Tech services biz Allvotec furloughing staff, asking remainder – including top brass – to take pay cut

Allvotec – the rebranded Daisy Partner Services business – is responding to the coronavirus crisis by furloughing a number of staff and asking all that remain to take a pay cut to avoid potential redundancies. The reason for the move is obvious: Allvotec provides field service engineers to act on behalf of third-party …

[Pascal Monett]

Things are rather difficult for the services industry

And I, just like tens of thousands of others, am right in the middle of this.

Thankfully, my best client has given me a special VPN account so that I can still help them from home. Of course, once the crisis is over, I will lose that account. That's something I will regret.

Another client has notified me just yesterday that they are willing to send me a laptop via DHL so that I can help them as well.

I guess I'm rather lucky. On the other hand, being a freelance means I can't furlough myself, so it's all relative.

[Aqua Marina]

Re: Things are rather difficult for the services industry

If you are a limited company director freelancer, you can furlough your PAYE, which is exactly what my accountant is recommending I do. My statutory duties as a director remain even if furloughed so the day to day leadership of the company I continue to do. The government has offered a lifeline, I suggest as many to take it as possible, ask your accountants, follow their advice and apply for everything on offer.

Money Saving Expert has done quite a comprehensive guide for those of us in the UK. It also has a disclaimer that they don't go into the morality of their suggestions, they are just pointing out the help available.

[tfewster]

Voluntary pay cuts are unlikely to work; A corollary to Parkinson's law is that expenditure expands to take all the money available, so few could "afford" to volunteer, and they'll resent those who "can't".

Employment law prohibits reducing a workers salary (citation needed?), but that could be temporarily rescinded by Parliament if there are appropriate safeguards and transparency, e.g. Directors are hit first and hardest. The decision makers (MPs and Directors) need to be seen to be leading the way on this.

And let's not forget shareholders - Ownership comes with some responsibilities, not just benefits. I own some shares though unit trusts (pension plans etc.) and I fully expect those shares value to be diluted if the companies need extra funding. Again, as long as it's transparent. No one should be getting rich though this crisis.

I'm also mentally prepared for taxes to rise, to cover welfare and economic costs.

TL;DR: I'm never going to be able to afford to retire.

Icon: PPE ----------->

[adam payne]

In the memo distributed to staff at the time, Williams said the past few years had been "challenging from a business performance perspective".

It's been a challenging year for your customers as well. Logged a call with these clowns in February for a server drive on predicted failure and i'm still yet to see the bloody thing.

[bagpus]

Volunteered is quite an interesting word.

We were asked to volunteer, but if refused were then asked to speak to our line manager, where it was made quite clear our future career would be at risk.

Volunteered???