Charity workers 'flexible' to help colleagues retain jobs, says survey
Howard Lake | 20 April 2009 | News
A survey of over 2,500 by the Keep Britain Working campaign has found that 93% of workers in the charity and voluntary sector would accept changes in their working conditions to help colleagues keep their jobs in the current tough economic situation.
Twenty seven per cent would accept a cut in pay and 48% would accept a reduction in hours, if it meant protecting colleagues’ jobs. However, where 3% of UK workers would strike, if bosses asked for sacrifices without making any themselves, no-one in charity and voluntary roles said that they would resort to strike action.
The 93% sounds impressive but in fact this was the lowest score across all job sectors. The national average was 95%.
The poll results have been published in advance of Wednesday’s Budget statement, which Gordon Brown has acknowledged needs to be “a Budget for jobs”.
The poll has found that workers would want any measures adopted to be fair. For example, if bosses asked for sacrifices without making any themselves, 49% would challenge their manager, while more than one in ten would take more direct action. 3% would go slow at work, 4% would walk off the job or seek redundancy, and a further 3% would consider strike action.
James Reed, founder of the Keep Britain Working campaign, said: “There seems to be a new altruism at work. If people believe that being flexible about their own employment conditions will help stem job losses they will take on change and make personal sacrifices – especially if bosses do their bit”.
The campaign aims to help preserve as many jobs as possible and create new ones.
www.keepbritainworking.com
Related posts
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.