Heartless Britain - will attitudes ever change?

Because your invective makes you sound angry PippaZ and I suspect many people will get stuck on the anger and miss the salient points you make.
For instance I asked you a question, not to be sardonic, but to better understand your point. I barely got to the second part of your response because your assumption that I was attacking you took over. I wasn't, I'm not but I can't be arsed to read any more of your posts because they're a bit exhausting to be honest. Which is a shame because you do often say interesting and persuasive things.

I imagine some people might feel the same about mine.

You are still saying that, during the pandemic, an individual’s level of performance at work is important in determining whether they lost their job at this time.

Not the fact that swaths of businesses are not active or will disappear completely. According to you each one of those people's individual performance - when entire businesses and possibly industries close - is the reason why their job disappeared.

Do you think it could be that more Conservative voters are bosses/business owners and therefore know how/why folks are chosen to be let go ?

Labour voters could be said to always stick up for the workers as opposed to understanding management/employers?

Not my opinion by the way, just trying to add to the discussion.

I take your point Elegran but the research didn't blame "heartless Conservative bosses" and the very fact that we have ended up talking about that detracts from results of the survey, I think.

Maybe I've missed someone blaming heartless Conservative bosses somewhere in this long thread, but the OP was asking about all kinds of people who might think someone loses their jobs in this pandemic because of their own bad performance. Not because we are in an unprecedented economic downturn. The research says that people who think that way area slightly more likely to be Conservative voters than Labour voters.

No judgement, just the results. And for many people, their first reaction to that is one of victimisation and the desire to undermine the people who did the research, based on nothing at all.

There is a lot of misdirection going on here.

Why do people lose their jobs? Because the mines close; because the factories are off-shored; because the boss is an idiot and goes out of business; because technology improves; because a pandemic happens. I'm sure you can think of more reasons.

So, 57% of Conservative think an individual’s performance at work is important in determining whether they lost their job at this during the pandemic while only 39% of Labour voters do. Which group do you think knows most about having the rug pulled from under them because of outside influences?

The point is the performance is being judged in this study against the backdrop of a pandemic and after many "working class" jobs had already disappeared into the global economy.

How, please tell me, can that be the fault of Joe Bloggs who up to now has produced acceptable work? Yes, that will be true of a very small percentage, just as it is true that some bosses are incompetent, but let's not tar everyone out of work - or even half of them - with the same brush. The research was about attitudes to inequality; something which may have added to a person's difficulty in getting a job in the first place and, in my opinion, might well not make it easy for them to get back into work. Belittling them is really not going to help them or the country although it may make the odd individual feel better.

Alegrias The boss has to consider all those details. He/she should know all the circumstances of all their employees and whether they can be shuffled around to fill a different niche, or working or admin patterns changed. Flexibility (by all concerned) could make the difference between keeping going until better times or going under.

My point is that no-one should condemn the "heartless Conservative bosses" until they have experienced running a business and having to make hard decisions.

The image of a typical employer is of the CEO of a large organisation with thousands of workers and a healthy business bank account to dip into in emergencies, the CEO themselves having an equally healthy bank account. In reality, I believe that over 60% of employees work for a small or medium sized business, and a lot of the small businesses are actually micro-sized, with less than ten employees in all. Your local hair-dresser, cafe owner, or newsagent may fasvour any political party.

Thanks for the clarification GG13.

Apologies Alegrias1 I was referring to your last paragraph.

Bow to, not now to, apologies.

Those more knowledgeable than I about how this survey was conducted deem it to be robust. I will now to their superior knowledge on that.
However many seem to be adamant that because Conservative voters, in this survey, are more likely to judge that a job loss is due to a lack of productivity rather than bad luck , that means Conservatives must be heartless.
There is also the possibility that Conservative voters are more realistic, more practical, more likely to be business owners or managers who have experience of staff trimming and the reasons for it.
It could also be said that Labour voters are less practical and more in favour of employers ‘carrying’ the less productive employees to show a more caring face. Even though this latter scenario is more likely to lead to business failure and consequently no job for anyone.
I’m not saying that these musing are factual but that they are as likely to be true as the popular opinion here of the nasty Tory.

GrannyGravy13

Alegrias1 we are all capable of free thought, the day the human race thinks with a collective hive mind is in my opinion the day we are doomed.

I don't disagree GG13, but I don't know what you mean in relation to my post, sorry.

Business models are all different and the majority are flexible however, the bottom line is the profit and loss account at the end of each week/month/year.

Very few businesses can afford to run continuously at a loss just to keep folk in employment.

MaizieD Don't extrapolate from my post what you think I mean, with the intention of making me appear to be a "heartless Conservative".

If you were running a business with ten employees which was in danger of failing completely (for what ever reason, but CoVid is the most likely current culprit) but would survive if it wasn't paying out to someone as much or more as they had been for some time contributing to the cash flow (and you were meeting all the other costs of employing them, which equal what is paid to the direct) would you make redundant that person or a different employee whose efforts had contributed vastly more to the cashflow and could be predicted to continue doing so and making it possible to keep afloat and keep on employing nine people?

It is not only Conservatives who run businesses, and they have to think of what will keep them viable.

Elegran

I am sure that if a firm is faced with having to make someone redundant so as to survive to continue employing most of their staff, they will take into account what "value for money" they are getting from each employee. If they have a sales rep (for instance) who brings in a lot of valuable orders versus one who brings in enough to hardly cover his/her own salary - whic is more likely to be retained and which to be "let go"?

