Colleagues working in Platforms and the associated roles that were put at risk at the end of November should this week have had their outcomes as to whether they have a role or are at risk of redundancy. Some colleagues will also have been placed into a role which may be slightly or largely different than their previous role.
Some upskill may be required for the new role, and if the upskill feels like it will be too much, Unite encourage you to have a conversation with your line manager about any concerns as soon as possible. You are entitled to a trial period in an alternative role, the length of which depends on the time needed to train into the role.
If you are asked to change your compressed hours as a result of a change of role, Unite will provide individual guidance to anyone who cannot change their hours and seek guidance from our legal department in appropriate cases. Unite believe any exit from the bank as a result would be on full heritage redundancy terms.
Initially, up to 2,800 colleagues were either at risk or going through selection over the winter, and although the number now at risk of leaving has come down to just over 650, there is still a long way to go to ensure that colleagues who want to have a role with the bank still do. Unite feel that there should be a role for everyone in the new structure. Any colleague who wants to stay with the bank who doesn’t have a role to go into should get in touch with Unite as soon as possible.
LBG limits Compressed Hours for Colleagues at Risk of Redundancy - UNITE VIEW
Head to https://www.uniteinlbg.org/post/lbg-limits-compressed-hours-for-colleagues-at-risk-of-redundancy for the full article.
We feel this is a regressive step that will impact all colleagues who value and benefit from legacy compressed hours arrangements that are not aligned to the Flexibility Works offering. We believe that these changes will adversely impact working women, carers and parents in a discriminatory manner.
LBG colleagues will recall the widespread collective condemnation brought to bear against the Group last year for its compressed hours pilot and subsequent raid on valued working arrangements - see our Compressed Hours Collective Grievance Update (uniteinlbg.org/news/categories/flexibility) OUR campaign challenging the Group brought about the solidarity, confidence and empowerment for workers to just ‘Say NO’ when asked to give up their hours. The collectivism shown during our campaign was a game changer in combating the move and in resulted in line-manager guidance making it clear that it was a colleague's choice whether they gave up their legacy compressed hours, and they would not be mandated to do so by LBG.
Many of the scores in the 2023 Colleague Survey fell in comparison to 2022 and the Employee Engagement index lagged 12 points behind the preceding year. Yet despite this and LBG saying that it listening and taking feedback seriously, it is extremely disappointing that the decision has been taken to redouble the raid on compressed hours. The result of this being that any LBG colleague facing redundancy, who is offered an alternative role, will be expected to give up legacy compressed hours (deemed incompatible with Flexibility Works) in order to safeguard their job/career. Colleagues at risk of redundancy will most likely be experiencing significant stress and anxiety and to treat them in this manner is manifestly unfair and the requirement should be dropped immediately.
Your Unite team objected to these changes in the strongest of terms during consultation and have highlighted that the changes may disproportionately impact working women, carers and parents who depend on compressed working, and that this approach could be deemed discriminatory. Despite these objections LBG has indicated that it will be implementing the changes for all ongoing and future change programmes.
Member Support
Unite stands ready to support all our members who are faced with having to give up their compressed hours in order to save their job and career. If you are subject to this blanket/one-size fits all approach to mitigate redundancy, then please get in touch ASAP.
Your Unite team will be engaging Unite regional officers and the legal department to review the circumstances of your case and in appropriate circumstances will support members with Employment Tribunal claims.
Important to note that Unite legal, for the purposes of legal support comes into effect after 13 weeks of continuous membership.
Given the banks change agenda and its continued review of working arrangements we call on all LBG workers who are not yet in a Union to join. It’s the only way to be protected!
Join Unite the Union today – unitetheunion.org/join
Here is our original piece on the Platforms announcement from November 2023:
Some roles are being done at fewer locations - this is apparently a key driver in the new way of doing work in Platforms. Teams will be located across 1-2 locations, Labs across 2-3 and Platforms across 3-4. Unite put to the business that this was at odds with the brilliant way that our colleagues have shown they can collaborate and work successfully on a remote basis, with the need to come together physically in the same location, less of a necessity than it was pre-pandemic.
We are hopeful that most colleagues in this population will be able to transition into roles in other platforms who are still based at their location, but we shouldn’t rely on hope, and we know there are also some colleagues for whom this won’t be a possibility. We believe that the bank has a few options available to them, including:
• Relocation allowance - which is used to retain skills when the bank wants someone to move to a new location to do their role and the colleague agrees to this
• Extend the travel and mobility policy, both in terms of the time that this is payable (currently 12 months), and the minimum amount of disruption needed for the policy to kick in (currently 10 miles or 30 minutes each way to the new location) - This has been relaxed in other areas and has made sure that colleagues are retained
• Flexibility in location where needed to retain skills and talent within our business – understanding that collaboration in-person may be optimal, but not at the price of losing experienced colleagues
We feel that putting a premium on location instead of skills is a step back rather than a step forward for LBG and we await to see if there is any discernible benefit to reducing the number of locations in this way. In the meantime, we may lose the ability to attract good talent in certain locations just because “the work isn’t done there.” Whilst no work in the scope of this project is being moved offshore, we will fight to keep tech talent in the UK and nurture the next wave of talent.
Although colleagues who remain in their existing role can retain their compressed hours working arrangements, those who transition to new roles will be required to give them up. Colleagues have already demonstrated that compressed hours working is compatible with successful collaboration and whilst we welcome the fact that colleagues who remain in their existing role are not expected to give up compressed arrangements, we feel that it is an arbitrary distinction to require those moving to new roles to give them up. LBG have confirmed that those with compressed working arrangements under Flexibility Works are not impacted by the changes and they can be retained within the terms agreed. Colleagues are still entitled to request flexible working under Flexibility Works and also in accordance with their statutory entitlements (including compressed hours working arrangements).
