PSIS and Finsec talk staffing levels

Finsec and PSIS have had a constructive meeting about staffing levels at PSIS, after the release of the results of a Finsec staffing survey.

National organiser Bella Pardoe said that the survey highlighted some important issues that needed addressing. “Over half of the staff surveyed described staffing levels at their site as borderline, and that this caused stress,” said Pardoe. “Staffing levels were viewed as having a negative impact on the quality of customer service provided by teams and individuals.” Pardoe said that staff were also working additional hours, many of them unpaid.

Finsec met with PSIS last week and discussed options for improving staffing levels. Ideas under consideration include a dedicated internal relief pool and using tertiary students to work during peak periods of leave. The PSIS will come back to the Finsec Union Council by the end of October to discuss these matters further. If PSIS staff have ideas about how relief staffing could be improved they are encouraged to email these to campaigns@finsec.org.nz

Overworked? Over here!

Staff at the BNZ are being asked to identify if staffing levels at their site are unacceptable or in crisis. Finsec has been meeting with the bank to discuss and resolve ongoing staffing issues, and BNZ have agreed to look further into sites with serious staffing issues.

In a Finsec survey late last year, 53 percent of participants from BNZ said that staffing levels at their site were borderline, unacceptable or in crisis. As the surveys were filled in by individuals, the next step is to find the sites that reported the worst under-staffing.

BNZ members are urged to contact Finsec by Friday 9 May if their site is experiencing significant problems with current staffing levels so that work can be done to fix staffing in these sites.

BNZ Staffing Group meets

The BNZ group to address staffing levels at the bank had their first meeting on Tuesday 18 March. Finsec representatives gave a presentation on the results of the survey members filled in late last year on the impact of staffing levels, and the Better Banks Agenda for Change goals. The bank gave a presentation on different aspects of their business and community activities. 

After the meeting, the BNZ Union Council met to discuss solutions to the problems created by current staffing levels and to provide a BNZ specific element to the Better Banks Agenda for Change goals.

 

Finsec will be forwarding the outcomes of this discussion to form the basis of ongoing dialogue on staffing issues, which will be resumed in another meeting scheduled to take place in April.

 

PSIS staffing issues on “to do” list

 
Finsec members at PSIS are putting staffing issues on the “to do” list as needing to be addressed in negotiations starting in April. 

PSIS staff are worried that there is currently not enough relief cover provided for either planned or unplanned leave. Finsec national organiser Bella Pardoe said that the PSIS can only maintain its industry leading results for great customer service through increasing staffing numbers.

 “Under staffing will result in reduced service to customers, more pressure on staff and potentially damages PSIS’s good reputation,” said Pardoe. “Staff should be able to take holidays at times suitable to them and also be able to meet their family and community responsibilites.”

Pardoe said that the Better Banks Agenda for Change can fix staffing issues at PSIS. Measures include increasing the calculation of relief cover to 35 days per FTE, and reducing staff turnover through the introduction of an annual retention bonus of $1000 for all staff after working 12 months and then every 12 months after that.

Staffing levels survey underway

Staff at ANZ National and BNZ have been participating in the Finsec survey on staffing levels at their banks.

“This survey provides us with an opportunity to raise the issue of current staffing levels in a meaningful way. Instead of dealing with the effects individually, we will be able to work through them with the employer through Finsec,” said Cathie Lendrum, NBNZ Christchurch branch delegate and chairperson of the ANZ National Union Council.

Cathie says that all staff have a direct interest in staffing levels and that they are getting a good response to the survey.

“We will be really interested to see whether the same issues come up across the country. I really encourage all staff to take part in the survey so we can share our stories and come up with some solutions.”

The surveys need to be completed by Friday 7 December and returned to delegates who will forward them on to Finsec. Finsec will be using the survey to inform its participation in the groups which have been established to discuss staffing levels.

Winning fairer targets and more staff at ANZ National

With formal negotiations with the ANZ National bank now concluded Finsec members are looking ahead to the challenges of rebuilding union membership to take on the challenges of winning a fairer target system and increasing staffing levels.

“Many members were disappointed with the outcome of negotiations this year, so the challenge for us is to make sure that the targets and staffing reviews bring better outcome for us all”, says Cathie Lendrum the Chairperson of the ANZ National Union Council.

“Keeping active and growing our membership are going to be key to making sure the bank listens to the very real concerns about the level of targets and understaffing in the bank”.

All ANZ National sites will be sent a pack in the coming week with will contain the Finsec plan for fixing staffing and targets in the bank.

