BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[Pross]

Apparently there are also concerns about poor illustration of repayments for Plan 5 Student Loans:


Is it Megan? Really?

Given your take home will be £3293.31 per month, I'm not sure that £187 is going to be impacting you that much. I suspect you will cope. It feels like you have enough to pay a decent amount of rent or mortgage plus bills and still have enough to live on. Earning that much at 24 years old is a pretty decent salary.

I think she's going to be disappointed in 3 years time but not because of how much she'll be paying out on her student loan. Not sure how accountancy works but not many people in my line of work get chartered (or earn at that level) within 3 years of graduation. £50k seems to be the median but she could only be on £35-40k.

 

[Psamathe]

... But where there is flexibility, such as taking a more junior or a more senior person if they are a good fit, salary bands can have the opposite effect.

I agree. Can prompt company to look at existing staff and consider more carefully if an existing team member could be given more responsibility and thus recruit a more junior person.

Too often companies can just look to replace somebody who has left rather than think in broader terms. Maybe an applicant outside the company's preconceived "replace" idea can prompt more thought and an addiotional win by progressing other team/department members.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Pay transparency in the news again today to demonstrate again that government bodies really don’t understand how the private sector works. All it will lead to is grumbling and discontentment within companies especially between those on notionally the same grade who bring different skills e.g. in my industry someone on my level who is a ‘work winner’ will earn more than those solely focussed on the technical side. I’m firmly in the latter camp and know it holds me back but understand that the work winners have an added value. I guess there’ll be a lot of people negotiating more structured bonuses if this goes ahead.

There were some case studies where it was actually quite effective, but I'm not up to date on it.

 

[Psamathe]

I think she's going to be disappointed in 3 years time but not because of how much she'll be paying out on her student loan. Not sure how accountancy works but not many people in my line of work get chartered (or earn at that level) within 3 years of graduation. £50k seems to be the median but she could only be on £35-40k.

Expectations these days can be a problem.
On Newsnight a few weeks ago they were discussing youth employment and student loans and they had one student who had studied history and was wanting a career in journalism but for over a year since graduating could only get eg fast food work. One of the panel (can't remember name but a journalist and university lecturer) was sympathetic but also said basically she'd been sold a pup. He taught university history and was saying a great subject to study but today experienced journalists were losing their jobs and it was a declining market so somebody without experience was never going to find a job. Her expectations were just unrealistic.

I've no idea about "career advice" given out by schools these days but in my day it was rubbish. I rejected the advice I was given (completely) as it just seemed bad advice and ... I was right, they were wrong (and I'd have never achieved what I managed had I followed their advice).

 

[Beebo]

I think she's going to be disappointed in 3 years time but not because of how much she'll be paying out on her student loan. Not sure how accountancy works but not many people in my line of work get chartered (or earn at that level) within 3 years of graduation. £50k seems to be the median but she could only be on £35-40k.

The company my wife works for offers graduate accountant interns, not yet professionally qualified and straight out of uni, a starting salary of £54k.
They are almost always awful and cant even do a basic reconciliation.
They will work 9-5, never thinking about working longer.
It drives her mad. But maybe they have it right?

 

[First Aspect]

The company my wife works for offers graduate accountant interns, not yet professionally qualified and straight out of uni, a starting salary of £54k.
They are almost always awful and cant even do a basic reconciliation.
They will work 9-5, never thinking about working longer.
It drives her mad. But maybe they have it right?

Perhaps it means that ramp shaped career salary profiles (i.e. cake tomorrow if you crucify yourself today) are less of a thing?

 

[Psamathe]

They will work 9-5, never thinking about working longer.

It's something I've seem often and never understood. Throughout my entire career I have always got the job done. For many years I was working ludicrous hours 'cos we always delivered on budget on time. One Government job my group were on flexitime for historical reasons with a machine key recording and HR hated it. Once I had a massive argument with HR 'cos the machine showed me working non-stop for 36 hours and they got angry ... except there had been a crisis and I had been working for 36 hours and had put a taxi home on expenses ('cos it was an intense 36 hours and I didn't feel I'd be safe driving). Once myself and team working 2 weeks non-stop, sleeping occasionally on floor or on sofa in MD's office. But later in career younger people were egtting very 9-5 - for them it was doing the hours not doing the job.

 

[briantrumpet]

The EU suspects that fraud might have been involved in the Spanish train crash and the EU funds that were supposed to have been used for improving safety.

More immediately, the Spanish work needs to find out how on earth such a thing could have happened through the error of one fallible human. It's completely beyond my comprehension, given how high the stakes are in high speed rail, and why protocols during engineering works especially ought to be foolproof.

 

[PurplePenguin]

It's something I've seem often and never understood. Throughout my entire career I have always got the job done. For many years I was working ludicrous hours 'cos we always delivered on budget on time. One Government job my group were on flexitime for historical reasons with a machine key recording and HR hated it. Once I had a massive argument with HR 'cos the machine showed me working non-stop for 36 hours and they got angry ... except there had been a crisis and I had been working for 36 hours and had put a taxi home on expenses ('cos it was an intense 36 hours and I didn't feel I'd be safe driving). Once myself and team working 2 weeks non-stop, sleeping occasionally on floor or on sofa in MD's office. But later in career younger people were egtting very 9-5 - for them it was doing the hours not doing the job.

