If you're an employer, that's likely your first reaction to the idea that working people can be financially excluded - yes, even when they work for your company, which pays above the minimum wage, and has salary review points every three years, and six months fully paid maternity leave (which is quite burdensome for you to offer, actually, and you really wish people would be a bit more appreciative...)
While the ways in which demographics which are excluded from employment - the aged, those with significant-impact disabilities, those with full-time kinship care responsibilities, asylum seekers, those who seem to have no barriers, but "just can't get a job for some reason" - are also excluded from the very real and obvious benefits of financial security - better mental and physical health, more opportunities for enrichment activities and genuinely restorative vacations, more opportunities to socialise, more access to people who can offer advancement, and both tangible and intangible support, the ability to delegate the 'drudge work' of 'life admin' and household chores - are clearly obvious (to anyone who isn't stubbornly prejudiced about "people who aren't contributing to society", at least), it may seem impossible that people who are employed, in paid jobs - often in roles paying above the minimum wage, and those offering "good" salaries "considering the local area" could be experiencing similar challenges around financial inclusion. It actually seems outrageous to even consider that people working for you, collecting that "perfectly adequate" salary, which is actually very challenging for you as an employer to provide, could be "struggling" in any way. Unless, of course, they are just completely feckless and disorganised - in which case, maybe they don't actually deserve the very considerable level of trust and responsibility they enjoy through their employment with you...
But you don't know what the demands on your individual employees are.
Jon and Debbie are both in the same salary band, they're both paid the same - no problem, right?
Debbie is married to Gina, who has a £45k a year salary from her own job. Both Debbie and Gina's parents are comfortably wealthy in their own rights, and so they combined resources to buy the house that the couple lives in outright, as a wedding gift, on the understanding that, should Debbie and Gina ever choose to move home, they will be applying as first-time buyers (and thus potentially be eligible for government assistance), as the house is in a Ltd Company's name, and the property that was gifted to them will be the initial asset in a joint real estate portfolio held by the two sets of parents. Debbie's grandparents provided her with her inheritance "early", enabling her to attend university without taking out student loans.
Debbie also has a child from a previous relationship, for whom she gets full child benefit, as her own £27,500 salary, and Gina's £45,000 salary (a total of £72,500, with a combined take-home income of £59,238) doesn't come near impacting the amount of child benefit that can be paid. Debbie also receives £230 per month maintenance from her child's father. Her mother is retired, and happy to collect her grandchild from school, and look after her when necessary. Gina works from home three days per week as standard, and Debbie is able to work from home by request, so there is limited anxiety about how they will look after their daughter during school holidays, or when she is ill. The child's father has visitation every other weekend, allowing Debbie and Gina to enjoy quality time together. Both Debbie and Gina's parents are in good health, with private medical insurance. Their mothers are both retired, with private pensions in addition to their State entitlements, and their fathers are both still working, both in well-paid, low-physical-demand jobs.
Jon's wife is unable to work owing to multiple significant-impact disabilities. His mother is a widow, and in poor health; while not yet of retirement age, she is also unable to work, and relies on Jon to support her, as it isn't possible for her to live with Jon and his wife, or for them to live with her, owing to logistical considerations in both cases. Jon is paying full rent and council tax - his £27,500 gross income prevents his wife from claiming Universal Credit, and her application for PIP was refused, and she does not feel mentally strong enough to cope with an appeal. His landlord has also just served them notice, as Jon is unable to afford the recently-increased rent; the landlord is refusing to return Jon's deposit, as his wife's wheelchair has caused damage to the property's interior. Jon is desperately trying to find suitable, accessible rental properties within his budget, but this is proving nearly impossible. He has approached the local council on several occasions, but has been told he doesn't meet their criteria for social housing - on the last occasion, it was rudely suggested that he simply divorce his wife, as "her not working's the problem, isn't it?" As well as providing direct financial assistance to his mother on an ad-hoc basis, Jon is also paying off debts she incurred in the wake of his father's death three years ago, as well as repaying his own student loan (a degree is a mandatory requirement for this field.)
