Changing culture of the workplace.

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Dave Herbal said:
All these modern companies sound great to work at. You’d be laughed out the room for suggesting some of these benefits at our place. The only thing that matters is profit, so anything that costs the company even £1 that they don’t need to spend is cut. We don’t get Friday afternoons off, unlike everyone else in the sector, and we don’t recognise bank holidays, cos the boss doesn’t understand family time.
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Why are you still there? How do they attract and retain people.
 


MonkeyLove said:
Why are you still there? How do they attract and retain people.
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They attract people by paying wages for doing work, as companies have done forever.
This concept of perks for staff is a modern thing that we’ve yet to embrace.
I’m still smiling at free fruit and table tennis.
We arrive at work, and work for 8 hours with half an hour lunch. You’re allowed 2 fag breaks or snack breaks. No eating outside of that. No mobile phones. Weekend working as and when required. You do get free coffee though.

They also have no interest in retaining staff. If someone leaves, they just raid the dole queue and train them again from scratch.
 
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Roger said:
In my lost job we could "buy leave" (in other words unpaid leave) and that worked well.
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Yeah, I've had that before but I think that's a bit different - you know where you stand, there's a minimum value.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's bad, just that I'm skeptical. Might work just fine for employees, or more likely it might depend on the culture of the workplace in which it is implemented.
 
Medulla said:
Yeah, I've had that before but I think that's a bit different - you know where you stand, there's a minimum value.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's bad, just that I'm skeptical. Might work just fine for employees, or more likely it might depend on the culture of the workplace in which it is implemented.
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It totally depends on the culture.

If you have a “manage by presenteeism” culture it absolutely won’t work. If you manage by what you deliver, then it’s not difficult.

In effect, I’ve got unlimited holidays right now. I work 28 hours a week and manage my own hours. I work from home when I want, and start and finish when I want. If I don’t work my 28 hours in a week, no one will know, and there’s no come back to me. When I have a long weekend away (Friday to Monday) I don’t take any holidays because I work my 28 hours in the other four days so I don’t need to.

If I don’t deliver my KPIs this year, then that’s up to me and I’ll get a bad rating and a lower bonus. If I want a higher bonus I’ll need to perform better (rather than be in the office more) and therefore I’ll have to make sure I deliver - which probably means taking fewer holidays/time off/short weeks. It’s all down to trust in the employee. And employees that feel trusted are more productive basically.
 
HellsBells said:
It totally depends on the culture.

If you have a “manage by presenteeism” culture it absolutely won’t work. If you manage by what you deliver, then it’s not difficult.

In effect, I’ve got unlimited holidays right now. I work 28 hours a week and manage my own hours. I work from home when I want, and start and finish when I want. If I don’t work my 28 hours in a week, no one will know, and there’s no come back to me. When I have a long weekend away (Friday to Monday) I don’t take any holidays because I work my 28 hours in the other four days so I don’t need to.

If I don’t deliver my KPIs this year, then that’s up to me and I’ll get a bad rating and a lower bonus. If I want a higher bonus I’ll need to perform better (rather than be in the office more) and therefore I’ll have to make sure I deliver - which probably means taking fewer holidays/time off/short weeks. It’s all down to trust in the employee. And employees that feel trusted are more productive basically.
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Exactly how it would work in an ideal world
 
HellsBells said:
It totally depends on the culture.

If you have a “manage by presenteeism” culture it absolutely won’t work. If you manage by what you deliver, then it’s not difficult.

In effect, I’ve got unlimited holidays right now. I work 28 hours a week and manage my own hours. I work from home when I want, and start and finish when I want. If I don’t work my 28 hours in a week, no one will know, and there’s no come back to me. When I have a long weekend away (Friday to Monday) I don’t take any holidays because I work my 28 hours in the other four days so I don’t need to.

If I don’t deliver my KPIs this year, then that’s up to me and I’ll get a bad rating and a lower bonus. If I want a higher bonus I’ll need to perform better (rather than be in the office more) and therefore I’ll have to make sure I deliver - which probably means taking fewer holidays/time off/short weeks. It’s all down to trust in the employee. And employees that feel trusted are more productive basically.
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Good post, and I largely agree. I've just started a new job and they make a big deal of responsibility, accountability and trust - being trusted to manage your own time and workload definitely gets results. That said, companies can only do this effectively if they trust in their recruitment of staff and understand the importance of leisure time to absolutely everything, including their results.

It's rare.
 
HellsBells said:
It totally depends on the culture.

