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staff
|
- Salary package
- Personal development and career opportunities
- Relationships and working environment
- Job security
- Work/personal life balance
- Communication [NEW INDICATOR]
- Co-operative culture and ethical conduct
- Review the personal development toolkit with staff representatives and implement agreed improvements. TARGET ACHIEVED
- Publicly support the benefits of partnership with staff across the business community. TARGET ACHIEVED
- Review and enhance the bank's family friendly policies. TARGET ACHIEVED
- Ensure that ethical and ecological values continue to be understood by over 85% of staff. TARGET ACHIEVED
- Further develop opportunities for staff to work with local communities. TARGET ACHIEVED
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performance
| |
Role Types and Basic Salaries
|
| 'Organisation Level' |
Examples of Role Types |
Basic Salaries |
% of People December 2002 |
% of People December 2001 |
| 'Implementing Activities' |
Customer Adviser, Administrator,
Processor, Customer Service Adviser |
£9,500 - £35,000 |
68.26% |
70.89% |
| 'Leading and Advising Implementation' |
Team Manager, Sales Consultant, Business
Adviser, Customer Service Team Manager |
£11,000 - £47,000 |
23.31% |
21.08% |
| 'Delivering Business Plans' |
Corporate Manager, Project Manager,
Customer Service Manager |
£24,000 - £65,000 |
7.36% |
6.88% |
| 'Translating the Strategy' |
Head of Function
Director of Function |
£44,694 - £200,000 |
0.95% |
1.00% |
| 'Shaping the Business' |
Executive Director,
Chief Executive |
£155,000 - £475,000 |
0.12% |
0.15% |
|
| (Source: Human Resources 2002) |
| |
Salary
| |
| |
| |
Benefits
| |
| |
| | Personal Development
| |
|
 |
Agree |
 |
Neutral |
 |
Disagree |
 |
Don't Know |
| |
Career Opportunities
| |
|
|
Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Disagree |
|
Don't Know |
| | Relationships and Working Environment
| |
| |
| | Job Security
| |
|
|
Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Disagree |
|
Don't Know |
| |
Work/Personal Life Balance
| |
| |
| |
|
|
Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Disagree |
|
Don't Know |
| |
Communication Culture
| |
| |
| |
Co-operative Culture and Ethical Values | |
|
|
Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Disagree |
|
Don't Know |
| |
|
|
Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Disagree |
|
Don't Know |
|
|
commentary
|
People policies and procedures A major change
programme designed to review and improve the bank's people
policies and practices has now been completed. The final
stage covered staff development and career and succession
planning. Broader job roles have been introduced to provide
staff with the flexibility to develop capability within their role.
The pay structure places more emphasis on individual reward
for increased skills and capability (as opposed to solely the
achievement of annual performance targets); in addition, both
individuals and teams can now be rewarded for exceptional
achievement. During 2002, the bank and the financial services
trade union, UNIFI i, have worked in partnership to achieve
harmonisation of terms and conditions of employment for staff
in all the service centres and the branch network. In a ballot,
harmonisation was passed by a small margin.
The bank's performance management system is built on a
behaviour framework of thirteen key skills and behaviours.
These have been identified as important to the bank's
continued business success. Behaviours describe the
underlying characteristics that enable staff to perform well,
going beyond the traditional focus of academic qualifications,
technical skills and experience. Particular attention has been
paid to ensuring that ethical behaviour is recognised and
rewarded. 'Ethics in Action' has been designated as one of
four core behaviours and is present in the role of every member
of staff. Follow this link for further details of the bank's policies and procedures.ii
Salary and benefits packages Fewer staff say they are
satisfied with their pay and benefits, even though total
remuneration has increased.  The decline in satisfaction is
consistent with national trends. The UK@Work 2001 study iii
concludes that employee satisfaction has fallen in each of the
last ten years. In particular, the study indicates that 45% of
employees consider that their pay and benefits are below their
expectations. Average basic salary in 2002 was £19,411
(2001:£18,784). The bank continues to benchmark salaries
against those of its competitors. Salaries are compared with
39 other financial services organisations. For the majority of
staff, the bank's salaries are positioned above the sector
median. Total remuneration for 2002 was £92.486 million (2001:
£84.398 million) an increase of 9.6%. This includes basic
salary and all bonus payments (annual group bonus, executive
and senior management bonuses, profit share and regional
allowances). There has been a reduction to 29% in the
proportion of staff stating that they are not recognised for good
work (2001: 40%). In 2002, as part of the salary review
process, there was a significant increase in the money made
available to reward staff who demonstrated exceptional
achievement or capability increases (1.7% of the total salary
bill). This is in addition to the basic increase (1.3% of the total
salary bill - set in February 2002 when RPI equalled 1.3%) and
to profit share and bonus payments of 11% received by all staff
who met the basic requirements of their work. Each 'capability'
or 'step' salary rise reflects the increase in the staff member's
ability to perform their role. In the service centres, 45% of staff
in April and 31% of staff in October received such a rise during
2002. Outside the service centres, 56% of bank staff were
recognised for increased capability. Staff benefits continue to
include a non contributory, final salary, pension scheme that is
available to all permanent staff. Average contributions into the
pension scheme are equivalent to 15.6% of pensionable pay.
The value of the bank's non-contributory, final salary, pension
scheme is not always robustly communicated and, as a result,
is possibly not always fully understood or appreciated.
Additional benefits include: flexible working policy; holidays
(21- 30 days); a career break scheme; maternity, paternity and
adoption leave; life insurance; occupational sickness scheme
(up to 52 weeks full pay); and banking and wider Co-operative
Group benefits.