One third of BNZ worksites lost 2 or more staff last year

Last month Finsec conducted a survey of staffing levels and workload in the BNZ. The nationwide survey of 359 BNZ staff asked staff to quantify and describe how staffing had changed in their worksite.   It also asked the amount of paid and unpaid overtime they did for the bank.

In the last financial year BNZ staff numbers fell by 212.   In the same period the bank grew its profit and its business, and processed more work.So, it is not surprising that some of the survey results included:

• 44% of staff said that staff levels at their worksite had decreased over the past year.
• 33% said that staff levels at their worksite had decreased by 2 or more people.
• 25% of BNZ staff said they worked unpaid overtime every one or two weeks.
• 17% said that they were unable to take their morning tea, afternoon tea or lunch breaks most days of the week.   A further 17% said they were unable to take these breaks an average of once every 1 or 2 weeks.

Some of the comments from survey respondents were:

• “For 12 months we had no casual staff, so part time workers had to work full time.”
• “Their problem is they can’t get staff to stay, always changing/leaving.”
• “We are continually training new staff and never have enough cover for sickness or leave.”

Clause 6.4 of BNZ’s Collective Agreement reads:

The Bank is committed to ensuring that employees are able to balance their work and personal lives satisfactorily…   The Bank will monitor workloads to ensure that regular and/or excessive additional hours of work are not required.

The best way to for BNZ enforce its collective agreement commitment about workload in clause 6.4 (and also clauses 7.6 and 7.8) is to increase staffing.

(thanks to J L M for the photo)

Joint Westpac-Finsec recommends improved staffing in branches

In early 2007 Finsec and the bank agreed to work together to review staffing and resource levels across Westpac branches. The branch resourcing review came about after Finsec members actively campaigned to improve staff levels earlier this year. The review has now completed its work and made a series of recommendations which have been sent recommendations to Westpac senior management.

The review made a set of recommendations to improve resourcing across the entire branch network, including increasing relief cover per FTE from an estimated 22 days to 30 days to provide adequate relief for both planned and unplanned absences, and to mitigate potential stress on staff and customers.

Other recommendations include increasing the pool of casual staff available for and reducing the number of team meetings so that they can better focus on quality rather than quantity.

Finsec members are very hopeful that the recommendations will be acted on. The branch resourcing process has been conducted in good faith by both Finsec and Westpac, and has made good progress to date.

Three more aesthetic changes from BNZ

Here’s another three aesthetic changes that BNZ would like to make to the collective employment agreement, this time relating to leave.

1. The bank proposes employees will be required to have domestic leave approved in advance by your manager, and the existing discretion for managers to agree to more than 10 days be removed.
2. The bank is seeking the right to require employees to work on public holidays.
3. And in the event that it cannot reach an agreement with you about when you will take your annual leave the bank is seeking the ability to require you to take annual after 14 days notice.

It seems ironic that the bank is looking for the ability to make people take annual leave given that between the 2005 and 2006 financial years the number of annual leave days taken were down 20.5% or 3.5 days per employee (Taken from the NAB corporate social responsibility report).  Finsec believes that employees are not able to take as much annual leave because of overwork and understaffing so forcing them to take it will only mask underlying problem.  Our solution is twofold – first we want an automatic review when a staff member leaves to ensure they get replaced. Second we want to launch a bank-wide staffing review that examines the bank’s staffing model and looks to see how additional staff and additional relief/cover can be made available.

BNZ staff consider staffing and workload

The BNZ Collective Employment Agreement (CEA) currently says some good things and so Finsec has decided to find out how true those values are reflected in people’s actual working lives. It has instigated a simple 4 tick survey that all BNZ staff can fill in over the next fortnight.

For instance the CEA says:

“Clause 7.6: Neither you nor the Bank can agree to more than 37.5 hours being worked in any week without overtime applying.”

So Finsec is asking often do BNZ workers work in excess of 37.5 hours per week and are paid or given time in lieu? (This might include staying late for 15-20 minutes to finish up.) And also how often do workers do overtime and are not paid or given time in lieu?

According to clause 7.8 of the BNZ CEA full time staff are entitled to an unpaid 1 hour break and two paid 10 minute breaks.

So, how often are staff unable to take their entitlement of breaks?

And, finally, The BNZ CEA reads:

“Clause 6.4: The Bank is committed to ensuring that employees are able to balance their work and personal lives satisfactorily… The Bank will monitor workloads to ensure that regular and/or excessive additional hours of work are not required.”

But between 2005 and 2006 BNZ staff numbers fell by 214. In the same period the bank grew its profit and its business and processed more work.

So, how has staffing on individual branches and worksites changed in the last year?

(thanks to Tal Bright for the photo)