Well let’s not impose a false binary; “toxic office culture” might well be an issue in some work places, but not in all. And hasn’t mental health worsened since working from home has increased? Other countries seem to combine higher productivity with better work life balance.
Working from home isn’t a solution to toxic office culture, neither does it address low productivity.
I always thought about being self employed. That way I could cut out the bull from management and the need to support someone else's profits.
Various offices I have worked in and some have been good and some have been bad. Usually bad management has been the problem - down right aggression. My solution was to move on as I wanted to do useful work. But other people might prefer to just sit tight as often the management was too incapable to actually get work out of people or discipline them properly.
You mean working which gives us the wherewithal to enjoy our lives? I guess elements of the population were too busy thinking about their great Covid bunk to consider that the workforce provides us with the goods and services that we all need, want and/or enjoy.
Hence part of the reason why everything is now more expensive, and contrary to how many people seem to understand it, falling inflation doesn’t mean prices fall, just that they’re *rising* less fast.
I think for many people they do not really think about work providing what the want or need. Just remember not everyone is as sensible, if they were sensible then there are many jobs that they would be over qualified for and so would not do.
It might come down to something simple like seeing the CASH you have earned at the end of EVERY WEEK is as deep as the motivation can get. Going back many years I knew of people who were completely rattled by the switch to monthly pay - and it happened more recently with those on benefits.
For many in low paid jobs the benefits system possibly provides more as the commuting costs are wiped out. Possibly a number of people worked it out at the end of Lockdown when they realised they did not want to go back to work.
That only holds true if, as an employer, you can get rid of a poor performer and replace them with someone better.
Notwithstanding the fact that it’s harder to dismiss someone for mediocre, as opposed to poor, performance, with the shortage of quality labour at the moment it may well be the case that either a replacement can’t be found, or the replacement is just as ineffective.
And if the workplace is something like a public-sector one, then getting rid of people for poor performance is somewhat harder.
Yes it is not that easy to get rid of "passengers" (rights not responsibilities). But also not easy to replace the slackers if the supply of good labour might not be there to compete with. Lets not forget we cut off the supply of workers from Europe. I saw a number of Europeans leave after we voted to leave Europe (sister in law saw all her French colleagues go back to France soon after we voted to leave - my guess is they took up vacancies in Paris before other French people did, I als saw a few leave from my workplace - or rather not replaced).
Absolutely. It’s extraordinary how many struggle to understand that at a conceptual level. Admittedly in my case an A level in economics means I have some insight into the basics (and
only the basics
), but it’s hardly a difficult concept for most reasonably switched on people to grasp - or so you’d think.
Don't assume everyone else could get to your level of understanding.
I’m sure there’s a lot of truth in that, but it doesn’t really explain why we do worse than comparator countries, unless we conclude that a. We have a lazier workforce than average (if so, why!?), and/or b. we have failed to properly balance our economy between service industries and other sectors for the past few decades.
Neither is exactly great, and I suspect both are true to some degree, and neither bode well for our future…
I am fairly sure that the UK work force has less of a work ethic than it did decades ago. Some of that is we teach children about their rights but seem to forget to impress upon them their responsibilities. Some of it is that work just does not seem so bearable these days.
I think all Covid19 and lockdowns has done is make some more people who would/did work lose the work ethic and thus show up deeper problems with the UKs work ethic.
I am rater struck with the notion many have that people in all levels of work should be smart enough and ambitious enough. On thing I have learnt in over 45 years of work is that many are not as ambitious etc as I am. We need those people and we need them to do what we would not do. So it is too simplistic to tar them with my own brush so to speak.
Not everyone is the same.
What I do think is many would tolerate their work if they had to commute less often - I look back on some of my commutes and would never do that again. I ended up working a walking distance from home - I took a pay cut for an opportunity but it actually roughly matched the savings in my commuting costs. After that I could never go back to commuting again by rail, I do not know how or why I endured it for so long. Many others will have seen the futility of commuting since Covid19 lockdowns so there is a new reluctance to succumb to the drudgery of travelling to work.
