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I work for a bank and am sure that the practices demonstrated go on within all financial institutions - but not to the degree implied. Yes there is pressure to sell. Yes there are incentives for selling. But that doesn't mean every member of staff you meet is going to try and rip you off in an attempt to earn extra money.
Unfortunately, I don't believe there will be any short-term change in the strategy adopted by banks. At the end of the day it is a massively competitive market, driven - in part - by the consumers desire for cheaper priced financial products, and due to the fact this is business not charity. There are shareholders to pay. If they remove targets, sales fall, business folds. I know the astronomical profits are difficult to comprehend, however bare in mind corporation tax deducted lines government coffers which is then, in theory, passed onto the people. HIgher profits = more tax paid. Thousands and thousands of people are employed by banks, and they all make huge charitable donations.
That said, they are their own worst enemies some time and its not an enjoyable work experience much of the time. Unless your a city boy earning millions each year, Must be pleasant then.
Karne, karne, karne, i am so pleased you have posted this one because i spent a good few minutes thinking about doing so, a few times over the last few days, but as there was a main thread in existence i chose not to. There are elements of the branch network and the telephoney team that i did recognise a lot of. The blatant misselling, i have seen, been aware of and the processes in place to prevent them. Those who work for a bank should be aware that it is a sales job and that means targets. Yes, it can be fun yes it can be incredibly stressful and yes it can be rewarding. Would i work in a bank? Well, I do so yes. Would i advise others to do so? I think a no comment is better for me to say because there is a yes and a no. Is it stressful? Yes.
Will it have an effect? Sorry, Barclays but we will get a lot of business from you at Natwest. I think as well, that as the whole issues of charges has arisen that people's perspective is changing and it is a tougher environment to work in than it had been a few years ago.
I went to work as an underwriter for a secured loan company.
After a while I was asked to also sell the loan leads as well as underwrite them. I found it impossible to wear both the hats at the same time. As an underwriter the emphasis was to complete with a throughly checked criteria compliant loan.
As a sales person the pressure to sell was extreme. The loan was worth very little unless it had PPI with it. So that was what you were expected to sell. And lots of it.
Three months after the selling part of job started I left.
The whole attitude and atmosphere of the show was very familiar.
Hi,
This is my first post on this site.
I work for Barclays, at a similar call-centre to that which was featured in "Whistleblower" this week. (My sister phoned me excitedly to tell me it was on)
I am unfortunate enough to be acquainted with one or two of the more "pleasant" individuals filmed showing their true colours and many similar "characters".
My situation is complicated, I am clinically diagnosed with Anxiety and Depression, thanks to the general culture at Barclays, and the culture in the call-centre I worked in in particular.
In my opinion this programme showed a VERY fair and TRUTHFUL representation of the FACTS of what goes on there.
I have worked there for a long time and have worked in virtually every department there. I have worked as an advisor and as a Manager and so I have had the pressure put on me from all sides.
Whilst watching the programme I first started to laugh. "Ha Ha" I thought, FINALLY the truth is out. But then I started to feel uptight (like I did when I was there) it was all TOO familiar, and by the time the programme had got to the young worker crying in her break about the pressure that was being applied to her by her Manager I was wiping away the tears.
What I am doing by typing here is strictly against "Barclays Behaviours" (oh what a joy they are!) and I am obviously being careful what I type, as I am still technically employed by them.
My Union Rep has constantly been astounded by the callousness displayed by management when dealing with my own case. I wish I could tell you all about it, but I can't, as I have to protect my position at the moment.
I will make you a promise good people on here, that when I have resolved my issues with them and got what I want from them, I will be Whistleblowing and some of the things I have to tell you will turn your hair white.
Remember, I have had the pressure from a manager about sales targets. As a Manager I was then put under pressure to put this pressure on other people, and to "manage people out of the workplace" if they weren't performing as the Big Guns dictated, despite them being my colleagues, and my friends. When I refused to do this you cannot begin to imagine the moves management made to put pressure on me.
