Anger and despair as “cruelly incompetent” BT Corporate Units shake-up scores new HR lows
Telecoms & Financial Services, BT January 25 2021
Monday 25th January 2021
Members in scope for possible compulsory redundancy in BT’s Corporate Units HR ‘Colleague Experience and Delivery teams’ have lashed out at their disgraceful treatment in a shambolic consultation process that is generating anger and despair in equal measure.
A week and a half after the grim news that more than half of the 100-plus team members were being placed ‘at risk’ as result of the centralisation of work areas currently conducted across the UK into just two locations, a chaotic picture is emerging of almost unbelievable management incompetence in a process that lurches from bad to worse.
Some of the very worst examples involve individuals in the HR team at Yarnfield Park who were already mid-way through a consultation regarding the relocation of their work to BT’s massive new Snow Hill site in Birmingham – a move associated with BT’s so-called ‘Better Workplace ‘site rationalisation programme.
Just as many of those individuals’ futures appeared to have finally been resolved following management flip-flopping on the flexibility or otherwise of attendance patterns for those living furthest from the Snow Hill site, that team has now been thrown back into flux by the bombshell their work is now moving to Bristol.
“How can it be morally right to put people through the stress of a consultation about going to Snow Hill only to be told ‘oh sorry, there’s now a different plan’? asked one exasperated member during a well-attended online members’ meeting last Thursday.
Two of his female colleagues were even more outspoken. “At first we were told the company would work with us and be flexible around the move to Snow Hill. Then we were told it was a rigid 5-day-a-week placement. Then, on December 23, we were again told the company would be flexible…yet then, the week after returning from Christmas leave, we find out we’re all going into another consultation because all the work will be moving down to Bristol,” raged one.
“I’m absolutely disgusted at the way we’ve been treated and how badly the company is behaving at the moment.”
Another member vented her despair at the way that that management seems unable to even acknowledge the ‘human’ issues associated with the proposed relocation – simply parroting the theory of what the company is trying to achieve rather than addressing the questions people really need answering . “The way in which these proposals have been communicated to the HR community has been disgusting,” she stressed.
“These people are in professional HR roles but there was no human element whatsoever. If they really want this ‘excellent HR operation’ going forward they’ve got a lot of work to do because the way they’ve kicked this off has been absolutely incompetent.”
Members who’d been TUPE’d into BT from Accenture told of contradictory information they’ve been given over their redundancy terms, with some having their entitlement to BT team member terms questioned even as colleagues on identical contracts are being offered them.
Others told of similarly inconsistent answers as to whether ‘Pay in Lieu of Notice’ (PILON) is included in the maximum two-year cap on redundancy payouts – even though the fact it is ‘over and above’ is a contractual entitlement for team member grades.
Another expressed her concern about being pressurised to accept a new role without any real understanding of what it entails, how it is graded and whether Pay and Pension Protection will apply. That promoted unequivocal advice from CWU national officer Dave Jukes that it’s “a fair ask” to demand absolute clarity about the Ts&Cs of any ‘alternative role’ being offered before accepting it – and a reiteration of the crucial importance of CWU representation at any Individual Consultation (IC) meeting.
CWU counter-proposals
Multiple CWU counter-proposals – including a review of management’s current inflexibility towards homeworking, enhanced visibility of vacancies across BT Group and the wider offering of voluntary release to maximise redeployment opportunities for those who wish to stay – have been tabled, with the union urgently awaiting responses.
Dave concludes: “It’s impossible to overstate the anxiety and despair this cruelly incompetent so called ‘consultation’ process is causing impacted CWU members in BT Corporate Units HR.
“There can be no more poignant demonstration of the importance of the union’s Count Me In campaign against an overall management approach to team members which is dismissive at best and downright cruel at worst. We simply can’t carry on like this.”