If you have a “manage by presenteeism” culture it absolutely won’t work. If you manage by what you deliver, then it’s not difficult.

In effect, I’ve got unlimited holidays right now. I work 28 hours a week and manage my own hours. I work from home when I want, and start and finish when I want. If I don’t work my 28 hours in a week, no one will know, and there’s no come back to me. When I have a long weekend away (Friday to Monday) I don’t take any holidays because I work my 28 hours in the other four days so I don’t need to.

If I don’t deliver my KPIs this year, then that’s up to me and I’ll get a bad rating and a lower bonus. If I want a higher bonus I’ll need to perform better (rather than be in the office more) and therefore I’ll have to make sure I deliver - which probably means taking fewer holidays/time off/short weeks. It’s all down to trust in the employee. And employees that feel trusted are more productive basically.
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You get a bonus for not delivering your KPIs?
 
HellsBells said:
It totally depends on the culture.

If you have a “manage by presenteeism” culture it absolutely won’t work. If you manage by what you deliver, then it’s not difficult.

In effect, I’ve got unlimited holidays right now. I work 28 hours a week and manage my own hours. I work from home when I want, and start and finish when I want. If I don’t work my 28 hours in a week, no one will know, and there’s no come back to me. When I have a long weekend away (Friday to Monday) I don’t take any holidays because I work my 28 hours in the other four days so I don’t need to.

If I don’t deliver my KPIs this year, then that’s up to me and I’ll get a bad rating and a lower bonus. If I want a higher bonus I’ll need to perform better (rather than be in the office more) and therefore I’ll have to make sure I deliver - which probably means taking fewer holidays/time off/short weeks. It’s all down to trust in the employee. And employees that feel trusted are more productive basically.
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Why do you get a bonus at all for missing your KPIs and not the sack? Sounds like rewarding failure.
 
Dave Herbal said:
Also, what jobs are people doing where they can complete a task and then take time off?
At our place there’s always another task to begin.
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I'm busy at certain points of a month and not so busy at others so at the quiet times I'm lucky if I work 5 hours a day, busy times I do the full 8
 
Dave Herbal said:
Also, what jobs are people doing where they can complete a task and then take time off?
At our place there’s always another task to begin.
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I tend to work on long term projects rather than specific short term tasks so there's shit loads of leeway between the milestones, and it's generally accepted that milestones are only rough lines in the sands anyway and likely to be shifted for a variety of reasons, many not in my control.
 
daveydavey said:
In my experience many companies are making ,or considering making, changes to the way they employ staff. None of the ideas below are new but I am seeing a big trend in companies looking at stuff like this. (I work in engineering recruitment, so speak with employers trying to attract talent almost everyday)

Some of the positive initiatives I have seen an upward trend in recently are:

  • Unlimited holidays
  • Reduced working hours
  • Work from home
  • Greater recognition & support of mental health issues*
  • Office dogs
  • Better breakout areas (pool tables, table tennis etc.) - Summed up by the WeWork offices I guess
  • Improved benefits packages around private healthcare, gym memberships, social clubs etc.

*I think all of these things relate back to this point.

These are all initiatives I like, and I'd like to adopt them across the board in my current company if possible. We've recently reduced our working hours and made them more flexible. I think the unlimited holidays idea is really good & that an office dog would be class too, but we work in serviced offices that don't allow it.

I wondered what experiences people have had good or bad with their employers introducing initiatives like this - what has worked well? what would you like to see?
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We have most of those at our place already and people still moan like fuck.

A couple of them like unlimited holidays and shorter working hours aren’t feasible due to service levels but things like the breakout/rest areas, mental health, wellbeing, benefits, flexitime have been available for years.
 
Dave Herbal said:
Also, what jobs are people doing where they can complete a task and then take time off?
At our place there’s always another task to begin.
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The people commenting on this thread must work for multi national companies down south or summit .Ive never heard nothing like it ,but then I won’t I suppose being working class from the poorest part of sunderland

Tadger said:
We have most of those at our place already and people still moan like fuck.

A couple of them like unlimited holidays and shorter working hours aren’t feasible due to service levels but things like the breakout/rest areas, mental health, wellbeing, benefits, flexitime have been available for years.
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What sector do you work in now ?
 
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42 said:
Its got nowt to do with me. Its just an example of how public sector workers can get discounts on entry to themeparks/cinema & shopping etc which you claimed never existed.
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Get reductions in a lot of chain restaurants aswell I think. There's a website with them all on but I've never bothered with it tbh.
 
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