There are reports of employers giving their staff hardship grants, low cost meals and vouchers to buy their children’s school uniforms. Others have set up food banks, provided salary advances, are allowing employees children to eat in the staff canteen for £1. and subsidising public transport costs.
But if an organisation needs to set up food banks for it’s employees shouldn’t it be looking at what it pays staff ? Of course it should but some of the countries biggest employers don’t control what they pay staff. The NHS has a national wage structure and the government in effect determines what doctors, nurses and auxiliary staff are paid. This is true not just of the public sector many care organisations can’t make inflation rate uplifts to low paid employees because the Local Authorities who purchase their services are in a poor financial state. Some employers have tried to address this by offering fixed sum pay increases rather than percentage salary increases as this benefits the low paid more.
Many senior HR managers whilst recognising the financial constraints within their organisation believe that their is a moral responsibility towards employees experiencing sever financial hardship due to the cost of living crisis. From a purely practical point of view staff need to be able to fill their car up with petroleum at the beginning of the week to get to work and they need to feed their children in the school holidays. Staff who get into debt or have money problems are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety which will impact on their performance and attendance at work.
