In October this year the Finance Sector Union conducted a staffing and workloads audit at ING. The audit identified major issues impacting staff. A report of the audit outcomes, which maintains all respondents’ confidentiality, can be found here: FSU Audit – ING Staffing and Workloads
On 15 November your Union representatives met with ING to outline these results. We raised concerns around potential workplace health and safety issues facing staff. There were also questions around whether the Bank was meeting its obligations under the ING enterprise agreement.
FSU requested that ING respond to a number of issues reported. These include:
- Instances of unpaid overtime (e.g. requirement to work unpaid overtime on weekends for the One AD Migration)
- Vacant positions not being filled
- Recruitment bans or staff freezes in some parts of the business
- Increased workloads and pressure to complete more work in the same timeframe
- Increased levels of workplace stress impacting employees’ work and personal life.
FSU has requested that the Bank include details around staffing and vacancies numbers in both Operations and Retail over the last 12 months when providing their response to these issues.
Management response so far
While ING have said that they are seeking information to the specific questions around vacancy numbers, they have responded to two of the reported concerns identified in the audit so far.
- ING have said that there is no hiring ban or recruitment freeze in place and that recruitment is ongoing. They said that once a role is approved the process to hire commences. This means that all vacant positions should be filled.
- ING have also said that If there remain employees who feel the One AD Migration process was not fair and they were not provided information on applying for overtime to complete the process then those employees can make a request to their Leader that their overtime entitlement be provided.
What next?
Your Union is awaiting the details from the Bank on the specific vacancy numbers. This will enable a proper discussion and evaluation of the issues behind the many reports of unfilled vacancies and whether staffing allocation is appropriate for meeting workloads and business needs.
In the meantime, we are interested to hear from you on the following questions:
- Are you aware of vacant positions that are still not being filled in your team or department?
- Did you work on One AD Migration over a weekend in July or August, are eligible for overtime under the ING enterprise agreement, and did not receive this entitlement (no matter how few or many hours were worked).
- Do you continue to experience pressure to complete unreasonable workloads within your normal working hours?
If any of the above applies to you please contact us on fsuinfo@fsunion.org.au or call FSU Organiser William on 0423 821 779.
We will continue to use any additional information in our ongoing discussions with the Bank. Your union can support any members who have been underpaid to receive those entitlements.
Look out for further information from your Union as we continue discussions with the Bank around this important issue.
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