Lloyds Is Auditing Thousands of IT Staffers' Technical Skills (bloomberg.com) 64
Lloyds Banking Group is assessing the skills of thousands of technology staffers in the UK to determine whether they can keep working at the bank once it upgrades its technology [alternative source]. Bloomberg: The British lender, which is carrying out a multiyear overhaul of its systems, put these workers on notice this month that they are at risk of losing their jobs and will be required to reapply for new positions across the bank, according to people familiar with the matter. In a company town hall last week, executives informed those staffers that they were in the process of assessing their technical skills based on a test they took last year to determine where, if anywhere, they can be placed within Lloyds, the people said, asking not to be named discussing non-public information.
It's just a layoff. It's just a layoff. (Score:5, Informative)
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People won't save if they're unemployed.
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Depressing wages. Trans women who code shut down unexpectedly to depress wages. Women weren't that dumb. They see the writing on the wall and the sheer amount of Indians in IT and they're steering way clear of that mess.
The 1% would really like a recession though to depress wages. They're very upset people across the globe are making more money. That money is theirs. All money is theirs. And the power that goes with it.
The "problem" is that they want more code monkeys to depress wages. They're not interested in better code, they want more of it. Rich people, the kind who push elected officials for more of a specific kind of employee, just throw a lot of stuff a wall to see what sticks. Quality isn't what matters, quantity is.
The first is the way we normally do it, raise interest rates. The goal here is to slow economic growth so that companies will begin layoffs which will depress wages and therefore depressed spending. Essentially your balancing the books on the backs of the middle class.
What do you think is pushing austerity politics, blocking infrastructure investment, and outsourcing jobs. A large part of what these people do day to day is figure out ways to depress wages to maximize their profits. Billionaire is absolutely have a cost to me you and everyone else reading this.
Tennessee is only at 5% and they're doing the same. Every honest economist has come out and said it's for political reasons, but it's not. It's to depress wages. -- www.fark.com/politics
Strange. Replace "Indians" with "Mexicans", "code monkeys" with "farmer jobs " and you sound exactly like the rednecks you hate.
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It's just a layoff. Because if it wasn't just a layoff, you could train people. It's just a layoff.
Yes, is there some reason you would not want to keep your better employees in a layoff?
I've been through number of them. The dead wood is culled, and you keep the good. The evaluation tests are a little weird, because what manner of company would have no idea who was good and who isn't.
The good ones indeed could be retrained.
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Your metric is how many calls a helpdesk rep completes within a given timeframe. Bob has his friends call up once a week or so with minor issues which can be resolved in five minutes or so.
Susan gets calls which require more in-depth questions and discussion. Her calls can take twenty minutes to resolve.
By looking at the metric, Bob completes four times as many calls as Susan so as an underperformer, Susan
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Yes, is there some reason you would not want to keep your better employees in a layoff? Your metric is how many calls a helpdesk rep completes within a given timeframe. Bob has his friends call up once a week or so with minor issues which can be resolved in five minutes or so. Susan gets calls which require more in-depth questions and discussion. Her calls can take twenty minutes to resolve. By looking at the metric, Bob completes four times as many calls as Susan so as an underperformer, Susan needs to go.
I had no idea that this was a helpdesk issue. Do you have evidence, or just want to disagree with a cool story?
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Far more likely is Bob walks them through restarting the computer and tells them to call back if that doesn't work.
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^This.
I worked in a help desk call center at the beginning of my career.
I would make sure the problem was fixed. The clients who called me never had to call back in. I would hear the person sitting next to me tell the person to reboot and if the issue was still there call back.
I was told my numbers were bad compared to their metrics. So I had to start doing the non fix get customer off phone to keep the job.
This has always been a metrics problem. Set the metrics to least number of times the customer had to
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It's an example from an article on metrics I keep around whenever people say they want to use metrics to produce an outcome. It makes the point that unless you know what you want to measure AND measure it correctly, you won't get the results you want.
