Claimant Cull
The ‘progressive’ Left decry the end of compassionate society, the ‘striver’ Right scream ‘about time too’. That seems to be the split of opinion about the huge news story in Britain this week.
After years of successive governments massaging jobless figures through creative spinning of why people are not working, and more than a suspicion of a damaging “benefits culture” growing out of control, the current administration has tried to tackle the ballooning £216bn welfare budget.
Yes, individual cases attract media attention where you truly hope a bit of common sense can be applied, but in the main, there appears too many who expect the world, or in this case the taxpayer, to owe them a living.
An incredible example of how the maliase has spiralled beyond silliness, is with incapacity benefit.
The figures are astounding. Everyone with a sicknote was required to have a new medical. A third of all those on some form of sickness benefit declined to turn up. Removing themselves off the register. That’s almost 900,000 people, slammed by the nation’s media, for being workshy layabouts. The Telegraph reported;
As well as the 878,300 who chose to drop their claims, another 837,000 who did take the a medical test were found to be fit to work immediately, while a further 367,300 were judged able to some level of work.
Only 232,000 (one in eight of those tested) were classified by doctors to be too ill to do any sort of job.
Yet surely they can’t all be the curtain-twitching, string vest-wearing, sofa-ridden, handout dependant and expectant feckless breeders of tabloid caricature?
Anyway, this widely reported and even more blanketly commented upon story did make me think of the terminology in play. An oft used word was cull.
Those least fortunate in society and our customer base are two completely different and unconnected populations of course.
Which customers are actually taking us for a ride?
In the days after this story broke, I was prompted to have many conversations with people about customers they wished they didn’t have.
Some clearly drain the energy, let alone profits, out of your business. They are damaging to keep. So why don’t we act firmly to get them off our ‘register’?
If someone is sucking lifeblood from you, can it be articulated what the waste they cause is?
Whether it be too great a discount, too tight a margin, sapping too much support resource or being a general distraction from the direction you must travel, pinpoint it. And act on it. It’s a mercy killing. Work with those that value you as much as you value them.