‘Climate of fear’ hitting the health of bank staff

The study by the UNI Global Union found that more than 80 per cent of banking and insurance unions in 26 countries have reported that “deteriorating health” has been a major problem for their members over the last two years.

Stress was a key factor, with workers reporting unfeasible sales targets, lower salaries, and having to complete the same workload with fewer members of staff. Anxiety over job cuts was also reported as a significant problem. This was partly due to a trend of replacing older workers with younger, lower paid staff, often on temporary contracts, the report said.

Lynn Mackenzie, the author of the report Banking: The Human Crisis, said bankers in the “glass towers” of finance were often blamed for the global financial crisis, but this finger pointing also harmed bank workers lower down the pay chain.

Around 140,000 people work in financial services in Yorkshire, and three Yorkshire academics yesterday echoed Ms Mackenzie’s concerns about the impact on staff in the region.

Andrew Gilliland, associate principal lecturer in accounting and finance at Leeds Trinity University, said yesterday: “Customer facing financial services workers often face a serious dilemma when advising clients – many of them are still subject to ambitious sales targets for various financial products, yet mindful of recent mis-selling scandals and the widespread public mistrust which resulted from them.

“Advising customers is stressful, and recent changes to bank policies on lending now mean that many more customers are having to receive ‘bad news’ – taking this out on the staff who have to deliver it.

“The public perception that all workers in financial services are well paid for selling them products which they don’t really need does not make for a pleasant working environment.”

Dr Shalini Vohra, a senior lecturer in the department of management at Sheffield Hallam University, said that the emotional stress experienced by many financial services staff has been linked to lots of illnesses.

“Employees must have the confidence to talk about it,” she said. “It’s important for senior managers to take a mentoring approach.”

She said the situation in Yorkshire seemed to mirror what was happening throughout the UK and Europe.

Professor John Blenkinsopp, the head of organisational behaviour and human resources management at Hull University Business School, said some people working in financial services had been living with a stressful environment for a long time.

“The longer it lasts, the more a drain on our resources it is,” he added. “It will be interesting to see if the new entrants to the sector can break with the past and have a different way of working.”

Ms Mackenzie said: “Banks should be doing the utmost to preserve jobs by restructuring more fairly. Endless cost cutting and simply putting pressure on workers to achieve short-term financial results is to nobody’s advantage and is backfiring on business.

“At this stage it is the health of workers that is at stake.”

An anonymous UK financial services worker told the researchers: “We are witnessing worsening working conditions..There is also disciplinary use of performance management.”

Dominic Hook, national officer at the trade union Unite, said: “Since 2008 the big four banks have cut around 180,000 jobs worldwide. Banking staff up and down the UK are under massive pressure, often working unpaid overtime and struggling to meet targets.

“Staff numbers have dropped dramatically, leaving those left behind to cope with the increased workload.

“Workers in call centres, back offices and branches up and down the country did not cause the banking crisis but they are suffering the consequences.”

The British Bankers’ Association declined to comment.

Taking its toll in financial world

The report comes a day after senior British banker Hector Sants, head of compliance at Barclays, was signed off on medical leave until the end of the year suffering from stress.

His leave echoed that of Lloyds chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio who took two months off in late 2011 after suffering sleep deprivation and exhaustion. Zurich Insurance is looking into the suicide of its chief financial officer Pierre Wauthier and investigations are ongoing into the death of Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern Moritz Erhardt who was found dead in his London lodgings having worked through the night several days running.