and I get paid less than £10 an hour. Local supermarket is on a recruitment drive... It is genuinely tempting.

We’re recruiting for one qualified member of staff and can’t find anyone! It’s a very small, established, reputable business! Twice before we’ve recruited for the same qualification in the last 8 years and never had such a dismal response, don’t know what we’ll do tbh 🤷‍♀️ Have to start turning potential clients away I suppose, it’s hard atm!

Offer more money?

Well, yes. Except what do you do about the existing staff on what would be relatively low pay ?

I've been in a couple of companies that ended up having to take a new start on at a few grand more than people already doing the job. And you can imagine how that went down when they foun out. Especially as existing staff have to train the new as well ...

I hope the practice of avoiding numbers in job adverts is dying. Although it's axiomatic that any company advertising £competitive almost certainly isn't.

@EvenMoreFuriousVexation

Companies might need to offer higher salary, but if the money isn't in the budget then it will have to come out of other areas. So expect to see companies dropping to statutory minimum sick pay, annual leave, parental leave, travel/subsistence allowance frozen, bonus schemes removed, subsidised canteens removed, free parking withdrawn, no budget for staff events, the cheapest fixtures and fittings possible...

You can argue that and valid point but in my experience those that offer the crappiest pay , benefits but are doing quite well financially. They don’t want to pass this onto their employees who work very hard . Why should they ? Yes well then why are they then surprised that you leave for a better paid job with better benefits . Something a lot of employers don’t get .

We're recruiting at the moment and HR have been clear that for some roles it is a candidates market. We've been told hybrid working is a must for this role, luckily that is how we are working but would be difficult if we were not.

Until the UK develops a culture of employees expecting to be treated like human beings there will always be a lot of shit employers.

I think the sheer numbers of people who can - and now will - move if treated that way is bringing some pressure to bear. Some employers will choose to go bust rather than level up, obviously.

Put another way, as someone who has agitated for remote working since 1996, the last 2 years have seen a sea change.

I've just left a job where I was not a good fit. The salary was ok but I was told by a member of the management team that my previous job role (patient care as gp receptionist) was not on a par with my new role as we were client care and i needed to forget my previous role. For fucks sake, if you have that little respect for the skill set involved why employ me?
They also didn't like that I gave honest client feedback to the management team where the client was unhappy with management. Told me I should have just written conversation with client in the notes rather than laying it out for management. I stand by what I did and accept that this job was a bad fit for me and that I refuse to lower my standards to fit with with someone else's idea of how to do the job.

Money is the reason to go to work, it's not the reason to work for them.

I does make me chuckle when I get contacted by the agencies for the same jobs that come up every year. They want someone professionally qualified to work on site 5 days a week (sat at their laptop) with no flexibility on working days hours but pay 20/30k under the going rate! Then they also try to recruit someone on a fixed term contract instead of a permanent contract (it’s a permanent role) so if they don’t like them they can just let them go after 6 months!

this is a topic of discussion where i work, recruitment and retention are the two big things that companies (big and small) need to address.

If you can't recruit - why can't you get anyone? is what you are asking for too niche? then you must offer OTJ training, with full salary, or you're stuffed. Are your T&C good enough? lots of studies by reputable agencies point to things like diversity in senior management as attracting a bigger pool of better candidates. You can't just pick and choose, employees are now the pickers and choosers. Why should they work for you? think about it

And since headhunting at all levels is now huge, what are you doing to retain your employees? are you moaning that they all want to WFH? why is this? what makes not coming to your physical premises unattractive? are you offering hybrid working? flexible hours (full time as well as part time). Why should your employee stay rather than go somewhere offering better terms?

To quote the carry on films "they* don't like it up 'em!"

*where they = employers

I fear YABU.

If there's one thing true since the dawn of time, it's that employers will find ways to treat employees worse again. Sadly.