Due to a requirement for colleagues to be physically present in specified hubs for 40% of their contracted hours, those who are homeworkers will be placed at risk of redundancy. However, those prepared to travel to a hub will be eligible to participate in a selection process or to retain their existing role depending on their individual circumstances. We highlighted that colleagues had successfully worked at home both pre and post the Covid-19 pandemic and that the approach taken in relation to homeworking will result in the loss of highly skilled colleagues from the business.
During the pandemic, many colleagues adapted to the increased flexibility that remote working presented to progress their careers and at the same time support the bank during a very challenging period. Unite feels that it would be very unfair to put such colleagues at risk because of the flexibility that they previously showed, and which may mean that they are not in one of the bank’s preferred hubs.
As a reminder we would urge that where applicable colleagues should consider taking up relevant flexibility entitlements under Flexibility Works and to consider making use of their statutory entitlement to request flexible working. Members can be assured that we are available to provide support and guidance to Unite members who are affected by these issues in which case you should get in touch.
Whilst Unite welcomes the bank’s stated intent to upskill impacted LBG workers because of changes it’s implementing to its platforms, we are hugely disappointed that this offer does not cover all of those impacted.
We are deeply concerned that the bank's approach to selection for the new roles could result in a sizeable portion of impacted workers not meeting the benchmarks to be upskilled for an alternative role, benchmarks that the bank have put in place, as it believes this approach will ensure a smoother transition into the new roles and with tailored upskilling ensure workers are able to take on the new role expectations and align to the groups pace agenda. This approach will potentially leave many workers in an uncertain position if they do not meet the role expectations and there is no appetite to elongate training to ensure impacted workers can get up the required proficiency regardless of if it takes a little longer.
We stressed this point during consultation and pressed the bank to align the current changes with its career mobility pledges and invest in impacted colleagues who do not meet the threshold to ensure they can take on these new roles and are not made redundant. Unfortunately, the bank has not committed to this and Unite is concerned that this exposes highly skilled and experienced colleagues to the possibility of redundancy, to make way for external hires who may have desired skill sets, but do not have the business knowledge, loyalty and alternative desirable skills set. That’s not to mention the time to advertise and attract for these new roles in the external market and then train these new hires up, given this unknown time frame, why not just invest and train those impacted?
Unite the Union does not accept the premise that these new skills cannot be taught and that with investment in both time and upskilling the bank can mitigate the impacts of this change substantially and help save jobs.
Unite is also concerned by the apparent lack of commitment to nurturing LBG workers career aspirations and to invest in workers to mitigate unnecessary redundancies. We asked for the details of how much LBG was planning to invest to support these changes and in reskilling - unfortunately, this information was not forthcoming, and we are unable to provide you with assurance as to the extent of the bank's commitment.
A key plank of the career mobility policy was a firm commitment to invest in skills training and to help colleagues via career mobility conversations to look further afield and with investment and support from the bank move onto new and ‘squiggly’ careers. It’s been 9 months since this policy was introduced and it has yet to be fully implement across the bank to help set colleagues up to weather business changes. The current career mobility hub is relatively limited in terms of opportunities that talented colleagues can apply for.
Unite calls on LBG to put as much energy and investment into skills training, apprenticeships, external shadowing, graduate courses as possible to create a workforce able to deal with the emerging needs of the sector. This can be done abroad, so why not here in the UK to support the commitment to Help Britain Prosper?
The current direction of travel raises questions for jobs - pay - conditions within the bank and this is why Unite in LBG has launched a consultative survey on technology and career mobility so we can together shape protections to mitigate risks to jobs - pay - conditions because of automation, new tech or processes and the upsurge in artificial intelligence.
When LBG made changes to the job security policies earlier this year with the union’s support, the emphasis was on protecting jobs. A long-term way of protecting jobs is to realise what your ‘roles of the future’ look like and proactively reskilling colleagues before their roles change.
LBG have set up the technology centre in Hyderabad which will have some direct working relationships with the teams impacted by the announcement, saying that there was a need for certain skills now that could not be brought together in the same way in the UK. Unite’s call on the bank is that these skills should be in the UK long-term and that the skills being undertaken by this centre are transferred over the coming years to UK based colleagues and apprentices.
We also assert that anyone who doesn’t have a role in the new structure should be able to be reskilled into a ‘role for the future’, and that retraining colleagues into these roles would have a tangible benefit to both the business and our members. For those colleagues who have been told they are ‘immediately at risk of redundancy’ we expect training opportunities to be granted in order to retain skills within the bank. The bank has confirmed that there are around 2,800 colleagues going through the selection process but because of the nature of the selections it doesn't have a final number yet on how many colleagues will end up at risk of redundancy. Unite will continue to push the bank throughout to ensure that as many redundancies as possible are mitigated and will support any member going through these changes.
For those who are going through a selection process, talk with your line manager when your 1:1 comes around and ensure you provide them with any additional information (previous experience, skills you have that you may not necessarily use in your current role) in order that your score is as reflective as possible.
If you are at risk of redundancy but will go into a selection pool, then one of the options that you may be offered is a different role within your platform, or even cross-platform. Again, provide your manager with as much information as possible in your 1:1 for a decision to be made. You may also be selected to go through some training if there’s a role you may not currently be up to speed onbut could become proficient in with some help.
For those immediately at risk, or who don’t secure a role as part of the selection process, redeployment support should be offered and you should be given assistance to make sure you’re able to stay within the group if that’s your desire. Unite can also assist with training so head to the website - www.uniteinlbg.org or the social media handles below to find out more or get in touch.