I live in a very expensive city, my job is an essential skilled position that pays very poorly. We are hemorrhaging employees left and right in this industry. Why? We are required to drive our own cars from location to location often times and are only paid for the time we spend on site working without mileage or travel time reimbursement between that. As it is, we start at .50 above minimum wage with a dollar raise or so every year. Many of us have left to go back to school or work at Target because at least they start you off at a higher pay. When we have company surveys asking us what we can do to keep staff, I have always said they need to raise the pay and offer benefits. I know they can because I know what they charge by the hour for our services and I know the company owners are absolutely loaded, even by the standards of our cost of living, off our labor. And how does the company respond?
They throw us semi annual parties we are expected to attend in the middle of the work week, where we are offered cornhole and Costco pizza. I got a phone call while I was at work, asking me why I wasn’t at the summer kick off party. I told them I was working (providing behavioral therapy and care to a disabled child) and was told to drive the child 30 miles with me to the party. The child is absolutely in no condition to do so and it would have been a logistical nightmare, not to mention the fact that the parents would not want that. I suggested this to the HE worker, who expressed frustration that the company was “nice enough” to do this for us and no one had showed up. Because who’s going to take time off work to drive an hour with these gas prices for some pizza?? When I hung up the phone, momma (who overheard me) couldn’t believe they even suggested that.
I have a friend who works a well paying desk job at a well known and very profitable company. He hasn’t been given any promotions, only lateral transfers and small raises despite carrying the department on his back. His quarterly reviews are glowing and he often trains new hires who are friends of supervisors, who end up getting higher pay and promotions despite being much newer than him. Many employees have been jumping ship due to the pay. How does the company respond? They’re hosting a multi million dollar private cruise that is mandatory attendance, without providing childcare or airfare accommodations. Several people in the company have vocally protested this frivolous and expensive waste of resources in favor of pay raises to match experience, the rise in workload, and inflation.
Why can’t these companies realize we don’t want parties? We want to be able to afford the essential and enough money in savings to possibly retire at 70. I feel hopeless because no matter what industry I get into, no matter what work I am doing, it will always be the same.