Greedy Lloyds TSB directors stuffed more than £12million in their piggy banks last year.
And as if that wasn't enough, they also awarded themselves inflation busting pay rises of up to nine per cent in January.
The boardroom bonanza emerged as the bank faces the wrath of union leaders for imposing a pay cut on thousands of staff.Lloyds TSB's annual report released yesterday reveals its American chief executive Eric Daniels was the biggest winner, pocketing almost £3m - up 18 per cent. This included a £1.8m bonus despite the six per cent dip in the bank's profits caused by a £280m hit from the credit crunch.
The bank also popped another £778,000 into 56-year-old Daniels' pension fund.And they increased his basic salary by £75,000 - eight per cent - to a shade over £1m at the start of this year.
Another American, Terri Dial, pictured - Lloyds' consumer banking chief - picked up almost £2m, including a £1m bonus.
The bank also gave her a nine per cent pay rise - the biggest in the boardroom - in January. But it wasn't enough to stop the 58-year-old Californian quitting to join US rival Citigroup.
Union leaders will not be sad to see her go, as she is seen as the architect of the pay deal causing such a stink.Lloyds put 3.8 per cent into the staff pay pot this month but one per cent is for star performers' bonuses. And thousands of long serving employees the bank claims are already paid more than the "market rate" will get nothing.
Thousands more will receive increases below the rate of inflation. John Bancroft, of the Unite union, said: "This boardroom greed is astonishing. Staff are struggling to keep up with rising bills but Lloyds is giving many of them below inflation pay rises.
"Despite the credit crunch and the problems in the financial markets, the executives are rewarding themselves inflation-busting pay increases."
A Lloyds spokeswoman defended the board's rich pickings, saying the bank had a good year despite "turbulence in financial markets".
And she insisted they had to pay top dollar to "attract and keep high calibre people". - A shame that they don't regard their staff on the shop floor as "high calibre people"
This was a company where intimidation, veiled threats, snide remarks and backstabbing were standard operating tools of the management. As were stress, having to take crap off managers who were scared of phones and unable to actually do my job.
One quote I heard was from a manager who attempted to correct me was that she was "not telephony based." - A classic wankspeak that could have come from the mouth of Eric Daniels himself. Yet that still never stopped them from deriding some point on your call.
A company where providing a decent service and actually resolving a customer problem came a poor second to badly thought out telephone audits and selling crap to people who did not want or need the crap I was selling.
I was actually told one day that I was not there to advise to customers the best options as that was taking too long? A silence followed and then I asked why I had the title of "adviser"?
The only way to get on in Lloyds was to pucker up and suck the correct tool or be a drinking buddy of some amoral fuckhead. Yes, the proverbial casting couch was alive and well there, anyone with morals stays at the bottom.
Sort of shows how Eric Daniels became head boss.
I still remember the day that one particular cunt featured in the Mirror story, a certain Eric Daniels was broadcast on the TV's in work to announce the Mumbai centre and that a "few jobs would going". Another phrase he fired was that of "backroom work" and that the "majority of jobs would be safe."
Well shortly after that a centre in Scotland closed, as did Newcastle. So much for the few jobs!
My only advise to people is to shop around, after all a certain high street bank with a name ending in "West" has it's call centers here in the UK.
Go on make the switch, help put an Indian call operator out of work...
My sympathies lay with the poor fuckers still there doing the job, slogging away afeared of being fired for breathing without due care and attention and hoping to make ends meet and pay the mortgage each month.
As for Lloyds should they not be happy at my words, well fuck em with the proverbial bargepole right up the ring. They drove me to the edge and I came out a lot stronger afterwards.
I still remember the shit - will never forget -so look forward to hearing from LTSB legal dept.
8 people have spoken:
agree - they are greedy cunts, and inefficient too...but afraid unsimilar to all executives in that position...am sure I would try the smae if I could ;-)
Yep they are cunts as are all banks.
I hear the current credit crunch will hit banks and estate agents hardest. BRILLIANT - Bring it on !!! lets see the bastards in pain.
Cheers anon and anon, lets hope that they go the same way as Northern Cock.
I currently work for ltsb and have to say you paint a very good picture of the retardation within. Worst thing for me currently is people dumping customer letters that arnt recorded delivery. If you dont have a £5M turnover, they dont give a fuck about you.
