After conversing with a number of people I know, some of whom I work with. Yes, I do work sometimes, I have come to observe a phenomenon known as the arsehole coefficient in the workplace.
For a company of size n, the arsehole coefficient is a, where a < n, unless you're really unlucky.
As people get pissed off with company, and the company offers voluntary redundancies and pay cuts, the good people in the company tend to go early because they are good people - they can be easily employed elsewhere, and can get decent salaries. As such, n decreases, a tends to stay the same, and the ratio of n to a increases - that's the arsehole coefficient.
The private sector is unknowingly or unthinkingly propagating this by not offering raises - some people I know haven't had a raise in 4 or 5 years - they've had the occasional bonus, but that's no use when you're talking to your mortgage people is it? The companies are not being brave enough to get rid of the fuckwits, and are generally being scared by the market at the moment.
As a result of this, they are haemorrhaging good staff who can seek a raise as they move to pastures new. It would seem that certain employers are hell bent on driving what few good remaining staff are there by making it more difficult for employees to stay (arsehole coefficient biting them there) and general bad feeling about their compensation - and yet I expect they'll wonder why their workforce is demotivated, their products are shite, and why the company is going down the pan.
Many of these companies are placing too much stock in their stock. (Whilst I do realise it is the duty of the directors to maximise the share price for the investors, it's also the duty of the board to ensure there's a company still there for there to maximise!)
The board is only interested in the share price - and companies are pressing on with share buy back schemes and so on, when it is clear that the stock market is in the middle of a wibble. They seem incapable of taking a long term view as opposed to a blinkered short term approach. The long term view of investing in their staff, and as such their product line for a pay off in the future, not a fast buck now.
If investors and management had any sense, they would insist that the long term stability of the company was put first. Short term fiddling of the stock prices by laying off staff, buying back shares, hiring contractors instead of permanent employees, and generally running the company in to the ground would be frowned upon since the long term stability of the company (and people's pension funds) would be jeopardised.
Long live the long term point of view.
