A decision by AIB to cut hybrid working has been met by frustration and disappointment by some staff at the bank, internal company communications show.
The bank informed more than 10,000 employees on Tuesday that staff eligible for hybrid working will be required to work from the office “a minimum of three days each week” on a phased basis, the tightest rule among Irish retail banks.
The company said it believes the new arrangements “strike the right balance” between flexibility for staff and “delivering invaluable opportunities and benefits of collaboration and deeper engagement” between colleagues.
More than 250 staff members have expressed disappointment and frustration with the decision on an internal company forum seen by The Irish Times.
RM Block
[ AIB calls eligible staff into office three days a weekOpens in new window ]
“I am disappointed in myself for believing we were more just a number,” one AIB employee said in response to a company question and answer post on the forum, in which AIB notes that “deliberate non-compliance with the new policy will not be accepted”.
Another staff member labelled the decision a “really disappointing move”. It “completely disregards the struggles working families already face with limited childcare and creche spaces available,” the person said.
“A solution to a problem that didn’t exist,” another person responded, saying the policy was “forcing staff to be less productive, less motivated, and more stressed. Bravo.”
Some responses criticised the company for the manner in which the decision was communicated.
One staff member called it “an example of very poor communication”, calling for “something this serious that affects staff lives” to have been delivered in-person or over a video call.
Another AIB employee said the company’s Q&A posted to the forum, in addition to the staff email, “reads like a lecturer to a student with a bamboo stick out... disgusting terminology.”
“There is ZERO thought for your employees here – we will be told where and when we are working and we will be ‘MONITORED’ for ‘NON COMPLIANCE’”.
“Who exactly do you think you are talking to after the loyalty shown and the HUGE hours far and beyond our working weeks with no overtime to keep the show on the road during Covid while the Bank raced to make bumper profits and coming back to private ownership?”
The new policy, according to the company Q&A post, will not allow in-person days be decided for individuals, with requirements being detailed on a team-by-team basis. A number of staff voiced concerns with this element of the policy.
[ Office attendance is becoming a performance metricOpens in new window ]
“You state ‘We’ll be as flexible and understanding as we can’,” an employee said, before pointing a number of restrictions on the flexibility of the policy, “So what is this flexibility you speak of, can you give more detail please.”
Many employees questioned how the new limitations to hybrid working fit with the company’s green ethos.
“As part of the Green Agenda, AIB wants to put more cars on the road commuting to their base location, locations already with limited on-site parking.”
The employee said the bank had seen five “hugely successful” years of hybrid working, which was used as a selling point to new staff, and that the reward for that performance was “making staff come into the office an extra day for no logical reason other than they might bump into someone they know.”
Some employees pointed to logistical and financial challenges that the new policy will pose for them. One employee, based in Cork, said the policy will require him to make a “520km round trip” to attend work and will make life harder for people to manage work and family responsibilities “especially when remote work has already proven effective”.
Links to sign up to the Financial Services Union (FSU) were posted in the channel a number of times.
In a statement to The Irish Times, the FSU encouraged AIB to “consider how they can promote sustainability while at the same time putting 10,000 staff back in cars.”
The FSU said it will be holding “a number of members meetings over the next few days” and expects to meet management following that consultation to “strongly advocate for a reversal of this decision”.
It said a survey of almost 3,000 AIB employees conducted in the past 48 hours showed “real dissatisfaction” at the “unilateral decision”.
Responding to questions from The Irish Times, a spokesman for AIB said “some of our colleagues are in an office or branch five days a week, some are office-centric which requires attendance onsite three to four days a week; and some are remote-centric which means they are office based two days a week.”
The bank’s “employees benefit from in person time with their own team and broader colleagues” and AIB “recognise[s] the benefits of structured, hybrid working and are committed to enabling it,” he added.
The spokesman said AIB has a “balanced and comprehensive hybrid working structure in place” and would continue to review the policy.
