When Lloyds announced its new redundancy policy a few months ago it made much of the fact that it wanted staff to stay and build their careers with the bank, Sharon Doherty, Chief People and Places Officer, waxed lyrical about its new initiative saying: “…the great news is that in listening to you and leading with our values, we’re introducing a number of ways we can help you learn new skills and “adjust your sails” to grow your career here. And when you grow, our business grows with purpose too so that means we can do more to help Britain Prosper”.
Stirring words from Ms Doherty. Now, let’s fast forward a few months.
Lloyds has recently announced that it is recruiting 600 highly skilled technology, data and cyber specialists this year at its new technology centre in the Knowledge City district of Hyderabad, India. And that’s just in 2023. We understand that Lloyds has plans to increase that number of staff significantly over the next 2-3 years with up to 2,000 staff working in its new centre when it’s fully up and running.
Now that’s good news for India, with Shri K. T. Rama Rao, IT and Industries Minister, welcoming Lloyds to Hyderabad in recent press release. However, what about those UK staff who want to learn those new skills and build careers in the bank. Lloyds may say these are additional resources and/or that it can’t recruit the right number of people in the UK. We would say to Charlie Nunn and Sharon Doherty that it must train its own staff before it goes looking for cheaper alternatives. There are hundreds of Lloyds staff who would give their right arms to develop these new skills. Equally, why doesn’t Lloyds commit to establishing 500 IT Apprenticeships per year for the next 3 years to train the home-grown IT specialists it’s going to need for the future.
Surely, that would be helping Britain Prosper.
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