And when your business is thriving, do all your staff earn as much as you? You can't be happy to rake it in when things are going well, but expect not to bear the brunt when things aren't. That is the whole game of being a small business owner.
When my business is thriving I'm paid relative to my contributions to the business, which is the same for my staff.
I'm also not saying I'm bearing any brunt. I'm comparing my staff who are working to my staff who aren't The point is that awful government policy is rewarding fecklessness at the expense of the hardworking.
In my business I don't want the staff who're negative about returning coming back, because they will affect morale negatively and it'll take far more of my time to ensure they're productive. That means those same staff are being rewarded for being feckless; whereas the staff that are willing to come back without complaining are being punished for doing the right thing; often earning the same net salary despite working a full week.
It's not even the case as per normal times where the hardworking staff will get bonuses/larger pay rises and the lazy will not. No-one is likely to receive a pay rise or bonus for a few dozen months.
The only saving grace for the hardworking is that they will have far less chance of being made redundant.
A simple, competent policy allowing for everyone to return part time on 90% salary (40% covered by government) would increase business productivity as trained staff would be doing their own job, it would decrease cost to the government as I previously stated and would be far more equitable.
I suppose competence and a left wing chancellor will never go hand in hand though.
And this is the problem. There is a divide building amongst people working and people on furlough working for the same company. I don’t see why I should be covering the work of 3 people whilst many are now going to the beach as restrictions are relaxed. How exactly is this fair? The point of the measures is to stop the spread of a ‘killer’ virus yet this point now seems to have been lost on many.
Most people have had paid time off which they would never be able to afford to take 2/3 months off in their working life.
There's absolutely a divide and it's caused resentment from staff who're still working. From discussions I've heard the divide will also last far longer than the furlough scheme.