New research has found – surprise, surprise – that a vast number of British workers, both contractors and traditional employees, are unhappy with their work.
A new survey has found that one out of every three workers has professed to feeling under-utilised in their current position. Not only that but an additional 27 per cent said that they were working in roles that were beneath them when it comes to their level of talent – in other words, their managers weren’t using them to their full abilities.
Honestly I can’t say that I’m even one bit surprised by this news. It’s no secret that firms sometimes have absolutely no idea how to manage their staff when it comes to using them as efficiently as possible. Even when it comes to using freelancers and umbrella company contractors, my experience has been that firms and employers taking you on for a project are more interested in their bottom line than getting the most out of their workers. This is of course a terrible shame considering how wonderfully talented self-employed Brits can be; the same is true for much of the UK’s traditionally employed workforce as well.
I suppose on the one hand it’s the prerogative of the business owner to conduct his company however he or she sees fit, regardless of whether they are technically doing it right or wasting potential. For many employers, their main concern is if they can complete a project as quickly and as inexpensively as possible in order to maximise their profit margin, but more and more evidence is emerging that this is most likely the wrong way to go about doing things.
So is there a better way? For what it’s worth, I don’t know if employers are ever going to actually going to shape up. We would need a sea change amongst British business owners in the way they view prospective employees and contract workers in order for this to become a reality and it would most likely take some sort of catastrophic failure to bring about this change. Many industry experts have wagered that the skills shortage could play this role, especially if it goes unchecked; however the more cynical amongst the crowd – myself included – simply say that British firms will just outsource roles overseas to eager individuals willing to be paid peanuts.
