Mask up Melbourne, Sydney and the world, or the biggest bust in banking history is upon us.
Westpac is vowing to stand by its call for Australian staff to take annual leave during the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes Victorian employees affected by the Andrews Government’s strict lockdown measures.
The controversial directive from the bank is part of an effort to reduce the accrued leave balances of thousands of staff, which are reported as liabilities each year on the group balance sheet.
Westpac originally directed staff to reduce their leave balances before the COVID-19 crisis hit Australia.
However, the bank’s insistence that people take leave in the next two months now looks heavy-handed given the current restrictions on human movement within Australia due to the pandemic.
In the case of Westpac’s Melbourne staff - where people are currently being asked to work from home and to avoid recreational activity outside their suburb – the directive seems utterly wrongheaded.
Banking Day confirmed yesterday that Westpac would continue to direct staff to reduce their annual leave balances to 20 days before the end of the bank’s current financial year on September 30.
“It is important people have a break each year,” a Westpac spokesman said.
“Westpac has only asked employees who have more than 20 days accrued leave to reduce their leave balance to about 20 days by 30 September 2020.”
Westpac’s decision has triggered an angry response from the Finance Sector Union, which is now campaigning for the bank to withdraw the call.
In a post on the FSU website, the union’s national secretary Julia Angrisano cited claims from Westpac staff alleging they were told that managers would book annual leave dates for them if they did not nominate to take leave time before the end of September.
While the Westpac enterprise agreement appears to give the bank some discretion on when employees should use their leave entitlements, the bank is potentially risking further damage to its reputation by elbowing staff into taking holidays in their backyards.
Westpac is not the only bank where the issue of directed leave is creating controversy.
CommBank is also trying to direct staff in its Bankwest division to take holidays before the end of December if they have accrued an entitlement to more than six weeks.