Revolutions & Resolutions

The tall one was wearing a hoodie with a skull and crossbones on the front.  The other one had a scarf wrapped around his face.  I pulled back from the gap in the curtains, and I held my breath. 

Suddenly, a loud hammering at the door.   

“We know you’re in there!” one of them shouted. 

“Yeah,” chimed the other one.  “We know you’re in there Mrs Johnson! You can run but you cannot hide.”

I was cornered.  I opened the door.

“Trick or treat!” they cried, delighted.

I granted them a weak smile and a selection of Haribos.

“Say hello to your mum for me.” I offered, as I closed the door.

They gave me a little wave (or perhaps it was an obscene gesture; couldn’t be sure in the dark) and I locked the door.

Gotta love Halloween.  And this year the horror was compounded by the nastiest of Autumn budgets (which was why I was hiding behind the curtains in the first place) and the spectre of a US election being fought by two woefully unqualified candidates.  If you have felt in any way threatened by the planet seemingly spinning out of control these days … you’re not alone.  Be it sweet-grabbing teenagers, tax-grabbing exchequers, or tech billionaires taking over the free world by stealth … it feels like we’re in a nose-dive.  And we have the good fortune to experience all of this on soil which is not in the middle east, Ukraine, or Sudan.

The relativity of our good fortune is probably what we need to channel when we’re on the cusp of a good old whinge.  I know this.  But forgive me if I let loose anyway.  I want to understand why business owners are apparently the enemy of the state.  The bogeymen, if you will.  (Or bogeypersons, if you insist.)  Why is it that the people who put their energies, innovations, life-savings and shoulders to the proverbial economic wheel, are personae non gratae.  What’s with the rhetoric of ‘working people’ that excludes the business owner, that sees this cohort as privileged oppressors whose ‘broad shoulders’ are there simply to be jumped upon.  Not for a second do I think that business owners should be getting special dibs.  But, equally, not for a second do I think that they should be persecuted.  Without them we have no jobs, no pensions, no tax contributions, no subsidising of childcare or healthcare, no sparking of ideas and opportunities, and very little, as it happens, in the way of hope.

Politicians (of every hue) have long enjoyed the sport of drafting employment legislation from which, perhaps, they hope to earn their legacy.  This vainglorious enterprise is a continuous exercise in ‘tinkering at the edges’ and we can now all look forward to the Workers Rights Bill, coming to a surrealist cinema near you sometime in 2026.  We already have the curiously named ‘Right to Request’ in respect of flexible working (since when did any sentient human being not know they have the right to request anything they like … it’s a free-ish country) which patronises and creates a wedge between both employer and employee.  We can expect the ‘reforms’ of the new Bill to lead to more time and money wasted with mostly petty unfair dismissal claims clogging up the tribunals and being resolved by settlement payments which never address the issue of justice but ensure that the bruised parties can just move on with their lives.  The legislators have created the perfect conditions for a war zone.  (By the by, I do know that there are unscrupulous, exploitative employers ‘out there’.   I don’t believe, though, that assuming all employers to be unscrupulous and exploitative remedies the poor behaviour of the few; it only pushes it underground, and ensures that the good employers, the many, are convenient scapegoats.)

It's not particularly surprising that employers, faced with rising employment costs and ever tighter regulatory straight-jackets are downsizing, out-sourcing, off-shoring, or shutting up shop entirely.  Is this how to grow an economy? Is this how to create opportunities for the young?  Is this how to keep Britain strong and safe from harm?  Nah.  I don’t think so either.  Whilst the politicians and the unions get their knickers in a permanent twist protecting the bloated public sector (involuntarily subsidised by the private sector), it’s the SME Dad’s Army that is our economic rearguard, stoking the engine of our collective finances.  Turing-like, they seek to break codes, to fix things and find solutions.  And yet, and yet … the Chancellor is already considering her next attack upon their war chests, and the Deputy Prime Minister is circling with the pliers.

If we read the PM’s lips, we cannot rule out another hike in employers’ NI next year.  Whilst we all appreciate the need to shore up and fill in the black hole, I suspect that we also all appreciate the need to have a joined-up strategy for doing so.  Taxing private schools to put pressure on state schools? Good one.  Taxing employers to cut jobs in response?  Super.  Throwing more cash at, but requiring no management accountability from, an NHS which is on its knees? Excellent.  Talking to business owners and business leaders (for which, please don’t read the CBI) might enlighten the political elite.  They might see for themselves the cogs that keep whirring around providing the best life/work benefits for their staff: access to healthcare that gets them back to work, not signed off at a sniffle; affordable saving mechanisms into pensions that are not Ponzi schemes; and eldercare support for loved ones that aligns to the very best palliative approach to end of life.  These things are not luxuries, they are essentials, for which there is a demand.  Only employment creates the supply for that demand.  Roosevelt knew this when he started knocking up skyscrapers post war.  He knew you can’t retreat to your cave and hope that someone else will go get your dinner for you.  He knew that to get a country up on its feet you’ve got to build, build, build.  It’s not, to quote Bill Clinton, a sedentary state that drives prosperity.  It’s the economy, stupid.

Fortunately, there is a quality of resilience in entrepreneurship that keeps business – the economy and the country - trooping on.  We are always impressed by the vim and vigour of our clients.  We love to see how they go at it again each year, doing the things they do so well, and doing them even better.  They have to make hard decisions and sometimes they have to make sacrifices.  But this is the nature of business, and it’s a vital for success.

I’m not going to hide away next Halloween, I’ve decided.  I’m going to wrap a few Brussel-sprouts in Ferrero Rocher paper and offer them up as a ‘trick’.  Ha ha ha!  I’m also going to head into the new year with a pitchfork (call me Captain Mainwaring, if you will) and do my best to ‘make sense’ of it all; not just for me, but for the clients I work with. 

We are an SME business and we love working with SME and mid corporate businesses.  We understand a little bit about their world, and we know the challenges and the opportunities that ‘being an employer’ present.  It’s our job to make it just a little bit easier, not to make heavy work of it, and to offer our listening ears and our expertise whenever we can.  We look forward to being there for you in 2025.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Huzzar!