Why 71% of workers are turning their backs on company employment

PeoplePerHour, the leading freelance marketing place has revealed that 71% of Britain’s employed workforce have or are considering starting their own business as they have failed to get what they want from their employers.

This news reflects on from recent worries that Dragon’s Den has encouraged ‘wishful thinkers’ to go off and start their own business plans. People per hour support these statements, with the reasons being for employees wanting to move on from job to job in an attempt to chase ‘the work dream’

The participants involved in this research contained 1,000 current employees. Out of these employees, studies saw that the majority of 68% had little to no access to flexible working benefits. These include working from home (64%), annualised hours (64%), flexitime (57%), job sharing (77%) and compressed time (73%).

Other key findings revealed: Over half of UK employees (56.7%) work anything between 36-60 hours per week. A massive 62% have no passion for the job they do.  And 57% say their biggest bugbear at work is lack of praise In our current digital age, the aspect of remote working has become a second nature to employees, where they are expected to work in flexible locations and hours. So these results that 71% of employees are considering moving on after a lack of flexibility is no surprise.

A surprising fact about these issues is that some businesses seem to be failing to acknowledge and adapt to these changes to work. With many companies struggling to adapt to the sought after early finishes on a Friday, and flexible office hours.

Xenios Thrasyvoulou, founder & CEO at PeoplePerHour feels it’s unfair to tarnish entrepreneurs as ‘wishful thinkers’, or that businesses are set up with no realistic prospect of financial success. He explains: “Brits are a nation of passionate people who are all looking to live their work dream. That is already a reality for some, whilst others are hustling to turn their work dream into reality.

“When it comes to money, Brits are actually very cautious of starting their own business, with 3 in 4 saying financial stability is the biggest barrier to them. Of course, every business may not be a success. But the combination of passion, obtainable goals and a flexible, skilled team to support business growth is the best recipe for success.”

There was also data released, listing the top three things people aspired to look for when thinking about their work life. First (43%) was doing something that they felt passionate about. In second (39%) was having a better work/life balance. And third (32%) was having the ability to work flexible hours.