Please can you Private Message Dave or BankFodder as it is a rule of the site on posting. I would edit a little bit of the above post so that it does not identify you too much. Thanks for Joining and posting, as you know there is another thread on whistlblower which may be worth posting on.
Although I didn't work for that particular bank, that sounds oh so familiar. It is called a "performance improvement plan". And I can just hear the bigwigs saying "It isn't a big stick to beat you with, it's to help you improve your performance" then in the vocal small print they say "but if you don't improve within so many months, it gives us the right to get rid of you, oh and in the meantime, you will just get the cost of living payrise & no bonus"
Even out of the sales area of banking (back office) it reduced grown women to tears on a regular basis.
I too am glad to have a specific place to discuss this. I work for Nationwide as you may or may not know. I did take heart from the Whistleblower program because we are becoming more and more sales focussed but from what I've seen we're angels by comparison. When or if the customer says no we stop.
I have had, just after the end of good promotions on certain products, customers tell me that nobody told them and been at a loss to understand how!!!
We are competing with the big banks who are (clearly) not playing by the necessary rules, so we're really fighting an uphill battle.
The thing which really baffled me about the program is how out of touch the Lady from Barclays HQ was, you could tell from the way managers AND trainers were saying things that such practises were embedded in the culture of the organisation.
Finally I wish to say one thing which really confused me was the guy who came in about the upgrade to his current account which he hadn't asked for... You could see he was really irritated and yet he continues to bank with that organisation. Am I missing something?
That's the positive I see coming out of this people might actually look again at who they trust with thier money.
I want to add some additional things to the whstleblower programme. The world of banking and finance has changed no end and the job of being a bank worker has evolved in which if targets are met then you are getting bonuses and praise all round while if you are not hitting your targets you are effectively not doing your job. You can be sacked for performance on sales alone and made to feel so low that you feel that quitting the job is the only thing you can do. We have yearly staff opinion surveys and one of the things to emerge last year was that people felt that job security and the work/life balance has got worse in the previous 12 months. The reality of the programme that whistleblower has shown is that it is a stressful job within the face to face environment which can be either someone praising on the great job you have done from a customer or almost ripping your head off because of the misselling of some, within an organisation, which deep down you have an undestanding why they may have done it but still cannot fathom the fact that they did when it may appear so obvious to you.
Hi, this is my first post. I worked for lloydstsb for 15 years and i left 7 years ago now. I left because of the pressure of the selling you had to do. I was a cashier and we had weekly targets to achieve. It didn't matter who we approached or what their situations were, we had to sell! We didn't have the same callous approach that they showed at the call centre of Barclays but you were in big trouble if you didn't reach your targets. I was called in every week because i hadn't reached mine and i just kept saying the same thing - i won't sell to people that don't need it. Obviously this wasn't wanted what they wanted hear. I loved working for the bank but it is now all about sales and nothing else. On the other end of the scale, i am now about to try and reclaim my bank charges. I have been charged over £4000 in the past 6 years. Last year i was driven to the edge by these charges and actually phoned the bank while in a very bad state, telling them that i had no money to feed my family and if they didn't help me, i was actually going to take my own life (i really was that desperate at the time!). They actually turned round and said....go see a doctor we can't help you. At this my dad took the phone and refused to go until put through to a top manager. The did actually refund £200 at this point. I have now finally got myself out of my debt and feel strong enough now to take them to court. They have put me through hell and now its payback time.
I work for Halifax bank, and can identify with some, but not many of the points raised in the program.
I work as a cashier in branch, and it's a branch where the staff have all been there for many years, so maybe running on older principals? There is a strong focus on sales, we have a set number of points for different products - we have to achieve a number of points in a specific period. We have a meeting every morning to look at the previous days sales, and discuss our focus for the day.