Hey everyone this will be a long one but I need some advice and a heads up about this Lloyds TSB Telephone Banking Advisor job. I applied to Lloyds TSB online two weeks ago for a telephone banking advisor role at their Newport office in Tredegar Park. I got through the online application form easily but it took a long time because it was multiple choice questions. I immediately received an invitation via email to a telephone interview which would last 15 minutes. I phoned the 0800 (free number wow) and the interview was over after only 5 minutes.
I was told straight away that I was successful and I was invited to a recruitment day from 9:30am to 12:30am. I got there and it just didn't feel right for some reason and I couldn’t put my finger on it, everything just felt so false. And the whole application process from start to finish was over in a week, that’s the online form, telephone interview, face interview with test and job done, far too quick if you ask me. We were greeted by two weird looking women and one of them led us to a board room which did not smell very nice at all. The one woman sat down and began to explain what the job entailed. Then the word “Sales” came out of her mouth and I was a little concerned.
I was under the impression that this job was to help people over the phone with their accounts and that’s it. But apparently we “Telephone Banking Advisors” have to look for an opportunity in the conversation to sell them something. Basically you have to kiss ass everyday on the phone to sell something to a customer who probably won't need what you are trying to sell anyway. They said it’s not cold calling sales so there is no stress. Yeah right, we were told that we would have targets to meet and a whole bunch of other stuff I’ll get to later. Oh yeah, you get £2 per sale, probably taxed anyway.
I had a short interview with the manager of the call centre consisting of 150 advisors. He was polite and all that but they always are in interviews. We had a chat about the job but he never asked about my past employment too much which was strange because the interview was supposed to be about me. He asked me three questions that he had written down about examples in my past working experience of when this happened and that happened etc. When that was over which only took 10 minutes or so I was whisked away to sit with an advisor and listen to how he did the job and spoke to the customers. I sat next to this Indian guy who seemed nice but hardly smiled and spoke to me at all.
I was only there for less than five minutes before being moved to the test. What a waste of time as I never got a chance to talk to the guy or listen to more calls, I only got to hear two short calls, and the guy was kissing ass on the phone talking to customers like as if he was a little boy asking his mother for sweets. I don’t kiss ass ever so this already concerned me. I had 30 minutes to read through 3 sections of information before an assessor called me. He was pretending to be a customer and I had to answer the phone in a certain way and look for a loop hole where I could sell him something. I did well because the following day I was offered the job. Now because of my other commitments they had to come up with a shift that would suit both of us.
They mentioned to me over five times that they had to bend over backwards to give me the shift that would work. Who cares about what they had to do, if it wasn’t for the advisors Lloyds would crumble, so they better bend over backwards for us. So the proposed shift was 8 weeks training Monday - Friday 5pm - 10pm and £7.32 an hour for 25 hours a week. After the 8 weeks training I would go onto a shift that would be Sunday - Thursday 4pm - 12pm and still £7.32 per hour.
Apparently for working past 10pm at nights you get paid unsociable hours money which is something like £100 or less a month, taxable of course. So now I don’t know what to do. So many people have told me bad things about Lloyds and this job and I have read so many bad things as well. Oh yeah, I was also told that sometimes you get a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates if you sell really well in the day. And also you get warning stars, red, amber, green, yellow etc based on how you talk to a customer. If you get too many red and ambers then you might get reprimanded. But we were told that our team leader will sit with us and show us where we are going wrong. The fact that someone is always watching over your shoulder is not good.
It feels like being back in school again only more stress because it’s a job and you have bills to pay. That woman also told us that a young guy who was working there 17 or 18 years old passed his driver’s licence and he drove out of the car park with a brand new car that Lloyds gave to him. I was thinking of going for the training for 8 weeks, getting paid for it and then after the 8 weeks leave. But then I thought although I would get paid, I would also be wasting my time, and they would probably be aware of that happening by asking us to sign a contract to prevent that from happening. So does working for Lloyds sound like bad idea?
They try to make the office environment fun and there are free coffee machines, which makes sense because of the stress. You know after writing all of this shit I have confirmed to myself that I am not an ass kisser and sales are not for me. Can someone please comment and tell me more about Lloyds TSB Telephone Banking Jobs and all the cons to doing it because I doubt there are many pro’s. Thanks for reading.
Anon I take it in all you said and you remind me of me three + years ago when I just left working for them...
Hey Fidothedog, thanks for the comment as I needed to get it all out and seek advice from other people. When you worked there was it really very bad like it is now?
It sucked, the managers stuck together, bullying was covered up, you had to be connected to progress anywhere.
Total horse cock.
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