News

The main findings were summarized by FNV Bondgenoten as follows:



Image Stress:

• Almost 2/3 of staff suffer from “image stress,” feeling that they have to defend themselves after the financial crisis against the “idea that banks (and therefore 'everybody' who works there) are "greedy grabbers" and responsible for the financial crisis.”
• Relatedly, 40% of the employees are not fully supporting the products they sell.
• Interestingly, the Rabobank employees are the least affected by image stress. Nevertheless, more than half of them here do suffer from it. They also support the most its products.

Workload:

• The workload is extremely high and has increased since the last survey in 2007.
• More than 50% of the workers experience a (very) high pressure and one in three employees reported a (very) high fatigue. The method has been standardised so that we know that high pressure is really a heavy workload. The high workload is partly due to the financial crisis, with both increased objectives and controls on the workplace.
• It is remarkable that at the Rabobank, where people have relatively the least burden of the crisis, the staff’s space for manoeuvring seemed to be the most restricted. The crisis led at Delta Lloyd most prominently to higher goals and at the ING people have to defend themselves the most for working at a bank.

Visual Display Units:

• The work in the financial sector is almost entirely computerised.
• Two thirds of the staff experience (light or heavy) physical complaints.
• Over two thirds of these people indicates that RSI-complaints are work-related.

What to do:

• Nearly 60% of workers find high workload to be the first priority of problems
• Surprisingly very little priority was given to RSI problems, perhaps because employees consider it as ' inherent' to their work and ‘non-amendable’.
• Dealing with work pressure may also contribute to tackling RSI.
• The FNV referenced the UNI Charter on Sales and Advice as a means for addressing many of these concerns, particularly work pressure and the bank image.

The report is attached, but only available in Dutch. The English summary is also attached. For more information visit: http://www.fnvbondgenoten.nl/mijnbranche/branches/financiele_dienstverlening/