Daily Mail opportunity - snap reaction required

ended 04. October 2021

A journalist at the Daily Mail is seeking snap reaction from small business owners on Boris Johnson saying companies should pay higher wages to attract staff and therefore help solve the supply chain crisis. Is this good advice, bad advice or plain daft? 2-3 sentences max, please! Deadline is ultra-tight!

12 responses from the Newspage community

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Julia Kermode
Founder at IWORK
"The advice is ludicrous. Many businesses are simply not in a position to offer higher wages as they are still recovering from the disastrous impact of the pandemic! Clearly the PM has no idea how businesses are faring right now; having already borne the brunt of the cost of the pandemic, it is simplistic and frankly ridiculous to suggest that they can simply magic up additional funds at the drop of a hat."
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Suzanne Noble
Co-Director at Startup School for Seniors
"Most small business owners will be struggling to pay themselves and hold onto whatever staff they have managed to cling onto, never mind consider how they might increase their employees' salaries. Advice such as this is plain daft and shows a total lack of awareness for how small business owners have struggled during this time to keep a roof over their head."
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Rebecca Smith
Founder at The Peachy Mind
"Higher wages alone won't help to solve the supply chain crisis. What people want is to be offered an attractive wage and to work for companies that have a culture and working conditions that are not detrimental to their mental health. There is no amount of money that will attract and retain staff if the job is going to cause harm to their mental health."
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Lewis Shaw
Founder & Mortgage Expert at Shaw Financial Services
"Boris clearly doesn't understand economics or the very real risk we are facing of stagflation kicking in. Rising wages will add to the very real problem of bad inflation. Wage levels didn't cause the supply chain crisis, the current and ridiculous form of Brexit that our nation has been railroaded into did. The cause is Brexit. Boris chose it, now it's time he owned it."
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Maddy Alexander-Grout
CEO at My VIP Rewards
"Companies need to stick to their values, engage their staff and stand out from other companies recruiting. Paying more just masks the problem if they are not looking after their people. A lot of companies can’t afford to give higher wages, but good use of benefits packages can help to stretch employee salaries further without the need of a pay rise. To attract better candidates you need to be a business that puts people first, stands by your values and engage the people you have. Without engagement pay rises will make the problem worse."
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Lee Marples
Founder and Strategic Director at Think3
"I fully accept paying higher wages where it makes commercial sense to in order to secure the talent needed, but generally paying higher wages to solve a supply chain crisis is ridiculous. Competitive advantages go out the window, leaving small businesses yet again struggling to attract the staff they need to survive whilst the big boys pay their way out of a crisis."
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Scott Gallacher
Director at Rowley Turton
"Whilst in the short-term, higher wages might solve the labour shortage for an individual firm, or even a whole sector, it can't solve the problem for the entire country. New staff recruited to one firm or sector create a new labour shortage at their old firm or sector."
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Louise Burns
Company Director at Nineteen Recruitment
"In an ideal world, wouldn't we all like to pay higher wages to attract staff? The reality is that we're coming out of a pandemic that has had a significant impact on business. It's all well and good saying this would solve the issue, but having the resources to do so is another thing entirely."
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Cheney Hamilton
CEO at The Find Your Flex Group
"Employers should pay what people are worth and what the market demands. The bigger issue for business, however, is the disconnect between employers and employees, the fix is not money, it's organisational change."
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Gary Parsons
CEO at Talk Staff
"Everything we've been talking about over the past 6-12 months has been focused on salaries spiralling out of control, however the Prime Minister doesn't seem to have got the memo! Employees rank factors such as purpose, culture and physical working conditions above salary. Just like the fuel crisis, people are already panic buying talent before it runs out complete and paying more won't slow it down."
Peter Francis
Engineering Director at MAT Ltd
"Staff rate their working environment more highly than ever before. Higher wages may attract people initially, but without a considerate employer or healthy and supportive conditions, they'll move on and this churn will actually make the situation worse. Higher wages are not the primary answer, they just contribute."
Marianna Boguslavsky
Founder and Digital Strategist at Boguslavsky & Co
"Never thought I'd say this but I agree with Boris Johnson. The key elements that ensure consumers get basics are being contributed by the workers in supply chains yet they are not perceived or treated as key workers in regards to the conditions they work in. To ensure smoother supply chains, they must be paid well for their contributions."