I meet quite a few people, as most of us do, and like to listen to their opinions about what they experience. Try it sometime.

Recently,  I have been trying to find people who actually like the job they are employed in and it is of little or no surprise that most do like their job but pressure, cutbacks and stupid unachievable targets cause them to dislike their positions. Politics!

This got me wondering why we have to live like this.

One answer is that middle management refuse to impart or ignore information that is bad for the company and workforce and make excuses for these failures and fudge figures.

Many people in more senior corporate positions say that they enjoy their jobs and work for great companies and I am convinced that the pictures that are painted for them are that everything is just fine and dandy.

For example; we have all experienced the announcement of an audit or a visit by an official. Just like magic all positions are covered, everything is where it should be or hidden away till after the visit and the image portrayed has little of no reality of what life is really like for a normal working day on the shop floor. As a result the findings from these visits recommends all is brilliant and the fuss and unrest is unjustified working-class hot air.

It is little wonder that nothing changes and even more cuts and savings are squeezed out of the already woefully inefficient coal face.

The middle management will never compromise their positions as they are the ones that assess themselves.  Okay we may hear or a few redundancies but these are often the troublemakers who actually want to make a better place  below them. Normally, however, it is the bully, inexperienced in doing the real job and incapable who are promoted, or moved to areas of least impact, that carry on in the company and it is these who give a totally wrong impression to the people at the top who could make the changes.

It is heartbreaking to watch and experience customer services continuing to be destroyed and the products and services becoming so poor that soon nothing will be fit for purpose. Don’t put the price up to mirror inflation but make products smaller, merge two jobs  into one, cut services back and use cheaper materials. This will be fine as the consumer will never know.

How about this as a concept? Make work lives a bit more comfortable by paying a bit more, employing enough staff to cope with demands, showing the reality rather than the “hiding under the carpet” policy and ditch some of the red-tape middle management that throttles our once prosperous businesses. Finally, does a CEO or Chairman actually need an income of one hundred times that of their coal-face staff?

A happy workforce, within reason, is a more productive one and the more efficient the production will result in higher standards and better services. This will equal higher profits.

But I guess the feathering of bosses nests has obscured these facts and it is this that which blights work today.