Rising costs have prompted 42% of UK workers to consider heading for the office in order to save money on home energy bills, research has found.
Younger workers were most likely to consider leaving their homes to work in offices for this reason (76%), while this reason was given by one in four (26%) of workers already choosing to come into the office.
The survey, by global workforce adviser Resource Solutions, also found that a third of workers had not had a pay rise within the past year.
Women had fared worse than men when it came to the rise in the cost of living: although 37% of men received a pay rise to help them adjust to rising costs, only 29% of women stated the same reason for a pay rise, if a rise was received at all.
The threat of a recession by the end of the year could also see companies retaining more staff: 41% of workers told researchers they were more likely to stay in their current job and only 17% reported considering changing jobs in light of economic predictions.
Norma Gillespie, CEO of Resource Solutions, said: “As uncertainty around the near future grows – some workers are beginning to find the idea of quitting their jobs too risky. Whether they are more likely to leave or stay in their current role, the current cost of living crisis is encouraging employees to evaluate their financial position and assess the job security in their current position or elsewhere. There is some truth in the well-known and unfortunate saying of ‘last in, first out’, and employees know this all too well.”
Inflation and pay
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The analysis pointed to younger generations being most likely to experience the benefits of businesses competing over the best available talent, as 18% of workers in their early 20s cited this as the reason for their wage inflation, in contrast to 8% of 55+ year-olds.
Likewise, the under-24s age group was most likely to receive a pay rise to account for the inflated salaries of newcomers (33%) – while the 55+ group had been the least rewarded by this type of pay adjustment (5%). Within this same age demographic, 8% of those in the latter years of their career had not received a pay rise at all in the past three years.
Gillespie said: “While some companies are inflating their salaries to attract the best talent and compensate for the rising costs – the reality is that wages are not keeping up with inflation. We can see that while employers are addressing the pay concerns of their younger staff, over 55-year-olds are largely being overlooked.”
Women were treated less favourably than men when it came to performance at work with men more likely to receive a pay rise linked to the quality of their work (36%), while only 27% of women reported being financially rewarded for these reasons. Male employees are also more likely to be given a pay rise to match that of new hires (21% compared to just 13% of women). Almost a quarter of men (22%) stated their salary increase was in return for their length of service, significantly higher than for women (16%).
In terms of regional pay, East Anglia was the best at offering a pay rise to help staff with rising costs. Professionals in London were most likely to receive a performance- or promotion-related pay rise (77%) followed closely by workers in Northern Ireland (73%), while workers in Wales are least likely to receive a pay rise for this reason (18%). Over one in 10 workers in the south east had gone more than three years without a pay rise, more than any other region (11%).
Resource Solutions, part of recruitment giant Robert Walters, interviewed 2,000 people in July 2022 selected in a variety of occupations across the UK.
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