Personal development, career opportunities and
succession planning Staff remain generally happy with their
personal development (80%). However, fewer are satisfied with
career opportunities (36%), although this has improved in
2002. In response to feedback on career progression, the
bank piloted a new 'Growing Performance and Potential'
programme in 2002 to support the development of future
leaders. Initially, this pilot has focused on staff at managerial
level, aiming to develop a pool of highly motivated individuals
with the required knowledge, skills and behaviours. The
programme offers personal development according to an
individual's current capability, future potential and aspirations.
Development options include mentoring and 360-degree
feedback. This programme is currently being evaluated with
a view to involve more staff in this type of development in
the future.
In response to feedback from managers and staff, the bank
has revised and relaunched its Training and Development
Toolkit. Enhancements include a new Learning Portfolio of
personal development programmes with a particular emphasis
on leadership, managerial development and performance
management. 49% of staff said that managers have very good
people skills. The new focus in the Learning Portfolio on
managerial development should help improve this perception
in future. On national 'Learning at Work Day', the bank
launched 'Motiv8', a magazine tackling
self-development in a more approachable
style. In 1997, the bank became the first
clearing bank to achieve Investors in
People (IiP) iv accreditation for the whole
organisation. This national quality award recognises
organisations that improve their performance by developing
their employees. The IiP assessor's conclusion of the bank's
most recent review (March 2001) was that 'The Co-operative
Bank is an outstanding example of the benefits of Investors in
People in practice'.
Job security The bank's organisational change process,
introduced in 2000 in consultation with UNIFI (around 60% of
staff are members) recognises that any required redundancies
will, wherever possible, be achieved on a voluntary basis.
There were no involuntary redundancies in 2002. All
redundancies (24) were on a voluntary basis.
Work/personal life balance During 2002, a review of the
bank's family friendly policies was a key aspect of the bank's
'Renewing Partnership' initiative with UNIFI. The policies have
now been relaunched as a package of 'Work/Life Balance
Policies and Benefits' v. The new policies offer a range of
flexible working practices and are aimed at all staff who wish to
create a better balance between the different aspects of their
lives. These policies also aim to improve staff well-being as
detailed on page 56. Specific enhancements include:
- Returners' Bonus. Upon returning from maternity leave, staff
will receive an additional six weeks' pay equivalent to normal
weekly earnings.
- Compassionate Leave. Increased from five to ten days.
- Compressed Hours. Staff are able to work the standard
number of agreed hours over a shorter number of working
days.
- Term-Time Working. Enables working parents to take unpaid
time off work during school holiday periods to care for children.
The bank does not currently have centralised records of the
numbers of staff taking up work/life balance options. These will
be developed during 2003.
Ethical conduct Last year, the staff survey asked whether
staff 'believed that the bank behaved ethically in the way it
treats staff' (52% agreed and 26% disagreed). Feedback from
staff indicated that this question was difficult to answer, as it
asked individuals to speculate on how other people were
treated. The question was amended to ask staff how they were
treated themselves. 60% of staff agreed that they are fairly
treated, whilst 20% disagreed. 88% of staff both understand
and support the bank's mission and core values and 76%
agree that the bank implements its ethical and ecological
policies with integrity. During 2002, in support of the bank's
commitment to ethical values, a programme was launched,
which aims to enable all staff to engage in community
volunteering projects for up to three days per year, where
participants are willing to donate equivalent time themselves.
The first three projects have been promoted to staff. These
programmes are designed to reinforce the bank's belief that
ethics and community activities involve all staff rather than
being confined to a limited number of specialists. (Follow this link for full details of staff community involvement).
Communication culture In order to bring the bank into
accordance with the SPI Finance reporting initiative vi, for the
first time this year, the bank reports on staff satisfaction with
communication. 60% of staff are satisfied.
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External recognition The bank's standing as a progressive
employer was recognised for the third consecutive year by
'Great Place to Work' as one of the 'UK's Best Workplaces
2003'. The bank was ranked number 24 in the listing. Published
by the Financial Times in March 2003, the
methodology behind the compilation has
been used in many other parts of the world.
Inclusion in the list is heavily influenced by an
independent random survey of staff views about their
employer, focusing on areas such as company philosophy,
culture and management style.
|
|
- www.unifi.org.uk
- www.co-operativebank.co.uk/thebank/people.html
- www.aon.com
- www.iipuk.co.uk
- www.co-operativebank.co.uk/thebank/people_balance.html
- www.co-operativebank.co.uk/ethics/partnership2002/pr/standards.html
To follow any of the links mentioned within the Partnership Report 2002, please visit the links page.
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new targets
|
- Increase the percentage of staff stating that managers have 'good people skills' by five percentage points.
- Consult with staff to gain an understanding of their views as the 'merger' between CIS and The Co-operative Bank progresses and report on the results.
Ken Lewis, Executive Director, Resources, CFS/Helen Sweeney, Director of Human Resources Relationships
- Review staff salary and benefits as part of a CFS-wide reward and remuneration review looking at terms and conditions and staff benefits.
Ken Lewis, Executive Director, Resources, CFS/Tony Britten, Director of Human Resources Services
- Develop and issue a 'Partnership at Work' staff booklet to raise staff awareness of partnership working with UNIFI.
- Monitor and evaluate the revised work/life balance policies.
Tony Britten, Director of Human Resources Services/Alison Booth, Human Resources Development Manager
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