Flexible hours, sick pay and meals: British workers get a better deal

BRIGHTON, England, Oct 2 (Reuters) – For Josh Hughes-Davies, the best thing about his job at a bar in the seaside town of Brighton is the free food every shift.

For his manager, Barrie Chapman, the overtime he now receives is a huge boost never before seen in the hospitality sector. Her regional manager, Jen Eaton, remembers with horror the 14-hour shifts she once worked in casinos in heels and without breaks.

Like thousands of people in the lowest-paid sectors of the British economy, the three have benefited from a gradual improvement in employment conditions since the global pandemic and Brexit forced companies to work harder to find staff in a market adjusted work.

The change comes after years of warnings from unions and campaign groups that the balance of power in Britain had shifted too much towards employers, leaving many lower-paid employees working unpredictable hours with poor benefits and few protections.

Nick Collins, CEO of Loungers (LGRS.L) which employs Eaton, Chapman and Hughes-Davies among its 8,000 staff in restaurants and bars across Britain, said expectations of employees had risen.

“And rightly so. The combination of Brexit and COVID has transformed the market,” he told Reuters.

Conversations with 18 company bosses, human resources managers, a union, economists, recruitment groups and workers suggest that large employers in hospitality, retail, logistics and security are offering more flexibility in working hours, better financial support for sick leave or private medical care and other benefits.

Since the pandemic, the American giant Amazon UK (AMZN.O) has joined retailers Tesco (TSCO.L) and Marks & Spencer (MKS.L)as well as the XPO logistics group (XPO.N) and the security company G4S, by offering flexible employment contracts.

Global recruiting firm Indeed told Reuters there has been a steady increase in the percentage of positions offering paid sick leave over the past 18 months, including in hospitality and other lower-paid sectors such as healthcare.

Tesco, Britain’s largest private sector employer, now offers its 310,000 employees a private online GP.

And data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that the percentage of people who say they are happy with their schedules has been at the highest level over the past year since 2007.

SALARY INCREASES

While the measures may increase costs and complexity for employers, the former finance director of a FTSE 100 company said businesses had no choice as staff retention had become a hot topic when workers were hard to find. .

The executive who sits on the boards of other companies said he expected the use of automation and the search for efficiencies to grow as labor costs rise. He asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The British labor market began to tighten in 2021 as older people took early retirement during the global pandemic, Europeans returned home after Britain left the EU and increasing numbers were too ill to work.

With just under 1 million vacancies still open, it has been a factor behind Britain’s stubbornly high inflation rate. It hit 11.1% in October before falling to 6.7% in August, still one of the highest of any major economy.

That has forced major employers, such as supermarkets, logistics groups and large coffee and food chains, to increase salaries multiple times in the last 18 months, and even resort to making counter offers to prevent staff from leaving. part.

Regular pay, excluding bonuses, was 7.8% higher in the three months to July than a year earlier – the fastest joint growth since comparable records began in 2001.

Loungers said that while their overall wage costs had increased, profits had continued to grow and staff loyalty had increased.

At its “Alcampo Lounge” location in Brighton, staff can get a free meal per shift, flexible hours, bonuses and overtime for salaried employees. They also have some weekends off and avoid having to work late and then open early.

While the fast-growing company had always prided itself on offering above-average wages and decent conditions, some of those changes have come since the pandemic.

“There has been a tendency in hospitality to work staff hard, to not treat them very well, because there was always another person coming in,” said head chef Chris Lloyd-Rogers.

“That’s changing because of the way the world is now,” he said, referring to the many Eastern Europeans who used to work in kitchens but left Britain after Brexit and the pandemic.

WORK SATISFACTION

Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), said that as the labor market tightened, companies were trying to provide flexibility and job satisfaction to attract those who had left the workforce.

While Britain had one of the highest minimum wages in the world compared to average wages even before the current labor shortage, it lagged far behind in the area of ​​minimum employee benefits, according to the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development.

“That’s why people leave work and that’s what keeps people coming back,” Wilson said.

Recruitment website Indeed said its regular survey of job seekers showed the most valued benefits were flexible working and sick pay.

Retailer M&S, which provides meals to warehouse workers and gift cards at Christmas, said more women had taken up store management roles after it allowed retail managers to share jobs or do a compressed four-day week.

“The pandemic certainly accelerated our focus on making flexibility work for our store managers,” said Chief Human Resources Officer Sarah Findlater.

Fiona Walters, director of British security and outsourcing group G4S, said allowing staff, including prison guards, to work shorter or split shifts increased the complexity and cost of managing the workforce.

But he said it had helped recruit more women and there had also been a small drop in the rate of staff leaving.

“We’re seeing green shoots,” he said.

Over the past year, the number of working-age people who say they are unemployed because they are taking care of their family or home – a group of which 85% are women – fell by 167,000, or a decline of 10%. , according to ONS statistics. .

However, the Resolution Foundation think tank says that despite recent changes, there is still a stark divide between sick pay and maternity leave that workers can get depending on whether they are in well-paid or low-paid jobs. paid.

Indeed data from the past 18 months showed that only 8.9% of hospitality and tourism job postings offered paid sick leave, although that was still a big jump from 4.5% when they started looking at the trend. for the first time in March 2022.

However, the labor market is showing clear signs of cooling as the economy slows, raising the question of whether employers will maintain the new approach to hiring and retention.

Wilson, of the IES, said employers would have to get used to stricter conditions overall due to the country’s aging population and stricter immigration controls, and that could be bad news for smaller businesses struggling to compete.

Amit Puntambekar has to work 90 hours a week at the supermarket he runs near Cambridge – and rely on the help of his elderly parents – because he cannot match the pay and benefits offered by the big supermarket chains to attract enough staff, despite paying more than the minimum wage.

“I don’t know what to do,” Puntambekar said.

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