Grads earn just above the minimum wage now, so all those extra hours take them below the minimum wage. That changes the equations somewhat - no one offers to do extra shifts at McDonald's for free.

 

[Pross]

It's always a tricky one. The grads we were recruiting around from just before the pandemic were very much working to their hours and part of me admired them for that. After all, the job is advertised as 37.5 hours a week and if a company wants / expects more than that they should be honest and advertise it as 45 / 50 hours a week or whatever they are expecting their employees to actually do. On the other hand, you're employed get the job done and if you want to take that attitude it is reasonable for an employer to say they expect you to be working every minute of that contracted time so no chat, coffee breaks etc. which makes for a horrible environment IMO. It is also annoying when you are working additional hours yourself and aren't getting the support you need from your junior team members.

At the other end of the scale I had a Director who's monthly fee target was based on the headcount / salary in the team. He was significantly exceeding that but to keep looking good he would have us working 45-50 hours a week rather than hiring an extra staff member and used to regularly bang on about pulling all-nighters. If you left at 6.30pm having started before 8.30 you would get quips like 'oh, didn't realise you'd booked a half day'. Obviously the team never saw any financial reward but I suspect he was getting good bonuses of it.

My own view is you do the extra when needed but if my team are having to do it as a matter of routine I've failed somewhere along the way (either promised too much or haven't charged the right level of fees to get the extra staff needed).

 

[Pross]

Grads earn just above the minimum wage now, so all those extra hours take them below the minimum wage. That changes the equations somewhat - no one offers to do extra shifts at McDonald's for free.

But on the other hand they'll be telling everyone how it's the hardest ever jobs market to graduate into so you would think there would be an incentive to show their value over those who would love to come in and replace them.

 

[Pblakeney]

My own view is you do the extra when needed but if my team are having to do it as a matter of routine I've failed somewhere along the way (either promised too much or haven't charged the right level of fees to get the extra staff needed).

This. If overtime is a regular occurrence then you are either understaffed or under estimating the work required.
The occasional push for a deadline is fine but if expected on a regular basis then employ more people or pay O/T. Or just shaft the workers.

 

[Psamathe]

It's always a tricky one. The grads we were recruiting around from just before the pandemic were very much working to their hours and part of me admired them for that. After all, the job is advertised as 37.5 hours a week and if a company wants / expects more than that they should be honest and advertise it as 45 / 50 hours a week or whatever they are expecting their employees to actually do. On the other hand, you're employed get the job done and if you want to take that attitude it is reasonable for an employer to say they expect you to be working every minute of that contracted time so no chat, coffee breaks etc. which makes for a horrible environment IMO. It is also annoying when you are working additional hours yourself and aren't getting the support you need from your junior team members.

At the other end of the scale I had a Director who's monthly fee target was based on the headcount / salary in the team. He was significantly exceeding that but to keep looking good he would have us working 45-50 hours a week rather than hiring an extra staff member and used to regularly bang on about pulling all-nighters. If you left at 6.30pm having started before 8.30 you would get quips like 'oh, didn't realise you'd booked a half day'. Obviously the team never saw any financial reward but I suspect he was getting good bonuses of it.

My own view is you do the extra when needed but if my team are having to do it as a matter of routine I've failed somewhere along the way (either promised too much or haven't charged the right level of fees to get the extra staff needed).

Whilst there are many variables, for me if I didn't trust an employer I'd go elsewhere. When I was long term working ludicrous hours I wasn't getting overtime but I was a company director and with shares (the company gave me 5% of the company). And the MD was perpetually telling me to recruit more people, nagging me to take a holiday, even fiddling things to pay me bonuses corresponding to holiday I'd never got round to taking.

Same with the previous employer (share options worth a significant amount and showing they really did appreciate my effort). And when the company had to make redundancies my boss (a director) was made redundant and I was given his position (without the directorship) despite me telling them I didn't want to manage the new department they'd given me responsibility for.

In many careers, short term 9-5 (the contracted hours) might suit some but in terms of career development probably not as effective as showing commitment to the company's success.

 

[PurplePenguin]

But on the other hand they'll be telling everyone how it's the hardest ever jobs market to graduate into so you would think there would be an incentive to show their value over those who would love to come in and replace them.

I don't think the existence of people who are willing to work for less than the minimum wage should be used to force others into doing the same.

For what it is worth, I have to encourage the young people in my office to work less.

 

[Psamathe]

But on the other hand they'll be telling everyone how it's the hardest ever jobs market to graduate into so you would think there would be an incentive to show their value over those who would love to come in and replace them.

I don't think the existence of people who are willing to work for less than the minimum wage should be used to force others into doing the same.

For what it is worth, I have to encourage the young people in my office to work less.

Maybe the distinction is between a "job" and a "career"? Careers take effort and investment to develop, something the individual need to do rather than be pushed into.

On more than one occasion I've seen people put-out when somebody got promoted over them (or higher pay rise") but they'd be 9-5 whatever the peak or trough in workload whereas the promoted person had the flexibility to accommodate the variable needs of the company ie they were "investing" in their career and seeking to develop their skills.