Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) has announced that it will close 13 branches and its office in Cheltenham with a total loss of 250 jobs. Eight YBS branches and five Norwich & Peterborough (N&P) branches are set to close across England by May 2018. The Cheltenham customer service centre will be closed in phases over the next two years, with the work transferred to existing offices in Peterborough and Bradford. Four more branches in England are currently being assessed and the decision about their future will be announced in February 2018.
A statement by the company said that the aim of the closures is to achieve better efficiency and have a 'more even spread of branches and agencies across the country'. Addressing the issue of the Cheltenham office, Mike Regnier, Chief Executive of the YBS Group, said: 'We have more capacity for office-based colleagues than we need. Staff in the Cheltenham office will be offered redeployment support by the company.'
In January 2017 YBS announced plans to close 48 branches, leading to 440 redundancies. The closure of several bank branches has been announced in the UK this week, leading to large-scale redundancies, including at the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Lloyds Banking Group.
Eurofound (2017), Yorkshire Building Society, Closure in United Kingdom, factsheet number 92712, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/92712.