to think it's no wonder the UK's economy is stagnant if UK business thinks this is "normal" / the desired standard these days?

[EpicClassic]

I work for a large national private sector employer (you have almost certainly heard of it). I work in an IT-affiliated role in that I sit in the middle of what the company does (e.g. sells insurance), and the actual IT part of the organisation (not the helpdesk - think of it more like I design and run detailed reports for the execs).

I have a small reports team that I manage. Unusually for this company, because I'm open to and able to offer flexible working, they're all either part-time or non-breadwinners, job shares, or in secondments (so just on loan and I'll have to give them back eventually). We pay middle of the market but a lot of them are paid on or at the cusp of higher rate taxes (43k in Scotland, 50k ish for the London ones), so (quite rightly) I get a lot of people in my team getting their first promotion then asking to step down to 3.5-4 days a week because it's barely any loss in income and the juggle between kids/life and work clash. The business expectations/environment is high pressure; stress is a given. I'm fulltime and earn 75k (I have been getting below inflation pay awards since 2014).

I am also in a constant battle with our internal systems, own HR teams/ hiring practices. We seem keener than ever to be getting the cheapest candidates in and our pay bands do not budge no matter what (we'd rather hire someone capable of the bare minimum on £40k than pay £42k for the guy who blew the interview out of the water and can lead/own extra things) - and we pay our grads the same as we did over 15 years ago! Our core IT buying and the support teams have been offshored to hell over many years of offshoring and are at breaking point. I am regularly in tears on a weekly basis because of the latest IT system fuck up where our offshore team have broken something at 5am UK time and then I get into work and have to start cancelling meetings and real/long-term priorities to firefight it. Last week, I had over 1000 people waiting on a report I have to run on my local machine, but it crashes 3 in 4 times I try to run it - because my laptop is nearly 5 years old! the developers who created this particular report are long gone so I'm having to dive in and fix it as best I can, despite not having the tool or skill as a head of a tiny report department. I've been professional and gathered evidence to justify investment, developed business cases through "normal" methods, all get denied. The report breaks and IT firefights happen at least once, often more, times a week. Our support team offshore is clueless, has no autnomy or real training, and are measured by really crude methods like "number of tickets closed within 30mins", meaning beahviours are poor and I have no ability to develop them because it's all run commercially at arms length and overseen by system / contract supplier managers who don't bear the pain at the user side.

This morning, another IT system has broken at 6am UK time, and I've just been on the phone / screen sharing to our internal support team (think of it like the IT department's own support team) and they have no idea when it will be fixed or why it broke. Another wasted 30mins of my time, without any fix. no ETA. I now have 20+ people who can't use a key internal collaboration tool as a result - and I have to face into their wrath as a result next. It's affecting their work day massively, but I have no ability to reward or punish the offshore team on this topic. I've already tracked impacts (number of users, hours of wasted time, lost productivity metrics) and reported it to senior management, but TBH most of the impacts are solved by delaying work, work done slapdash and quickly, or teams working late (me too!).

This morning, I feel like throwing my (utterly shite) laptop out the window, and have taken an early lunch to calm down; I never take lunch breaks as we're always too busy but i've snapped; if I keep doing more with less in my team, why am i fighting so hard to keep saving the day? I've had a bit of an epiphany - if I keep diving in to cover up the problems, i'm part of the problem. no one is ever going to save my team or help us out, i've tried the proper "professional" management ways, but i've had it. i need to step back and watch it all fall over, and be ok with that because our senior team seem to not give a crap - OR find another role.

I have also just read another doom and gloom UK economy story about how unproductive we all supposedly are, and AIBU to think - of course we're stagnant! We have a tax system that incentivises people to stop fulltime work when they get to a certain salary band (and those tax rates are not keeping pace at all with the cost of living), we don't pay or invest in our new grads well, we've offshored to hell, and I'm wondering why I work so hard, fighting for my team, doing things the long-winded proper way to seek investment only for my ask for funding to fix some of our systems properly denied... only to end up with no less stress because of it.

AIBU? Is it any better in other large UK employers? Is this normal these days or has my employer just let things rot worse than in other workplaces?

I'm really thinking of starting to look for another job but i know the job market is pretty terrible right now (we're on a hiring freeze ourselves!). I just am scared it'll be the same story in a different employer. Offshored teams, terrible systems, and the tax story driving people to do the best thing for them, which is to NOT work fulltime beyond a certain salary band.

Yes, at every UK company I've ever worked at, I have never had a computer good enough to do my job properly and have always provided my own equipment for this reason. Seriously. In 'tech'.

It's not like this at US companies. They have other (major) downsides, but the absolutely ridiculous attitude towards tech is just not present, IME.

