The Bank has announced its plan that by September 2023, there will be a mandatory requirement for all non-branch staff to spend 40% of their work hours in an LBG office location. The Bank has also introduced a pilot in the Consumer Lending and People & Places business units, to remove existing arrangements for compressed hours.
Yet again the Bank has failed to be honest with staff about its plans, instead leading staff to believe that changes to working arrangements it initiated would be permanent. Given what they were told, many staff have made significant changes to their personal lives and arrangements, only now to be told that the Bank’s changed its mind. Understandably, this has enraged staff, who’ve effectively had the rug pulled from under them.
The clear impression that’s given to staff by the senior managers setting these policies is that they simply don’t care about the impact on staff.
Not surprisingly, we’ve received a large numbers of calls from members concerned about what these changes mean for them and asking whether the Bank can enforce such changes.
We can’t offer a ‘one-size fits all’ answer to that question because the answer very much depends on a person’s individual circumstances. What’s certain though is that we will fight to ensure that the Bank adopts a reasonable approach in every case.
Next Steps For Members
- Contact us so that we can advise you on your case. The sooner you get us involved, the sooner we can help.
- Locate your employment contract; if you don’t have a copy then ask for a copy from the Bank. If you need assistance with that, please do give us a call.
- If you’ve got any evidence which supports your case, make sure you locate that now so it’s ready when you need it.
- Think carefully about your working arrangements and what you can and cannot do and why.
Hard HR
What members are seeing now is an attempt to cut costs by a senior management that has not a clue on how to build revenue. All they seem to know is how to do the simple thing: cutting costs by squeezing more out of staff until the pips squeak, in a zero sum game.
This is what is known as ‘hard HR’ where an agenda that ignores staff interests is increasingly driven through irrespective of its effects.
If there are any members left who believe the Bank’s glossy blurb and high-sounding, ‘right on’ policies, they need to sit down quietly and reflect on the nature of the organisation they work for.
As my colleague Mark Brown pointed out three weeks ago, the move to try make it less likely that staff would qualify for redundancy terms was the surest indicator of an agenda that would act against the interests of staff. We’re now seeing the beginning of this new, hard line approach.
We’re going to fight this every inch of the way!