Just because someone doesn't take a lot of helpdesk calls doesn't mean they're not a good employee. They might be getting the hard to figure out ones which take time to complete rather than the, "Restart your machine" ones.
The same with this article. Lloyds w
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It's an example from an article on metrics I keep around whenever people say they want to use metrics to produce an outcome. It makes the point that unless you know what you want to measure AND measure it correctly, you won't get the results you want.
Just because someone doesn't take a lot of helpdesk calls doesn't mean they're not a good employee. They might be getting the hard to figure out ones which take time to complete rather than the, "Restart your machine" ones.
The same with this article. Lloyds wants to keep their better performers, but how they measure performance will determine the results.
Sure, Lloyds will do that. That's pretty much the standard situation for companies through time. I just never heard of someone faking metrics like that though. I've seen a fair amount of tawdry activities like the people that try to make themselves look good by making others look bad. They are eventually weeded out.
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The really good take the voluntary redundancy package and get a new job somewhere else.
You're left with the average and some dead wood.
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If you are young enough to be employable.
My last job did exactly this. Slowly le the IT helpdesk fall apart till there was just me and one other, I had been there 8 years and knew everything and the other guy had been there over 20 in various roles orbiting IT.
We did everything from 1st-3rd line in the end.
Had to handle 30 tickets every morning at 8am, all generated overnight by the entire pup estate. New users, leavers, broken payment terminals, broken tills, new projects. The IT manager was basically us
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The British lender, which is carrying out a multiyear overhaul of its systems, put these workers on notice this month that they are at risk of losing their jobs
After their multiyear overhaul goes 500% over budget and crashes and burns not only will they not lay anyone off, they'll have to hire twice as many IT janit^H^H^Hstaffers to try and clean up the mess.
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If you read TFA it's not a layoff:
The British lender, which is carrying out a multiyear overhaul of its systems, put these workers on notice this month that they are at risk of losing their jobs
After their multiyear overhaul goes 500% over budget and crashes and burns not only will they not lay anyone off, they'll have to hire twice as many IT janit^H^H^Hstaffers to try and clean up the mess.
What I'm curious about is the new system apparently being so different than whatever they had before is making them believe they have a lot of incompetents on staff? Or perhaps people who haven't kept up?
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Agreed - I've worked with computer contractors who didn't know what an SMB share was or what NTFS permissions were - these were guys who were supposed to be setting up secure networks with confidential information about minors on them.
The sheer amount of clowns I've met working in fairly high positions in IT is mindblowing.
I realise this is probably a stealth layoff, but honestly, I'd welcome a test like this in half the places I've worked / worked with.
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It's just a layoff. Because if it wasn't just a layoff, you could train people. It's just a layoff.
Came in to say exactly this. To those who deny this is a layoff, pay attention to this part of the summary:
"they were in the process of assessing their technical skills based on a test they took last year to determine where, if anywhere, they can be placed within Lloyds"
Any bets on whether the staffs were told about how the test result would be used last year when they took it?
Old geezers in a corporate know that any report would be misused once they reach management's hands, the smart ones would have refu
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Possibly. But I often see in IT groups a lot of slack. Everyone has exactly the same skills, because they all took the same irrelevant Microsoft Certification classes. There's rarely someone there who can think indepently, and the few who can are approaching retirement. When the answer to every problem is "give Microsoft and Cisco more money" then you probably don't have a good team.
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exactly this... a not so stealthy layoff.
they shifted ops to their Lloyds Technology Centre in Hyderabad location (which isn't affected) and are now reducing head count at their UK site.
the difference between how it's reported between Bloomberg and the register is eye opening...please read both articles if you can.
Bloomberg makes it seem as if Lloyds has no choice, it's changing systems.. has to put people through this process at the UK office so the business can function...
