Nick Clegg wants a ''John Lewis economy''

WhiteHorse

I worked for one of these 'employee participation' firms. Staff were put under extreme pressure to take shares instead of a proportion of their wages.

sheffield_lad

Well I am suprised more of you have not had any benefits from sharesave schemes! Is it just around here? I have mates who work for energy companys, shops, chemical plants a whole host of different industries and they all partake and do very well.

Just to make it 100% clear I am talking about the SHARESAVE schemes where you CANNOT lose your money as if after the 3 or 5 yr period the shares have gone down you simply walk away with the amount you had invested over that term.

Golden handcuffs are also fab if the job is not right for you get out but for anyone in work and not considering another employer its free money!

I do sometimes think people are a tad over suspicious when it comes to shares but there is real money to be made. I have never had to just withdraw the cash (maybe luck), and as I have posted before some have gone up by many multiples.

CLAPTON

howee wrote: »

Well I am suprised more of you have not had any benefits from sharesave schemes! Is it just around here? I have mates who work for energy companys, shops, chemical plants a whole host of different industries and they all partake and do very well.

Just to make it 100% clear I am talking about the SHARESAVE schemes where you CANNOT lose your money as if after the 3 or 5 yr period the shares have gone down you simply walk away with the amount you had invested over that term.

Golden handcuffs are also fab if the job is not right for you get out but for anyone in work and not considering another employer its free money!

I do sometimes think people are a tad over suspicious when it comes to shares but there is real money to be made. I have never had to just withdraw the cash (maybe luck), and as I have posted before some have gone up by many multiples.

yes of course you can make money from sharesave schemes as indeed I have

however, Clegg's half baked idea isn't going to make any difference to our economic plight

bo_drinker

He's out of touch and out of his depth as are the rest of the public school boys playing at politics , they haven't a fkn clue.

grizzly1911

howee wrote: »

I do sometimes think people are a tad over suspicious when it comes to shares but there is real money to be made. I have never had to just withdraw the cash (maybe luck), and as I have posted before some have gone up by many multiples.

Not suspicious based on experience over 30 years.

The sun doesn't shine all the time.

A._Badger

bo_drinker wrote: »

He's out of touch and out of his depth as are the rest of the public school boys playing at politics , they haven't a fkn clue.

Now be fair. It isn't just the public school boys who are out of their depth. It is almost all of the political class, Left, Right or Centre. Education is a red herring.

Davesnave

A couple of points. Firstly, stakeholding as an idea isn't new; in fact it was part of the old Liberal Party policy back in the 20th century. Whether it's responsible for the success of JL is another matter, but they are clearly getting something right, so maybe it's part of a bigger picture.

There are other ways to motivate staff. My DD works in another long-standing, well-regarded chain, which now has a target-based bonus system. Assistants are highly motivated to hit the targets, but this results in some ridiculous scenarios, such as the one a few weeks back, where the store manager was hiding behind fitments and using the inter-store headsets to 'instruct' sales assistants as they dealt with customers.

"Dont forget to show her the....." "Now introduce the new range of...." "Ask him if he wants to try...." and so on is all very well, and it works, up to a point, but I have doubts about the long-term effectiveness of this strategy. I recall being 'introduced' to something I didn't really need in Comet about 20 years ago and my reaction when I discovered I'd been 'had.' A white lie, but the result was that I never went back.

Contrast that with our experience a week ago in JL, where a member of staff demonstrated a product, taking about ten minutes. No pressure, and at the end I felt confident enough to ask, "OK so that's the ......, but if you were buying one, which would you go for? Without hesitation she replied, "That one over there is what I have at home, and I've tried them all." The item she pointed to was about £100 cheaper.

In the end it's about trust. Whether a company is selling stuff, or if it's making it, most of us want to feel that we'll be dealt with fairly and that our choices will be assisted by staff who are not just out to make a fast buck. People are very quick to knock British companies on here, but last year when I had the choice of something from one of two manufacturers it was difficult to choose, because they were both made excellent products. In the end, I went with the cheaper one, but not because of that. They'd thought to provide customers with a hotline direct to the engineers with no going through office staff. This meant I could ring it before purchase and just chat with guys who'd been there 20 years to suss out what their response would be like. I later needed that hotline a couple of times, but again, instead of being miffed, I was able to sort problems quickly. That is the sort of service which gets repeat business......but I've no idea if the staff there are in any share scheme!

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Davesnave wrote: »

My DD works in another long-standing, well-regarded chain, which now has a target-based bonus system. Assistants are highly motivated to hit the targets, but this results in some ridiculous scenarios, such as the one a few weeks back, where the store manager was hiding behind fitments and using the inter-store headsets to 'instruct' sales assistants as they dealt with customers.

I think customers find that upselling approach annoying, and it makes employees hate their jobs and their employers. The worst job I ever had was in the beach cafe on Sandbanks; the boss used to stand behind you on the til and wait for you to make mistakes. I once undercharged someone by 15p and she tried to make me pursue them down the beach to ask for it back.

There is definitely merit in the idea of encouraging employees to feel less like resentful slaves.

IronWolf

It is a great idea for companies to offer these schemes, but the problem is that not all people are informed enough to know whether the company they work for is in good financial health, or if its shareprice is grossly overvalued.

You only have to look at examples like Enron to see where employees not only lost their jobs but all their pensions because it was put into Enron stock.

So while these schemes do indeed have a positive effect on company performance, people need to be careful in assuming that all these schemes are good.

Also these schemes can have the effect of diluting the existing shareholders if such schemes are run by issuing new stock to employees. As a shareholder I am against these forms of schemes, more in favour of the schemes where the company buys the shares in the market to give to employees.

WhiteHorse

howee wrote: »

I am talking about the SHARESAVE schemes where you CANNOT lose your money as if after the 3 or 5 yr period the shares have gone down you simply walk away with the amount you had invested over that term.

Unless inflation has eaten away at the value of that money?