On top of the very real challenges Jon is facing, he is also going to be facing the emotional stress of having to constantly hear about how Debbie is actually 'deprivileged financially' because of the 'gender pay gap'; depending on his colleagues' and employer's attitudes, and the culture in his workplace generally, as well as whether the workplace is skewed more female or male in terms of staff demographics, he may be under subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, pressure to 'do more for' the women in his workplace - whether directly, by standing aside where promotions are concerned, or indirectly, by accepting that he will "just have to" pick up the 'slack' of their workloads when they have childcare challenges, are on maternity leave, or are taking advantage of additional 'women's health leave' policies which the company is receiving a tax break for implementing. On top of all of this, he will be facing the near-daily barrage of "Yes, ALL MEN!" that has become the filler for both mainstream and digital media, with the only 'respite' being the equally boorish attitudes of deeply toxic men, whom Jon would never consider as his allies or his role models. He is also still processing his own grief around the loss of his father, as his mother's demands on him during her own grieving meant he wasn't able to go through a normal bereavement process himself. While his mother was able to get a year's "Widows' Allowance", and then collapse into being "too unwell to even think about work", on top of the income from his father's life insurance, Jon was given a week's unpaid compassionate leave, and then directly told that "getting back to normal" would be "the best thing for him."
The company Jon and Debbie work for prides itself on "being a family" - which, in practice, means every time some life event occurs for a member of staff, from pregnancy to engagement to divorce, and including serious illness, there's a 'whip-round' that, while it's not officially mandatory to contribute to, those who don't cough up are frequently 'reminded' about, with multiple prompts of 'ways they can pass on their contribution.'
On staff members' birthdays, the staff member whose birthday it is is expected to "bring in cakes and treats" for the rest of the office, and everyone is expected to pay towards the cost of the summer 'team activity day' - which can run into the hundreds of pounds - and the team Christmas lunch. Jon has never actually been able to attend the Christmas lunch, as it's always outside of working hours, and partners and children are very firmly not invited, or welcome - "because it's about us, and an opportunity to genuinely bond as a team!", and Jon doesn't want to leave his wife on her own when he isn't technically obliged to. He tried to raise this fact as a reason why he should be exempt from contributing to the Christmas party fund, but was sternly admonished that that "wouldn't be fair on everyone else!", and reminded that "no one at the company was preventing him from joining in - other people shouldn't suffer for his choices."
Elsewhere in the company, Leanne, who earns less than Jon and Debbie, as she is in a different role, is having to pay for taxis to and from work, as she has a disability which prevents her from driving, and the office isn't accessible by public transport. She has asked if she could work from home, but was told that was "not suitable for staff at her level." She knows that's technically illegal, but she can't afford to challenge the company, or to lose her job by kicking up too much of a stink - she's a single mother to two young children, one of whom isn't in school yet, and she's already struggling trying to cover the gap between the childcare the State will pay for, and the hours she has to work. Both of her parents passed away before she was thirty, and her children's father has never once paid the maintenance he's supposed to.
Gregg was recently evicted, as his landlord decided to sell. Unable to secure another rental, and told his income makes him ineligible for consideration for social housing, Gregg is currently living in his car.
The 'safety net' that employers assume will 'be there' for any of their employees who 'run into a spot of bother' has rotted through, been deliberately cut, and has never actually been large enough to catch everyone that ends up falling in Britain anyway.
An obsessive hyperfixation on "the gender gap" has thrown under the bus many people who are facing extreme financial pressures despite being in full time employment.
Additional Exclusions
Dexter is looking to get his first job. Raised by his grandmother after his parents died in a car crash when he was just eight years old, Dexter has a strong work ethic, is a keen learner, and naturally personable.
His grandmother is retired, and on a very small State pension, because she was out of the workforce for several years, first raising her own daughter, and then taking Dexter on. She is trying to find part-time work, but it's not easy; not only is she dismissed as "too old" by many employers, the council estate they live on has a bad reputation, and people from there are not seen as "suitable" by many employers.
Despite having done well at school, and getting a lot of interviews, Dexter is finding it hard to get a job, as he doesn't have the money for the 'right' interview clothes, and is very self-conscious about his clearly charity-shop suit and clunky school shoes when he goes for interviews where other candidates are far more slickly presented, even if they're wearing more casual clothes. In his most recent interview, he spent the first five minutes being shouted at for "looking like some kind of half-rat scruff" because he'd had to walk twenty-five minutes from the bus station, and had been caught in a sudden, intense rain storm, when he'd come out without a coat.