Consider a business to business company. I'll use "good" and "bad" as shorthand.

Perhaps the "good" sales rep was located in a part of the country where many of the company's customers were located and the "bad" one was in an area which only had sparse coverage. Perhaps many of the companies in the "good" area have closed down because of the pandemic. So the only source of sales was now in the "bad" area.

Should the company keep on the "good" sales rep based on previous targets alone? Even although their market has completely evaporated?

Its rarely as simple as we think.

Alegrias1 we are all capable of free thought, the day the human race thinks with a collective hive mind is in my opinion the day we are doomed.

Especially when research like the above (sorry Dinahmo, I don't know your source so not a critique of you) is released by the press with little understanding or interpretation of what it actually means or how it can be used to motivate positive change.

Absolutely. I find it so telling how differently the results of a survey are presented in different papers ...which highlights how the "press version" of whatever one reads about a survey should probably be taken with a pinch of salt!! [hmmm]

GrannyGravy13 I’ve been an employee and an employer, so I understand well about how people are treated at times of redundancy and how it is decided which people go and which people stay.

The OP highlighted one result out of a very comprehensive and robust piece of research. For many posters, the first reaction was that this is just a survey, it must be biased, these people have no idea about the real world, people just say what you expect them to. Rather than thinking that there was something being highlighted in the research that the government need to act on to make the post-Covid recovery better, we’ve had defensiveness and rubbishing the expertise of the researchers.

Rather than looking at the OP and noticing that nearly 50% of all voters think that way, it suddenly becomes all about the Conservatives and how they are stereotyped. Given, that stat was quoted in the OP but the response has just been disproportional.

Maybe Gove was right – people have had enough of experts. Unless they are telling them something they want to hear, of course.

Elegran

I am sure that if a firm is faced with having to make someone redundant so as to survive to continue employing most of their staff, they will take into account what "value for money" they are getting from each employee. If they have a sales rep (for instance) who brings in a lot of valuable orders versus one who brings in enough to hardly cover his/her own salary - whic is more likely to be retained and which to be "let go"?

So, are you agreeing with the 57% of tory voters who believe that people lose their jobs through underachievement, Elegran? Or do you have a rather more nuanced view?

Elegran

I am sure that if a firm is faced with having to make someone redundant so as to survive to continue employing most of their staff, they will take into account what "value for money" they are getting from each employee. If they have a sales rep (for instance) who brings in a lot of valuable orders versus one who brings in enough to hardly cover his/her own salary - whic is more likely to be retained and which to be "let go"?

That is not what this survey was about.

Britons’ focus on hard work and ambition means they tend to have a relatively unforgiving view of those who have lost their jobs during the crisis.

Sometimes employees/employers just do not fit, sometimes people apply for jobs and subsequently get them without checking fully if it’s suitable, mistakes are made on all sides.

You would usually have a qualifying period during which this can be discovered. That is not what the research was about.

I am not disputing the results of the survey, it is not inconceivable that people give answers that they think are wanted. Surveys can lead those taking part towards certain answers.

I think the very fact that you say it is not inconceivable that people give answers that they think are wanted. tells us you are, indeed not only doubting the results of the survey but its veracity and quality.

Really fed up with the stereotyping of heartless conservatives other political leanings have not got ownership of caring.

No, they haven't but does this mean we can't talk about the misconstrued perceptions of certain groups?

GrannyGravy13

Alegrias1 I do understand, I should have addressed my post to PippaZ .

Sometimes employees/employers just do
not fit, sometimes people apply for jobs and subsequently get them without checking fully if it’s suitable, mistakes are made on all
sides.

I am not disputing the results of the survey, it is not inconceivable that people give answers that they think are wanted. Surveys can lead those taking part towards certain answers.

Really fed up with the stereotyping of heartless conservatives other political leanings have not got ownership of caring.

The only time, IMHO, that people don't answer surveys truthfully are those relating to politics an more specifically to voting intentions, aka Shy Tory Syndrome. A well known phenomenom.

Agree Elegran

I am sure that if a firm is faced with having to make someone redundant so as to survive to continue employing most of their staff, they will take into account what "value for money" they are getting from each employee. If they have a sales rep (for instance) who brings in a lot of valuable orders versus one who brings in enough to hardly cover his/her own salary - whic is more likely to be retained and which to be "let go"?

Alegrias1 I do understand, I should have addressed my post to PippaZ .

Sometimes employees/employers just do
not fit, sometimes people apply for jobs and subsequently get them without checking fully if it’s suitable, mistakes are made on all
sides.

I am not disputing the results of the survey, it is not inconceivable that people give answers that they think are wanted. Surveys can lead those taking part towards certain answers.

Really fed up with the stereotyping of heartless conservatives other political leanings have not got ownership of caring.

I have just read through this extract and can see nothing that says anything about employers. I think you are being a little oversensitive GrannyGravy13 - but we all can do that. This result, refered to in the OP is about voters attitudes. The rest of the article is interesting too.

Nearly half – 47% – say that an individual’s performance at work is important in determining whether they lost their job at this time, compared with 31% who say luck is an important factor. By 57% to 39%, Conservative voters are much more likely than Labour voters to attribute these job losses to poor performance at work.

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/unequal-britain-attitudes-to-inequality-in-light-of-covid