It’s amazing how quickly TSB was to ensure that staff who were self-isolating at home but had no COVID – 19 symptoms were working. At the close of business on 19th March, 465 members of staff were self-isolating for 14 days.
If it can find work for those staff, then lots more could now be working from home cutting down their risks of catching the virus. The Government has repeatedly said employers must make all efforts to help staff to work from home. We appreciate that banking is a key public service but TSB could be doing a lot more to stop the spread of this virus by allowing more homeworking across all areas of the bank.
Branch, contact centre and processing centre staff could be working from home, on a rotational basis if necessary, to do some of the following tasks:
- Outbound calling to vulnerable customers
- Conversational calling answering simple questions and offering general customer support
- Back Office processing including processing of mortgage payment holidays.
- Intranet training via SharePoint to enable them to upskill on procedures/training videos etc
We would like to hear from members who are currently being told to come to work when that work is either non-essential or could be done at home. For TSB staff working per se is not the problem, it’s the fact that every time they leave their homes, they are putting themselves and their families at risk especially when the Government is telling everyone else to stay indoors. One member today said she was: “ in a branch with 11 members of staff !! 11 !! How can we be 2m from each other ??
This is getting very, very frightening now – TSB appear to be flouting government rulings – staff are even suggesting shifts but this is falling on deaf ears – will it take a staff member falling ill or worse for the senior management to take notice???”. No employer should unnecessarily put their staff in that position.
Overstaffing
The obvious related issue is where any bank but TSB in the case is bringing people into work simply because it can, not because it needs to. TSB needs to stop trying to offer a normal service and to bring into work only the bare number of staff needed to provide basic banking services to customers.
This is about sacrificing commercial objectives for a short time to protect the health of the TSB’s staff.
If the people in Gresham Street think working in branches is safe they should join the front-line tomorrow morning and share the risk!
Protection Screens, Now
If Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl, Sainsbury, Tesco and Waitrose have put up Perspex protection screens in their stores then why hasn’t TSB? Lloyds did it last week and so have most of the other banks.
TSB says that those screens will be rolled out to branches from today. We would expect all branches to have their screens fitted by the end of week given the valuable protection they provide to staff.
If your branch hasn’t got a protection screen by then, contact the Union’s Advice Team and we will publish a daily list of branches naming and shaming the top managers who are not protecting their staff. TSB has had enough time to source these screens and we want them in as quickly as possible. No more delays.
Some area director groups are better than others when it comes to protecting the health and wellbeing of staff. The Area Director who said that social distancing didn’t apply at work is a classic example of the kind of stupidity that we want to stamp out as soon as possible. We rely on members telling us what’s happening locally. TSB will say things centrally but when that’s communicated down the management chain what’s comes out at branch level is invariably different. If there are things going on in your group which fall short of what TSB is saying centrally or anything which you feel we should be aware of then contact the Advice Team immediately.
“I Welcome Their Hate….”
And finally, one Senior Manager recently said to her branch managers: “Despite the challenges we are all facing, TBU are continuing their quest to cause further unrest and disruption……”. TBU is the largest trade union in TSB and we are doing our job. In respect of COVID 19, that job is about protecting the health and wellbeing of our members and we will do whatever it takes to do that. TSB’s senior management team from Debbie Crosbie downwards have been slow to react to the crisis and that’s putting our members at risk. We are not going to stand by and allow that to continue. The Senior Manager should be spending her time making sure the branches in her area have Perspex screens rather than pontificating about the role of trade unions. And let’s be honest, the HR-approved unions are nowhere to be seen in this crisis. To paraphrase a famous quote from an American President, we welcome their hatred because it shows that we are doing our jobs properly.
One member said” “It’s really reassuring to see the union speak on behalf of many of us members who all feel the same. The bank’s not doing enough to protect its staff”. The views of our members are the only ones that matter to us.
Members with any issues they would like us to deal with on this should contact the Union’s Advice Team on 01234 716029 (choose Option 1)