When the Bank announced another round of job losses last week it tried to manage the bad news by saying that it was creating “an additional 2,000 roles”.

What it didn’t say immediately was that whilst it was creating 8,240 new digital roles it was getting rid of 6,240 roles in more traditional roles. In fact, so good was its news management that one of the in-house staff Unions – Accord – issued a Newsletter to its members entitled “Lloyds Banking Group announces major investment and 2,000 new jobs”. It didn’t mention once that 6,240 staff would be losing their jobs.

Almost all of the newspapers called out the Bank’s fake news. The Times said of the Bank’s “latest piece of news management” that when it comes to redundancies “the very least that a company can do is to be honest about its plans”.

The Bank said that it expected that 75% of the staff whose jobs were being lost would get one of the 8,240 new digital roles. That’s rubbish, and we all know it.

The Financial Times said of the Bank’s claim in an article headed up “Lloyds channels inner David Brent in its digital banking drive” that: “If c 75% of the 8,240 roles are being filled by “existing colleagues, that suggests 6,180 “leading-edge digital banking” jobs can be done by those 6,240 “refreshed” back-office staff. So only 60 people miss out on a new digital career.

Can that be right?” No, it can’t be right because it’s not true. In a further piece criticising the Bank’s press release, the Times says: “Journalists are being briefed that 75% of the new roles will be filled by those being sacked.

Again, Lloyds declines to say so on the record. Is the compliance department vetoing the fantasy hopes of the PRs, or at least demanding supporting evidence?”

Instead of trying to spin the bad news so it doesn’t affect Antonio Horta-Osorio’s chance of a knighthood, the Bank should give all of 6,240 staff who are losing their jobs a guarantee that they will be given the necessary training to enable them to take up one of the new roles on their existing terms and conditions of employment in locations convenient to their homes.

Furthermore, the Bank should provide relocation packages to staff to enable them to take up the guarantee of a new job if relocation is needed.

We await the Bank’s response.

Some members of staff have already received their ‘28 Days Notice’ letters following the redundancy announcement last week. In one-to-one conversations with line managers some of those staff were directed to the job swap site to see what jobs were available in the Bank.

However, whilst job swap is open, it’s in the middle of a change freeze so new jobs will not be added to the site until the end of the month when staff want to secure alternative jobs as soon as possible, especially coming up to the Christmas break.

Given the importance of job swap in finding new roles and the fact that it will not be fully updated until he end of November, at the earliest, the Bank should have waited before issuing notice of redundancy letters to staff.

The Bank should rescind those letters and only issue them once job shop is fully operational.

Members with any questions on the redundancy announcement should contact the Union’s Advice Team immediately on 01234 262868 (Option 1) or they can email us at 24hours@btuonline.co.uk.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This