It's a washroom management company, so we empty used sanitary product bins, top up soaps, air fresheners and install dryers. Last year's pay rise was not very good in this high inflation situation (3%) and we lost a few staff members because of it (team of 12, 2 retired, 2 straight up quit). Since then the workload increased on the remaining staff and one older staff member got a hernia. Then another had a crash in their van (down to rushing). Now there are just 6 of us trying to cover 12 positions.
The firm is struggling to hire and when we do get a new staff member, they leave pretty quickly due to the workload. When I floated the idea that pay needs to increase to make the job more attractive to potential employees, the boss's response was “can't afford that”.
Now I'm no math genius, but he's saving a fair chunk of money on the fact that we are half staffed. When I mentioned that he said most of that saving has been swallowed up by increased payments on the business loans due to the interest rate increases.
The staff we do have are burned out. We are already missing out scheduled work because there's just not enough hours in the day, which is causing us to issue refunds and losing the company more money.
I'm already searching for other work and I have two interviews lined up already this week. (there are loads of jobs available). I don't think the company will be operating in 6 months time.