But so far, my experiences are that if we don’t achieve those points, then its “don’t worry, let’s see what we can do to improve next time”. It's a much friendlier environment for both staff and customers than I saw on the Barclays program, and our staff have outright refused to pressure customers who don’t want a product, or don’t think it’s suitable for them.
Our bonus is based on sales, but over a year long period and is based on branch performance, so individuals aren't rewarded for individual sales. Our bonus is also partly based on customer service spot checks carried out using real customers who are then questioned about their experience by someone from head office (I think), so customer service is a big thing for us.
That said though, I have seen senior staff, managers, upset because of the pressure they’re getting from higher up to achieve their targets, so I know that it isn’t as nice outside my branch. Guess it shows that experiences can vary a lot from branch to branch.
My wife has worked at Barclays Bank for a 20+ years. She tells me that it's now all SELL, SELL ,SELL. Unless the branch staff do just that then the pay and bonusues are reflected accordingly. So in other words you stand out like a sore thumb, unless you SELL! ... I am also hearing that many short and long term members of staff are leaving the job because of this pressure.
I used to work in financial services for several of the "top" organisations, including The Woolwich who were subsequently merged with Barclays. I worked as a branch financial consultant but left over 6 years ago due to the unnecessarily draconian attitudes and methods employed to extract as much money out of the customer as possible.
The program on Barclays showed the morning meetings where daily targets were set and I recognised every aspect of the issues shown from my days at Woolwich. I have witnessed female staff breaking down in tears as they were insulted by managers for either failing to reach targets or not managing to get a customer to take a product or service. Absenteeism and medical sign offs through stress were commonplace.
Even branch managers suffered in this respect through pressure from above, and the manager at my branch eventually left through mental Breakdown caused by these pressures.
I eventually left before it got to me but also because I felt that I was unable to look a customer in the eye and do the right thing for the customer - the pressure really was that bad.
So from my personal experience, the Barclays program was a very accurate and true reflection of what was going on in my branch days and quite clearly is still going on now.
In relation to Halifax we at Nationwide are very similar, and I'm wonering if the attitude is still slightly different in organisations that used to be building societes? I mean they must still have some of the same people, right?
I only started for Nationwide last year, but I am having serious second thoughts, particularly since I got a look at the targets for the next financial year. The dilemma I have, which is becoming harder and harder to make managers see, if we're only targetted on sales then what are we supposed to do with our regular customers? Rush them out of the door? Serve them as quickly as possible?
I did see similarities in the WhistleBlower program and to be honest Nationwide is going more and more that way. It is becoming more and more the case that the right product is whatever we've got for sale and the right person is anyone!
For a time 2-3 years ago I worked as a freelance promoter for Barclaycard, visiting different branches of Barclays around the country every day with promotional materials for the branch.
Almost all staff I met were demoralised and under huge pressure - one guy who worked on the foreign exchange desk in a branch in Cambridge had had his second written warning (3 and you're out) for not selling enough car insurance! As he said to me, how is he supposed to reasonably sell car insurance when people go to him to change their holiday money?
In every single branch I visited in a two year period, I found staff desperately trying to sell any product they could as they were desperate for bonuses/targets, to which the rewards were mostly pathetic. When "anonman" says the staff don't openly lie about the products, he perhaps doesn't work for Barclays, as I found it endemic.
Incidentally, I bank at the Halifax and there isn't a single occasion when I go in there that they don't badger me to take out more products to the degree that I have had to request on my file that no sales approaches are made - they still are.
Everyone has targets. I was speaking to a friend a few months back about this sort of thing. she's a teacher and she has targets! Yes they compare one year to the next even though we're dealing with PEOPLE here and each intake is different to the next.
Slightly off topic but she has recently had a Polish girl put into her class who speaks no english. So now she has a hugely increased workload with the same targets.,,
Whistleblower - opinions of bank workers ?
Originally Posted by Keith22
