HSBC have announced further cuts in its drive to structure its UK operations.
HSBC announced on Tuesday that it would be looking to implement up to 3,166 job cuts in the UK, mostly from its wealth management division. The announced cuts are part of HSBC’s continuing attempts to drive down costs in its three-year cost-cutting plan, and follows the 2,200 redundancies made in 2012 – this includes the agglomeration of the wealth management team and its commercial adviser team. The current job losses are being made as the bank cuts down on the number of customer advisers and the bank said that the chances would mean a better service for customers.
HSBC currently employs 47,000 staff across the UK and is the biggest bank in Europe. Although it is making the 3,166 redundancies, it said that it was aiming to create 2,017 positions in the same time frame and that it expected that the majority of these new roles would be filled by displaced employees. As a result, HSBC stated that it believed that the actual number of redundancies was reduced to 1,149.
As a result of the announcement, Unite stated that it may ballot its members at HSBC to determine whether industrial action should be taken. Dominic Hook, Unite’s national officer commented that “the bank’s behaviour is a disgrace” and “staff are ate the end of their tether”.
Currently, in order to implement the redundancies fairly, HSBC must take certain steps. It must engage in a redundancy consultation process with the affected staff members and must make a decision to dismiss the staff member which is fair. This means that HSBC should follow a fair process in dismissing any employees and that the decision to dismiss any employee should be within the reasonable range of responses in the circumstances. Normally, an employer has an obligation to show that it has created a fair pool of employees for redundancy, that objectively fair selection criteria were drawn up, and that the selection criteria were applied in a fair manner. Further, the employer must be able to show that it offered the employee any suitable alternative vacancies and should allow the employee a suitable amount of time off work to allow them to find another job. A failure to comply with any of the above elements may render a redundancy unfair and could constitute grounds to pursue Employment Tribunal proceedings. In addition to this, if the employee has two or more years’ employment then they will be entitled to receive (at least) a statutory redundancy payment.
If you’ve been made aware that you may be made redundant then you may be offered a compromise agreement by your employer. You should obtain independent legal advice on this compromise agreement and your legal adviser may be able to negotiate your compromise agreement in your favour for you.
Direct 2 Lawyers can put you in touch with expert compromise agreement solicitors