The member of staff went on to say: “I’m absolutely flabbergasted to hear such words from management! And if advisers do not do enough quotes and sales then we are in breach of our licence!!” The fact that this kind of approach to sales, and we have lots of other recent examples, still happens in Lloyds Banking Group is very worrying.
When he announced the last three-year strategic review, Antonio Horta-Osorio, Group Chief Executive, whose desire for a knighthood has extended to plastering the whole of the Westminster tube station, which many Parliamentarians use to get to and from work, with ‘Helping Britain Prosper’ propaganda, waved away concerns that aggressive targets would see Lloyds Banking Group slip back to its old ways. At the time he said: “We have a very different culture and approach to what we had in the UK ten years ago”. How Mr Horta-Osorio can say that when some line managers, driven by high level expectations from the Bank centrally, still insist on management by numbers is beyond us? There are still large pockets of resistance and customers are the ones that will suffer. Only a few weeks ago we said:
“In the North East Group all staff, regardless of their role or performance, have been put on coaching plans because of the lack of mortgage referrals. Who said the wrong kind of sales culture was dead! What kind of message does it send to staff when they turn up for work and the first thing they see is that they are all on coaching plans? Coaching plans are being abused in order to achieve a specific business target. That is wrong.”
The full email from the member of staff is set out below.
“I am writing with serious concern of how branches are currently been managed. I couldn’t comment on other pool groups, however our XXXX group is certainly looking like it is swaying on the edge of a knuckle rapping from the FCA!!
Firstly I thought that targets were abolished!? Well clearly not in our group. I might add that the wording the managers use are seemingly flamboyant to try and mask the truth! We currently have to ring the manager each day with how many home insurance quotes we have done, how many CINs appointments we have booked, how many customers we have seen, how many products we have done. Surely this is wrong!? I like to make sure that I see customers when they want to be seen and do the right things for them. I know my job is to make customers much better off, and I can do this in many ways. However, it appears unless you sell home insurance or a loan or mortgage then the managers are somewhat disinterested.
Secondly our group manager has now set a daily standard or expectation of booking and seeing at least 2 CINs appointments per day! From speaking to fellow colleagues of other groups this appears to only be happening in our group.
Last but not least, thirdly we have now been told that during an interview we must “discomfort” the customer into having a home insurance quote. I am absolutely flabbergasted to hear such words from management! And if advisers do not do enough quotes and sales then we are in breach of our licence!!
After nearly XXXX years of working for this organisation, I am genuinely upset that after all the pain and suffering Lloyds went through with the PPI scandal , the bank does not learn a single, valuable lesson!!
Why can’t the bank provide great products, allow staff to freely speak about them to customers and stop bullying staff to sell!!!!! It’s old school!! Move on.”
Members with any more specific examples of the wrong kind of behaviours, like the one we have highlighted in this Newsletter, should contact the Union’s Advice Team immediately on 01234 262868 (Choose Option 1) or email us in confidence at 24hours@btuonline.co.uk.