At a time when every announcement from the bank seems to be about more job cuts, it was a welcome relief to read about the creation of 500 new jobs in Edinburgh, which will now be the biggest digital engineering hub outside London. The bank has also said it will be building on their strategic hubs in London, Bristol, Manchester, West Yorkshire and Edinburgh. However, whilst that’s good news, the bank needs to make sure that those new roles are filled by existing staff and that external recruitment is by exception only.
One of the issues that comes up time after time in discussions with members is that internal job adverts are written is such a way as to make it almost impossible for existing staff to apply. It seems that unless you possess all the necessary skills and experience on Day 1, there is no point in applying. Those who do apply get the all too familiar brush off – “doesn’t have the necessary skill set”. Those words should be banned from Lloyds Banking Group. It’s the bank’s responsibility to make sure that everyone is ready for the jobs of the future.
The bank says: “At the beginning of GSR3 we made a commitment to increase colleague development hours by 50%, of which 4.4 million hours over the duration of GSR3 would be spent helping colleagues to build their skills for the future”. We have seen no evidence of those development hours being made available to staff. Staff want the opportunity to acquire the new skills for the future but it’s not happening fast enough. The training path set out for the new roles in Edinburgh – which involves two boot camps lasting 19 weeks – should be available to all those that want to take up the opportunity of acquiring new skills. It will be interesting to see how many of the 500 new jobs in Edinburgh go to Lloyds staff and how many of those have come from a different area of the bank?
The bank should commit to giving Lloyds staff who have 70% of the skill set for new roles first refusal when it comes filling those jobs. Staff should be given the necessary training and development to bridge the gap. Moreover, jobs should only be advertised externally when all internal options have been exhausted.
Members with any questions on this Newsletter can contact The Union’s Advice Team on 01234 262868.