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HP WFM – redundancies

A team representing PCS and Unite met management at HP’s Bracknell headquarters on 15 July to discuss the company’s latest WFM initiative, and the implications for PCS members. We are advised that the main business reasons for the cuts are 'best-shoring' and to a lesser extent, efficiency savings.

 
We have vigorously challenged the company’s best-shore policy on the grounds that:
 
  • Employment conditions are set at a significantly lower level in some best-shore locations, and in some places at a level that many would describe as unethical;
  • There is some evidence that productivity is lower in best-shore locations
  • While cost is the main driver behind best-shoring, there is little sound evidence that long term cost savings are significant 
  • Removal of skilled jobs from the UK employment market is not in the country’s interest.
We also raised questions about data security, especially in relation to government work, and have been advised that in the immediate term at least, there are no plans for major off-shoring of work in government and defence contracts. The company’s target is to achieve a 50-50 split between offshore and onshore work.
 
Consultations will continue at future meetings, but the unions have agreed to allow managers to seek volunteers (Expression of Wish) from today, so that members can consider whether they wish to apply before the main holiday season commences.
 
The EoW exercise will not be open to all employees, but we have sought to ensure that as many people as possible have an opportunity to apply, both for the benefit of those who might wish to leave and to minimise the need for compulsory redundancy.
 
We have not yet received the data from management setting out specific posts and locations from which people will be selected for redundancy – selection pools – so we do not know where volunteers will be sought at this stage.
 
Initial notification suggested that 934 posts were at risk across the company in the UK, but at the most recent meeting, this was revised down to 720. We will of course be pressing for this figure to be reduced further. We understand that there is a substantial number of approved open vacancies across the company in the UK, and will be pressing for maximum redeployment of those at risk of compulsory redundancy.
 
The exercise is funded to be completed by the end of the financial year, 31 October 2010. However it is clear that there will be further exercises in the 2011 financial year, though no details are forthcoming as yet.
 
While we will not know the precise impact of the current exercise until further details are released, it does not seem likely that there will be a huge impact on the bulk of PCS’s membership, as there are no redundancies for DWP and a very limited number in defence – which is where the majority of job vacancies are.
 
Further bulletins will be issued as more information becomes available.
 
 
Jim Hanson
National Officer