It's been the same at every UK-owned company I've worked at. I'm now working for a US company (though from the UK, but we don't have many people based here) and am totally relearning what I thought I knew. The response to a laptop issue is 'well pop out to the Apple Store, replace it, put the cost on your company card/expense as a tech expense and get back to work'. All my American counterparts see this as the norm - if they're in an office with tech support the laptops just get traded out with minimal fuss. The mindset is very much your time is more important than faffing with tech to save a few pennies.

The last company I worked for had fancy London offices, (around £1,000 per head, per month), flew us around business class for meetings that could've been emails, and were paying pretty high salaries too - and yet you had to fight tooth and nail to replace a £400 laptop that regularly caused issues 🫠 Insane.

I hear you. Sadly that attitude is everywhere. I was a senior consultant for a major global company and they were so tight on investment my laptop was many years old and so shit. It finally stopped working during a huge client workshop and left me with no ppt to run the meeting so I had to use a flipchart. We were being paid ££££ for this. When I rang IT to explain what happened and complain, the guy on the end of the phone actually laughed. I worked so hard for this company and I realised then that they really didn't give a shit about me. I left shortly afterwards.

We once got our 10 year old thinkpads replaced as they were quite literally no longer fit for purpose and we could no longer persevere, they were 'upgraded' to another mass market model, nothing special.

Replacement co-incided with a visit from the chairman where we were told, completely seriously and unironically, to remember to thank him for the new laptops should we speak to him.

I completely agree OP

I used to work for a major market research company (US owned) and they built excel macros that make it impossible to use excel :d.

Whilst I’m not on board with the tax argument, I agree that offshoring functions like IT support and back-office transactions doesn’t work. Almost every business I’ve worked for has done it, though. Mostly plcs desperate to improve profitability by cutting costs.

What to do about it, I’m not sure! Offshoring usually happens in response to pressure from shareholders for better returns. Those shareholders are often pension funds. As soon as one operator in a particular industry does it, its competitors will be incentivised to do the same. So assuming that you work for the business I think you work for, A, I’m not sure that you would find anything different if you moved to a different business.

I can empathise with what you say about wasting hours of productive time waiting for IT fixes, or when suppliers haven’t been paid because the invoice has got lost in Chennai, and they cut off service because they can’t contact anybody to chase payment. So short sighted of the business.

Re the cheapskating on salaries for new entrants: I’ve experienced this when recruiting. I’ve been told by the internal recruiting team that graduates, even those with 2-3 years’ experience, are ten a penny and that the business didn’t need to pay them much, so there was no way of exceeding the low budget for the role. That is disappointing, and doesn’t help people like the OP attempting to manage delivery with the resources she has. Back when I was starting out (I’m 50) employers competed for good graduates, especially in STEM. Very different times.

😢 So if you're telling me this is a normal approach/attitude at large UK employers, it sounds like this isn't unique to my employer at all - christ. I really was not hoping to hear this and that the horror show i work within every day is some special Room 101 that I can eventually escape from/find a better option!

Alas, this is how things are now! Disappointing. Everything has to be as cheap as possible, even if it ends up being a false economy. I really hope that things improve for you.

Everyone on mumsnet is on 6 figures so I think you need to move job smartish.

UK business has been addicted to cheap labour for decades, at the expense of proper investment in virtually anything else. That's why we're stagnant, unproductive, and generally crap. It's one of the reasons why the current government is driving up the costs of employing someone so massively, to force investment in better productivity.

We also don't believe in management skills, so get crap management, which begets craply-run businesses. And as consumers and purchasers we don't buy on value, only price, so suppliers are engaged in a race to the bottom.

lack of investment by companies & government fuelled by low interest rates. Add crap wages & high taxes & it's a disaster. That's before you get onto the ageing population issue.

This isn't normal at any company I've worked for (mainly large multi national household names with £1bn+ turnover). It sounds like a shit show.

You sound like you're doing all the right things: logging tickets, measuring impacts, trying to resolve things for your internal customers / users. But the root causes aren't being fixed (off shoring to teams with limited capability, paying below market rate etc).

IIWY I'd look for another job. Your skill set sounds transferrable. It's not like that everywhere. Just don't mention all these issues when asked why you're leaving. Say "career progression" or "I wasn't looking but then your role came up and it's such a great match for my skill set that I wanted to apply" or something.

I work for a global company with 30,000+ employees, and we have very similar scenarios (altho our laptops are replaced)

The cost savings of lower paid resource offshore don't take into account the countless calls, teams chats etc trying to fix broken things, explain processes that aren't being followed etc

To your point on taxes and salary, it's an issue in my industry but the other end. We get higher salaries, but there is no incentive to earn over 100k, unless you're upwards of £130k (which barely anyone pays) , as you lose your personal allowance, tax rate goes up, lose child credit etc. Lots of people as a result stay at lower grade jobs, despite being talented and capable

FWIW, this is how I'd tackle the issues you mention, feel free to completely ignore. But IIWY I'd put most of my effort into job hunting.

