Enormous effort is put into research and marketing "the perfect potato crisp" while research into stress at work, for example, is ignored. How important are staff working conditions? Should employers research and improve the working conditions of their staff or should they concentrate more on their product?

Nowadays, most businesses are concerned primarily with improving and pushing products at all costs, therefore neglecting the strain this strategy puts on their personnel. I believe it is of vital importance to restrain excessive work load. I also think employers should pay more attention to organizing friendly working environment for their employees. In my point of view, conditions that employers provide for their personnel are very important. First of all, uncomfortable offices affect the pace of work. Extra efforts to keep everything organized may become the biggest time wasters. Secondly, inconvenient timetables influence labour productivity. Repetitive long hours at work get workers exhausted. Finally, relations between managers and employees matter. Unfriendly atmosphere undermine self-esteem, co-operation and ability of staff to come up with creative ideas. I convinced that researching and improving employees working conditions is rewarding. To begin with, improving workplace is an integral part of effective personnel policy. It helps a company become the employer of choice for skilled workers. Furthermore, neglecting to monitor the wellness of staff leads to extra expenses since more workers would use the insurance plan. Finally, businesses seeking efficiency should gather information on the latest advances in work space ergonomics. Strong competition forces employers to upgrade staff work areas to boost the performance of staff. I also feel that concentrating solely on the product is ineffective. For one thing, marketing, even most aggressive, would not make the product any better. “The perfect potato crisp” results from the work of well-trained staff. For another, companies overlooking workers’ needs in favour of merchandise are unstable. Staff retention problems restrain the company’s potential to come regularly on the marker with new offers. At last, neglecting staff damages the reputation of a manufacturer. Customers might refuse buying a product, if they know it is made through hard exploitation of workers. To summarize, employers should accept working conditions as being very important to successful company development. Disregarding researching and improving working conditions undermines enormous effort put into promotion of the product.