October 11, 2011
Gone are the days of all-for-one and one-for-all in British offices, in the modern working world making sure your own salary is protected is the most important thing to workers, a new survey has revealed.
Nearly two fifths of office workers would rather see a colleague made redundant to maintain or increase their own salary, according to research from officebroker.com. In total, 38% of respondents said they would be willing to see a workmate lose their job than see their own salary reduced.
Of the workers surveyed, 48% said cutting back on lunch breaks would be the first office sacrifice they would make if forced to, while giving up cigarette breaks (14%), right to weekends off (12%) and company cars (8%) followed.
"Many people believe the way to motivate people is simply to give them more money but our results show that this view is far too simplistic,” said officebroker.com’s Chris Meredith.
"For some people, money is their sole motivating factor so it's no surprise that more than a third of those surveyed said they would be happy to see a colleague fired if it would benefit them financially."
In harsh economic times, officebroker.com’s results may not come as a surprise to many, but according to TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, "without co-operation, working life would be solitary, poor, nasty and brutish”.
"Where there is no independent union to make sure that their views are properly heard, workers will understandably be sceptical about whether we are really all in this together, especially as they see top people's pay continue to soar."
