One of the companies values is "People-First - we put people first to go further for customers. We listen and care for people as individuals. We go the extra mile to help customers, colleagues and communities feel more supported, in control and confident about their future"
This is how the senior leaders have lived this value over the last year:
1. Announced a mandated return to office, for 40% of your time, without providing any evidence for the benefits they claimed. This includes people who were hired remotely, the other side of the country from the team they work with, who now have to travel into their local office, with no one they know, because of "collaboration".
2. At the same time, announced removing consolidated working arrangements that had been in place to support those caring for sick family members, newborn babies, etc. They replaced this with a policy putting a limit on the length of these agreements. There are now people having to ration their holiday allowance to use to take time off to care for family members.
3. In response to the above two announcements, thousands of people spoke out against it in the comments on the article, but employee's concerns were brushed off as people "struggling with change".
4. A follow-up announcement included all senior leaders piling into the comments section voicing their support for the changes, while replying in very passive aggressive ways to people who didn't, asking those people to have a "chat to understand why they feel this way". This led to people not feeling comfortable sharing their opinion.
5. Subsequent announcements had comments turned off, preventing people voicing their opinion.
6. A survey was released promising to 'listen to colleagues' on this subject, which included loaded questions forcing you to pick between 'I care about the company' and 'I don't see the value in the changes'.
7. Contract changes, removing any right to redundancy packages if you reject a role they arbitrarily think you're suitable for, even if it's nothing to do with your skillset and requires a complete change in your career aspirations.
8. Changes to restrict internal applications. Managers are notified automatically if you apply for another role and you can only apply to one role at a time. This will heavily dissuade some colleagues from applying and enables managers to prevent you moving roles if it's not in their interest.
9. Pay increases have been significantly below inflation. This is constantly eroding employees buying-power, during a cost of living crisis, while selling it as a positive thing we should be grateful for and the bank also announcing a 57% increase to pre-tax profits.
10. Locking in a two year pay deal, passing the risk of a significantly volatile economic environment onto employees.
11. Disingenuously using PR and spin that a political would be proud of on all internal announcements. Including one off payments into year on year salary comparisons. Using forecasts from the BOE in their announcements to staff around pay to make the offer look competitive, but then just a few days later releasing their own forecasts via a company report that were higher.
12. Re-worked some offices to be open plan unproductive hell-holes. Conveniently, senior leaders have their own private and quiet offices, where they don't have to deal with the sensory insanity around them while still trying to focus on work.
Due to all of the above employee morale is at an all time low. Charlie Nunn in a recent all-colleagues call brushed this off as a 'minority' of people feeling that way, but I haven't met a single colleague who isn't feeling deflated and under appreciated because of everything that's happened.
In a single year the senior leadership team has destroyed the morale, trust and goodwill of a workforce that's taken years to build.
