I said in an earlier newsletter on performance that it’s hard to argue with the concept of an employer wanting a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Indeed, if that was all that was driving Lloyds’ current performance case offensive you would not be reading this newsletter.
Over a long period (under the current Chief Executive) Lloyds created a culture in which the message being sent to staff was that they could have virtually anything they wanted, including working from home more or less at will and ultra-flexible working hours. On the back of the promises Lloyds appeared to be giving them, people planned family arrangements and made important decisions like house moves and relocations, because they trusted their employer. Now, it isn’t a trade union’s job to argue against its members getting what they want but the Scandinavian buffet Lloyds presented was never going to last and it hasn’t.
All of the HR policies taken together represented a serious failure of management to choose the right structure. Now, we are experiencing an extreme reaction to this foolishness in the form of brutal, and in some cases dishonest management of staff by people with limited scruples. Like any group of zealots bent on revolution the people implementing these policies are going too far, as they were always destined to do.
But the performance agenda is a cloak for the real objective – reducing staff numbers and costs cheaply.
The Real Aim – Getting Rid of Staff Without Severance Pay
Lloyds severance terms are a contractual right: we know that and so does Lloyds. And they were always going to prove expensive for a bank planning large scale job losses.
The people running Lloyds when the terms were introduced saw sense in lubricating change by softening the blow of unemployment and in that way Lloyds got a highly compliant, many would say malleable, workforce that cooperated with endless restructurings. And ten years ago Lloyds was still chanting the mantra that staff were its “greatest asset”.
Now Lloyds is more likely to use the word “liability” as it implements a remorseless drive to reduce headcount, with as little expenditure as possible.
The Economics
Drawing a parallel between the Workhouse system in Victorian England and Lloyds may seem odd. Workhouses were founded on the idea of ‘less eligibility’; making life in the Workhouse so tough that people would do whatever they needed to do to stay out of the charitable system – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Less_eligibility
Now Lloyds is doing something very similar by making life very difficult for a very large proportion of staff, with the ever present threat of dismissal.
- Making wholly unjustified and often unspecified criticisms of performance
- Setting up bogus performance plans
- Trying to bully people into accepting working hours changes that they have refused repeatedly by staying on non-harmonised contracts.
- Intimidatory and in some cases discriminatory approaches to managing sickness and disability
- Dismissing staff with limited justification, knowing that unless they are BTU members, the chances of having to face an Employment Tribunal will be negligible.
This unpleasant cocktail is no doubt founded on the logic that many staff, used to a historically benevolent employer, will be too weak to fight back and with even trivial financial inducements will easily be persuaded to leave the battlefield.
This approach may not be ethical but the numbers would be compelling to people who have little concern for fairness.
Expect Constant Pressure
Members are likely now to face continued pressure designed to persuade them to resign without the severance payments to which they are going to be entitled, before any redundancy is actually crystallised.
If you hope this pressure will go away or don’t believe your line manager will act in such a way, you are going to be sorely disillusioned. Your line manager will receive direct instructions as to what to do and will have little choice in the matter; the likelihood is that many will not push back in the face of demands to behave unethically.
You need to contact us immediately you receive any criticism of your performance or some ‘dodge’ is deployed to make your life harder. We can’t do much if you have ignored the warning signs and are on the fast track to dismissal – we want to hear from you at the start not at the end.
If you haven’t been affected so far and are tempted to suspect that this newsletter is about the politics of industrial relations rather than a real threat, my advice is to wait and see!
Next Newsletters
My next newsletters, (this week and next week) will deal with the detail of what is happening and specifically with:
- How performance plans are being used improperly
- Lloyds’ breaches of UK law.
- The less than innocent role of HR
- Offshoring jobs to India
- Manipulation of the TUPE regulations – the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006
If You’re Not A Member
Non-members have had every reason to wake up to what has been going on over the last 10 years and despite my colleague Mark Brown’s predictions (all of which have been shown to be correct) have chosen not to join and add their weight to our campaigns. Incredibly, some still support Accord despite repeated evidence of its corrupt relationship with Lloyds. That is their choice but the pigeons have now come home to roost.
Professional representation rather than sitting in on meetings and doing nothing much, whilst employers pursue their agendas, is what most trade unions do. They act that way because they lack the expertise, the resources and most importantly the will to fight that is essential when faced with improper behaviour. Often they can’t afford to resist because employers have bought them off by providing free resources on which they depend.
We don’t work that way or accept employer subsidies, but quality representation comes at a cost and the members who have funded our services over a long period are entitled to expect, and will get, our total commitment i.e. a full return on their investment.
If you join from now on you will need to be a member for at least 6 months and probably for 12 before we will represent you free of charge in any performance management case. And we won’t represent you free in any other matter that had its origins in the period before you joined BTU. There will be no exceptions to these rules.
If you decide to join (a smart move even now) we will represent you on a more immediate performance or other issue but will charge a commercial fee.