The rising cost of living can’t be denied with current inflation rates sitting at 9.2%, and predicted to rise until the second half of the year. As a result, a majority of Brits (64%) are experiencing financial difficulty to the extent that it’s impacting their mental health.
Recent research from Opinium on behalf of MetLife UK offers a frightening insight into the impact the rising cost of living crisis is having on workers across the UK.
Recently Dame Kelly Holmes spoke on the matter: The Olympic champion addressed statistics that show 59% of people’s mental health is “suffering because of the cost of living crisis”.
Highlights from the study show that more than two thirds of consumers (64%) say their financial situation has made them feel stressed, anxious, or depressed. Another 16% of UK adults are still turning to their parents for financial aid.
Most worrying is that almost one third of Britons (30%) do not turn to anyone for advice when worried about money, despite the mental strain it causes them. This is a situation that ultimately spills over into the workplace––impacting productivity and staff morale.
Bridge the gap
While employers across the board are expected to give staff the highest pay increase in a decade with a 5% bump, and minimum wage increasing by 9% in April, the fact remains more and more workers are looking to side hustles to bridge the gap between their salary and rising costs.
This then results in an overworked, under-rested, and stressed workforce. For employers, this reduction in productivity is impacting the bottom line while for employees it’s adding to feelings of burnout.
For employers, it’s important to highlight additional financial support that may be available to workers through the company, such as transport subsidies, saving schemes, pension contributions and financial assistance. Reminding staff that help is available can go some way to ease the stress of financial difficulties.
Similarly, for employees, it’s important that you’re transparent with your manager about your difficulties. Present the case for a salary increase to your boss, highlighting any cost-saving schemes you’ve initiated, or projects you’ve led that have resulted in success for the company.
Be open to non-financial benefits that may help your situation too. If your employer is unsupportive, consider taking advantage of the still-tight labour market and go elsewhere.
Demand is currently outweighting supply across several industries, including tech, which means new hires can expect to increase their salaries by 14% on average, with 30% of recent starters increasing their salary by 30%.
The Alt A Review Job Board is full of companies hiring for roles across all sectors and experience levels. Discover three roles below to showcase the breadth of the offering below.
Apple Media Products QA Manager, Apple, London
The Role: As the QA Manager for Apple Media Products you will work with the wider team to help lead Apple’s growth marketing efforts by building, developing, and retaining a hard-working team of quality and software engineers.
The Responsibilities: You will work closely with other teams to understand feature designs, technical implementation details, and business requirements used to develop quality strategies for products and coordinate the development and execution of software test plans and analysis of test results.
The Requirements: You will be comfortable working in a constantly evolving and dynamic environment and driving top issues to resolution with experience owning an SQA or software development team and managing projects and processes multi-functionally.
Apply for the Media Products QA Manager job, or browse all available roles at Apple.
Senior Marketing Manager, Ping Identity, London
The Role: As Senior Marketing Manager at Ping Identity you will work with the wider team to build strategic marketing partnerships internally and externally, to influence, motivate, and move the campaigns function forward.
The Responsibilities: You will be responsible for creating demand generation campaign plans for top strategic priorities while ensuring campaigns are rooted in strategic segmentation, targeting and positioning.
The Requirements: You will need five to ten years’ of proven successful marketing experience in planning, developing, executing and measuring integrated marketing campaigns an a strong track record of driving lead and revenue growth through highly creative marketing programs
Apply for the Senior Marketing Manager role or browse all available opportunities at Ping Identity.
People Director, Capital on Tap, London
The Role: Capital on Tap is seeing a People Director to join and lead its people and talent Teams. You will work to build and develop the company’s people and talent strategy, take responsibility for scaling a fantastic culture and focusing on ensuring that Capital on Tap continues to be a brilliant place to work.
The Responsibilities: You’ll own the people and talent strategy and align with future business goals and growth plans. You’ll also provide coaching and support to the senior leadership team, and managers across the business.
The Requirements: Experience across all areas of people and talent is required, with examples of where you have made improvements in these areas. Additionally, you’ll have worked in a high growth start-up or scale-up environment.
Find out more about the People Director role, or browse all available opportunities with Capital on Tap.
By Aisling O’Toole
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