• If part timers don't work for you, don't agree to part time working requests or make the part timers job share / be more effective.

• Pay: just get the best people you can get for the salaries being offered, it's out of your control.

• Offshored IT / support teams: all you can do is raise the tickets and raise the issues with whoever in your business holds the business relationship & is accountable for their performance (if there is someone). Stop the firefighting, lay the blame where it belongs.

• Tell them you need a new laptop or you can no longer provide the report. Ever.

• Refuse to accept the wrath of people when it is not your responsibility. "This is because x messed up, I cannot fix it." You're right to keep measuring the impacts. Don't stop doing that and keep alerting people to it but stay professional.

• Take breaks, if the work doesn't get done, it doesn't get done. That's a consequence of underinvesting in people. They need to see it but if you are papering over the cracks by working 100 hours they won't see it.

"I've had a bit of an epiphany - if I keep diving in to cover up the problems, i'm part of the problem. no one is ever going to save my team or help us out"
Agreed!

"i need to step back and watch it all fall over, and be ok with that because our senior team seem to not give a crap"
Agreed!

OR find another role
Agreed!

AIBU? Nope!

Is it any better in other large UK employers?
YES!

Is this normal these days or has my employer just let things rot worse than in other workplaces?
Not normal IME

I know it's hard but try to take the emotion out of it, keep calm, you can only do what it realistic. Look for another job. Good luck.

I expect your company will go bust eventually because this isn’t growth- and it doesn’t sound like they have any money- or aren’t prepared to reinvest more money in the business or growth. Eventually this won’t be tenable and they’ll be uncompetitive surely.
If I were you I’d be looking for a new employer. They clearly don’t appreciate you!

Im not on 6 figures.
I work the grave yard shift alnight in a factory.
Maybe im not normal on MN.

I am freelance but work in the creative industries and have seen pay rates not only remain stagnant but also go down. So many of my friends are struggling to get freelance work or paid work. Even in other industries I see friends sitting at desks all day giving their lives to some mediocre job with mediocre pay where if they died tomorrow they would be replaced the next day. I honestly think the only way to earn a living these days is become more entrepreurial. Sell something. There are many many ways to do this online. It's not easy but at least you get your time as your own and time is the most precious thing we have.

After 35 years in Telecoms and IT, working for some household name companies ime, its shite management inc board level that is at the root of the UKs problems.
These people have no idea what the "frontline" do nor do they care, even when they are involved MOD contracts, they are utterly incompetent, yet award themselves vast salaries.

Pre 2010's we had training, decent kit, were respected as employees, after that, just went down hill to the extent that we would be expected to use operating systems & hardware out of support or conversely, use s/w that was totally unproven for our business and support needs.

This time line tallies with the collapse of UK productivity, got even worse after Covid, with the employees response to shite management to then "Quietly Quit" Getting anyone to take any interest in a problem became next to impossible.

It took a lot to get DH job hunting despite how unsupported and unhappy he was - we also had to stay in area due to exam years in kids.

Eveyone else told him it was sector wide - and there are huge issues in sector - he started looking and now he's a lot happier. He has some of the same problems but has a more supportive upper management so isn't so alone fighting them.

So next job may well have some of the same problems - but maybe it will have a few less and may make your worklife more managable. So I'd start job hunting.

Well, I'm fortunate enough to have a working laptop and it's been a while since I worked anywhere that stupid with tech. Both experiences I've had of that mentality have been smaller organisations, interestingly. Am also in a line of work where offshoring isn't really applicable.

The tax thing is dead on though. People absolutely drop hours or avoid taking on new projects when SE to navigate the various cliff edges and bottlenecks in our tax system. Lots of MNers simply do not want to hear this though, especially if they don't sympathise with the person who's dropping their hours because they are too rich/poor.

Lots of MNers simply do not want to hear this though, especially if they don't sympathise with the person who's dropping their hours because they are too rich/poor.

People completely ignore how much wages have been devalued.

60k today is the equivalent to 48k in 2020 & 32k in 2000

this has been an eye-opener for me. I have always worked in the NHS and I assumed that private companies had gleaming offices with high-tech laptops and sleek operational processes. It’s quite disappointing that my vision has been crushed.

I also work for a large employer. We're paying less than other employers in the area from 50p to almost £5 per hour. Which makes it difficult to how and retain the right people.

@DateComing good lord, no. Some do I guess but I have never worked for one.

I don't know what happens in other countries but in the UK we seem to have ground to a halt. I even get told "can't contact Sue today, she's working at home".

the key word is "working". Of course we should contact her. I'm baffled.

@DateComing we've had fancy refurbished offices with state of the art coffee machines, standing desks etc (in a bid to get people back to the office 100%) but the money from employees' perspective would be better spent on not whittling all our core services down to the bone due to cost cutting.