As a resigned staff now serving her notice and someone who had witnessed the retrenchment saga, this is my advise to all 'Bankers' Wannabe: Be professional about your work, but never die for the company.
It's the same for anyone's personal life, even. Be balanced in everything.
Gone are the days when Banks are 'a friend in need is a friend indeed'. Gone are also the days when the Bank is your most dependable employer. Its existence is very simple - not only to survive, but also to make good money.
So when you decide to throw in the towel, some better bosses will try to keep you by offering you other positions within the organisation while some will inform HR straight away and treat you like a prisoner who'd committed some real serious crimes.
What happens in the next few days (mine was within 1 week - my boss is really kind!) or within 24 hours is that the resigned staff is to pack up and disappear from the department. The name from the intranet disappeared immediately and you are to surrender everything.
Yes, I know this is part of risk management. Deleting away the staff name from the intranet is to ensure that the entire bank knows this person is no longer with the company. I just feel that it could have done in a more humane approach - the whole thing.
During my exit interview, I brought up how the retrenchment exercise was so distastefully carried out. People disappeared overnight (in fact less than that - it was immediate). Every staff was given 2 days to agonize over if they are the one - a phone call was all it needed to take you away. We were told to wait, and wait, and wait for the 2 full days and "if you do not receive any phone call by 6pm on the 2nd day, you are safe." And when we learnt there was 1 more affected staff in the department over the weekends, our agony was further prolonged for 2 more days.
It was hell. I call that psychological torture.
Frankly, having been in the industry for 10 years, I admit I have fear to venture out to another industry. Until I have identified a business I am confident to set up, I will still be in this industry. The best that I can do for myself now is to do something totally different, into something where I can have a say, to at least build the business to be more humane for my customers, and my people.
4 comments:
Anyone running a business knows that senior bank management officers have hearts of stones.
In order to survive in the industry and in the banks they work for , playing politics is the name of the game.
Back stabbing is common practice . The sutra and the bible they carry is called the 36 -Dirty -Tricks which they apply the whole year round.
This is Sun Tze's 36 strategies applied in an immoral way to save costs by cutting jobs, as pointed out by the NTUC trade union chief himself.
Customers are not treated much better.The slightest delay in repayment or a returned cheque ring alarm bells in the small ears of these senior bank officers
Reactions are immediate, especially if you complain directly to the top, which can put these guys into a pot of hot soup.
Banking industry is in for a long rough ride.
Getting out early is a blessing.
What to do next without bosses hovering over u like hawks or worse vultures ?
Run your own business.
Start an internet marketing company ,sell on-line,
either own products or information ,e-books or be a affiliate,work with E-bay,so-called the perfect store.Books and training courses galore nowadays.
Good luck !
Politics! Yes, you are so right! It's the politics that scares the shit out of me because I'm not so good in that.
Hopefully I get my idea soon on what I want to do for my business....
Like everything else, a little is good, too much is bad, excess is evil.
Bankers pay themselves more than political leaders nowadays, in terms of millions and tens of millions.
They don't own the banks, hold little shareholdings and yet hold sway over the livelihoods of many of us, employees as well as clients and customers.
With a stroke of the pen, they can retrench you, like you say, almost with immediate effect, like Merlin the magician.
They can also withdraw your life line of trading facilities and overdrafts with short notices.
There is no kindness and certainly no compassion. As I said earlier, they have hearts of stone. The longer they are in the business, the harder the stone gets.
Most of them fall ill when they are on the job for too long. In the case of the CEO of a large bank in Singapore, he lasted less than 1 year. This is unfortunate as the environment must have done him in. Not entirely his fault as a hot seat was left for him with the collapse of banks halfway round the Earth.
For those who quit early, there is still hope.
Plenty of opportunities out there if we open our eyes and ears wide enough, socialise on the networks, join trade and social assoications, visit agencies such as WDA, CDC, SPRING and IE Singapore and if one has the right connections, top it all we will visit to Economic Development Board.
Good luck!
Thanks Anonymous for your advise. Very insightful. Pity I don't know you! =)
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