HBOS staff and customers are bound to be outraged by this display of corporate opulence reported in today's News of the World.
Basically HBOS organised an event for its "star performers" which involved using three of the nicest hotels in Edinburgh for a weekend of revelling.
Comedian Patrick Kielty was on hand to provide entertainment, as if the good food and free booze wasn't enough, which often involved poking fun at those who are facing losing their homes. The cost for his act was quoted as £20,000.
This is a PR disaster for HBOS at and shows how little the organisation has learned from the events of the last few months.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense would have scaled back this event. Yes, some stuff was probably paid for well in advance, but they could have pulled back on the free bar, for example, and the champagne.
What I want to know is what the "star performers" were being rewarded for? Could they have been the people whose irresponsible lending has put the very foundation of our finance system in jeopardy?
LibDig This!
1 comment:
I can answer that question.
The stars in question are almost entirely the hard working counter and other relatively low level staff, and they get rated as Stars based on performance reviews, etc.
That means long serving friendly staff who are paid 6 to 8 quid an hour and who do well in training, appraisels, etc.
It's seperate from staff bonuses (which many branches can struggle to get because of location, demographics or being too small and limited to having specialised staff), so it's not just people who got lucky hitting bonus targets - in fact it's pretty unrelated to bonuses.
I don't have a problem with most staff getting decent bonuses either, very few of them indeed are involved in selling credit
Although heavily involved in mortgages they weren't playing silly buggers like Northern Rock, in fact our current mortgage was from Halifax and it wasn't crazy at all ( 20% deposit ) -- we proved we could afford it, and have paid it just fine for 2 years.
It's these same counter stuff and people at the bottom that are suffering most, unlike executives - this party and some small bonuses is about all they're likely to get, what with recruitment and training freezes, layoffs, etc do you really resent these proles getting a night out ?
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