Increasingly, more and more jobs are insisting on applicants having a full driving licence and their own car - Dexter can't afford driving lessons, and without a job, he knows he'll never be able to get a car, even if there were a way he could get free driving lessons. A lot of jobs are also expecting him to already have a DBS clearance, but you have to pay for that. Dexter was actually offered a job six months ago, but the offer was revoked when he "couldn't prove his Right to Work in the UK" - his Jobcentre work coach had told him he just needed his birth certificate and national insurance number, but the company told him he had to have photo ID, which he can't afford. The Jobcentre paid for him to get a Citizencard, but the company's HR officer said they couldn't accept it, as it "wasn't technically government-issued ID." She claimed they could "only take a passport or a national ID card." The Jobcentre told Dexter he "must have got confused, because that's clearly wrong", and sanctioned him for 'turning down viable employment'.
Tony's father is in a care home. He didn't qualify for council funding, as he "owned his own home" - except that's also the home Tony lives in, and he wouldn't be able to afford to rent somewhere else where they'd accept his two dogs, who have been an absolute godsend for his mental health over the past five years since his father's health seriously deteriorated. The care home was the cheapest Tony could find, and he really doesn't feel it's right for his Dad - but it's still costing £1,000 a week. Tony shares the cost with his two sisters, who are both also working full time, but each of them is having to work two jobs just to afford their share. Fortunately, both of Tony's jobs are fully remote - they're both full time, and neither employer knows about the other. There've been some very close calls, but, so far, Tony's managed to keep all the plates spinning; it's fortunate everyone in the UK is resigned to broadband being a bit rubbish. Tony's younger sister lives with their elder sister and her husband; neither of the sisters can live with Tony in their father's house, as it's not near their jobs. Kelly, the younger sister, has accepted she won't be able to get her own place, or start a family, until her father passes away - which his doctor has told them could be as much as ten years in the future.
If you're thinking "Yeah, but this is just extreme, worst-case-scenarios" - it's not.
Yes, Tony, Kelly, Dexter, Tamsin, Leanne, Gregg, Jon, and Debbie are all "made up", I know countless people, personally, who are in the exact situations I've described here. The same kinds of workplaces, facing the same barriers to even getting employment in the first place. Dealing with the same societal attitudes, the same casual assumption from their employers, and wider society, that "the State'll step in if things do go badly wrong for folk." The same refusal of the State to step in at all, the same claims of a "lack of resources", while the State can 'resource' tax breaks for businesses, expensive public events, grace-and-favour residences for wealthy individuals, expenses for its MPs, subsidised food and drink in government buildings, seemingly endless vanity projects, and the maintenance of a more or less purposeless monarchy.
Financial exclusion begins with the cost of getting the "right" pieces of paper to "prove" that you're allowed to be employed in the UK in the first place - even getting a replacement birth certificate, if the original has been lost, or is with a toxic parent who won't allow access to it, costs money. Passports are the best part of £100, with additional costs for digitally processable photographs, and for people who are transgender, or whose name has changed - through marriage, adoption, or other circumstances - from what is recorded on their birth certificate.
It continues through regular in-work demands to contribute to whip-rounds, pay in for team activities, and self-fund required professional development.
It is exacerbated by the costs of obtaining a Partnership in the professions, and the assumption that, just because someone is a white cisgender man, they're "fine", and, actually, very likely doing better than other colleagues at the same pay grade.
It ends in the casualness and callousness with which people are dismissed when their labour is considered "too expensive", or accommodations for their disabilities are seen as "too burdensome" to the company.
How many of you who are leaders and managers have ever actually asked individual members of your staff, your team, what their non-negotiable financial commitments are? How many of you know how many other adults each of your employees has to support financially, beyond themselves? Do you know who isn't receiving maintenance payments that they should be receiving, who is paying maintenance they can ill-afford? Do you know which of your employees are having to somehow find the money for care home fees for aged and infirm parents, or for in-home carers for disabled family members? Do you know how much the parents in your company are actually paying in childcare so they can meet your "mandatory in-office" expectations, or actually do your hospitality, factory, care, or retail-sector jobs, which can't be worked remotely?
When you let people "organise a whip-round", do you ensure it's immediately after payday, or do you just assume people will "always have a bit to spare", no matter what point in the pay cycle it is?
Do you really need photographic ID to "allow" someone to take up employment with you? Does their role actually require a DBS check? Why can't you accept evidence of their national insurance number that's more than 12mths old? What is the reason you're claiming that a car and driving licence is a "mandatory requirement" for a role that isn't driving-related?
Comments
Post a Comment