I learned a very important lesson about employment recently

[northernladyuk]

Ultimately a company can kick employees to the curb when things are going tough.

In a company I am working at redundancies are happening and I am seeing loyal employees go, and even those who returned back to the company only less than a year ago. The experienced ones left as soon as the company was bought out by a private equity firm.

Listening to a colleague at a canteen table over coffee one of them revealed they turned down £13,000 less from another company to join this one so he could learn more meant nothing when they gave him the redundancy notice.

How can there be such double standards? In interviews the companies question your loyalty and tenures in the past yet totally screw down employees when times are tough. I suppose they are the ones with cash and control.

But it's just horrible to see what is happening at the moment. In the last 12 months more than ever I have experienced office politics and seeing redundancies and it's taught me that ultimately your career is a business and you have to separate work from personal things and not look at companies through rose tinted glasses as some entities that will have your back when times are tough.

The words 'wedgie' and 'dinner money' spring to mind.

[BR14]

The words 'wedgie' and 'dinner money' spring to mind.

cruel, you are, - cruel !

[HealthyProtein]

Some great posts.

I suppose to balance out, there are some large good companies that do try to look after their employees. I read on BBC news a few weeks ago about how Aviva helped their employees with mental issues.

I guess it's business, nothing personal as the saying goes.

[Lost It]

I'm not in IT, I build things. I'm still a contractor. Company I'm with now, well as a contractor, when I was diagnosed with cancer 4 years ago they could have just said "Tata, come back when you are fit. Or not".

Instead of which they "invented" work that I could do at home for two or three days a week, tidy this document up, sort out the stuff saved on the server, write the package for this job that isn't starting for 3 months, that kind of thing. Couple of hours a day or "whatever I could manage".
And paid me my rate for three days a week until I got myself fit post op and ready to work full time again. 8 weeks of that, much better than Sick benefit.

Yes there are still companies out there that look after you. Even as a subbie. Few and far between, but I've been a subbie for so long now I wouldn't known how to be permie. I'd have to pretend to like people who I think are wazzoks.

Biggest problem it causes me is when I get other companies head hunting me and offering more when I'm in the middle of a project and my conscience says "Yes but".

Which is where I am right now...

[SueEllen]

Some great posts.

I suppose to balance out, there are some large good companies that do try to look after their employees. I read on BBC news a few weeks ago about how Aviva helped their employees with mental issues.

I guess it's business, nothing personal as the saying goes.

What is said in the news is just advertising and not completely true as the problem in large companies is your feeling of the company depends on how good your own managers are. So if you get good managers they tend to cushion you from the sh*t in the company, there as poor ones add to it.

I have known plenty of different people work in work in different sectors of the same large companies. One sector is treated well while the rest are treated like sh*t. The ones in the sector that is treated well then don't understand why some of those in the other sectors moan, want to go on strike etc. and cannot believe their company is actually a bad employer for a large percentage of their workforce.