The Register article clearly stat
Experience v.s. fad tech knowledge (Score:3)
It's sometimes worthwhile to also keep people with experience because the same methods can still work even if the technologies changes.
In IT most of the work is to being able to know and understand what the users need, not the tech to be used.
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It's sometimes worthwhile to also keep people with experience because the same methods can still work even if the technologies changes.
In IT most of the work is to being able to know and understand what the users need, not the tech to be used.
Exactly they’ve mastered saying “have you tried turning it off and on again?”
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>I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
From what I've seen of every consultant I have *ever* come across, the only cash-flow the consultant is converting gibberish into is their own. Never ONCE have I seen an ROI that couldn't have been achieved by the people already in place.
In fact, a lot of time the consultants come up with plans that were already discarded by management when the workers themselves presented them.
Lol. Consultants. What a wasteful proposition.
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They've tried to turn this "Understand what the user needs" into a different, less well paid career called "Business analyst" but it hasn't worked out for them because the actual work still requires understanding complex and specific technical restraints.
Lloyds Is Auditing Thousands of IT Staffers ... (Score:2)
Lloyds Is Auditing Thousands of IT Staffers' Technical Skills
Sounds like high season for recruiting agencies.
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Nobody is hiring now. Recruiting agencies are always boom/bust, and now it's bust
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Nobody is hiring now. Recruiting agencies are always boom/bust, and now it's bust
Lloyds is a UK bank, and the UK IT industry doesn't seem to be in any particular crisis, specially for people with three or more years of experience and a whole bunch of those is about to reconsider their job options.
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Nobody is hiring now. Recruiting agencies are always boom/bust, and now it's bust
Lloyds is a UK bank, and the UK IT industry doesn't seem to be in any particular crisis, specially for people with three or more years of experience and a whole bunch of those is about to reconsider their job options.
IT, living and working in the UK. I'd say the market is flat right now. Has been for the last year. People are still hiring but not hiring anyone with a pulse. I still get messages from recruiters on a regular basis but not much comes of it. It's neither a good nor particularly bad time to be looking for work (a bad time to be unemployed in general but that's due to the cost of living).
Always a good idea. (Score:5, Funny)
Over my thirty plus years in IT, I've found the best business move is to do everything you can to shake off anyone that might have industry or even business specific knowledge due to years spent doing the job. You want to lose those people because that knowledge won't ever be useful. Much better to make sure the staff all tick the correct boxes for whatever the latest technological fad is. Industry specific knowledge developed over a career is useless. Only fad technology knowledge is important.
Re:Always a good idea. (Score:5, Funny)
Over my thirty plus years in IT, I've found the best business move is to do everything you can to shake off anyone that might have industry or even business specific knowledge due to years spent doing the job. You want to lose those people because that knowledge won't ever be useful. Much better to make sure the staff all tick the correct boxes for whatever the latest technological fad is. Industry specific knowledge developed over a career is useless. Only fad technology knowledge is important.
It occurred to me moments after posting that Slashbots may not be quick enough to understand that this was meant as sarcasm. Mea culpa.
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It is sad how many "leaders" out there think engineers are just interchangeable parts and that domain knowledge is meaningless. Having the depressing job right now of transitioning my product to a team in India who have very little domain knowledge and watching my high functioning team be spread out to other US based teams. Apparently our leaders don't understand th
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Sounds like you should look for a new job, before the transition is complete. Take your knowledge with you and don't leave it behind.
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I'll admit it took me a minute......
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It occurred to me moments after posting that Slashbots may not be quick enough to understand that this was meant as sarcasm. Mea culpa.
Always be conscious of Poe's Law.
Re: Always a good idea. (Score:1)
The usual way to indicate this is "/s".
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If you have to explicitly label your sarcasm, then your sarcasm sucks and you should just not post it.
Re: Always a good idea. (Score:2)
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Or a host of AIs and LLMs now including it in their training!
Re:Always a good idea. (Score:5, