I was chatting with a friend who told me a story about a place he worked in a few years ago. The staff in his department were fed up paying high prices for takeaway coffee, so they decided to chip together and buy one of those fancy bean-to-cup machines for their break room. All was well for a few months. He and his colleagues enjoyed their freshly brewed coffee, and all was well with the world—until.
The organisation was doing one of those annual electrical inspections. This will be familiar to any public servants or if you have ever worked for a large company. Basically, some bucko goes around and checks everything with a plug to make sure its ‘safe’. I don’t know about you but I have never had an appliance burst into flames and in 30 years of working in IT I have never seen any tech spontaneously combust either but health and safety and all that.
It can seem excessive, but in addition to the obvious things like computers, every kettle, screen, fan, and other sundries also get tested, and a wee sticker gets applied to the cable saying “electrical checked” and the date.
Anyhoo, Bucko comes to the coffee machine, and it’s not on his asset register list of electrical items, so instead of just checking it, he slaps an unauthorised appliance sticker on it and bans its use.
As you can imagine, this did not go down well with the staff the next day. Do they ignore the warnings and use away at the machine? Is it a disciplinary offence if they do? Anger and confusion descended. They decided to hold off using the machine until they could get clarity.
For the next few weeks, performance in that department plummeted. People were annoyed about their coffee being taken away, and they did not take it well. They went on the go slow, went home early, and took more days off—they were not happy bunnies.
This continued until someone in management noticed the plunging performance stats and decided to investigate. They assumed the worst: bullying, harassment, something was really unsettling those staff. So when the big boss arrived they were very surprised to be told that all this was done to a coffee machine. In the end the fix was simple. The boss phoned the bucko with the fuse screwdriver, told him in no uncertain to inspect the machine and verify it. This was done and all was well in the world.
What’s the point of this tale? Well, I was reading in this mornings BelTel about staff parking issues at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. From the article:
More than half the staff who apply for a parking permit at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital won’t get one, health officials have warned.
From May 1 around 2,000 “will not be successful in obtaining a staff parking permit”, employees have been told.
The news has sparked anger, with some workers claiming they will face much longer commuting times on public transport or major travel inconvenience, with others fearing that day parking in surrounding streets will cause friction with residents.
Now you can argue about whether staff should be given free parking. Maybe you don’t get free parking in your place of work so why should RVH staff get it? But this is not the issue I want to talk about. The issue is how things like this are often a tipping point for staff.
You might be a doctor or consultant living in Country Down and working in the Royal. Taking away your free parking might be the straw the breaks the camels back. Instead of turning left when you leave your house you might decide to turn right and take a job in a hospital in one of the Hospitals in Dundalk or Drogheda. In the south they have taken the decisions to stuff doctors and consultants mouths with gold and it is no exaggeration to say you could double your salary working down south. And if you live in Derry is it really much of a hassle to work in Letterkenney? If you live in Fermanagh Sligo General is an easy commute – you get the idea.
At the other end of the scale, the cleaner on minimum wage may decide that if they now need to pay parking out of their already low salary they would be better off working in their local Lidl rather than clean up the bodily fluids of the sick
The point I am trying to make is politicians often focus on pay solely, but very often, it is a thousand small reasons why people are attracted to jobs or, more importantly, why they leave.
I am luckily in that I can work from home. Also I work in tech which is famous for plus offices. Stories abound of free snacks and lunches, unlimited drinks and other perks. Cynics might argue that the reason they do this is to keep their mostly young workforce working as much as possible but still it’s nice to have.
Every now and again when I am forced to visit the real world I am shocked how awful some workplaces are. Loud open plan offices where you can’t hear yourself think. Harsh florescent lights. Heating that alternates being roasting and freezing.
What’s your experience? What are the small things that made you leave a job or more importantly why you stayed.
Managing Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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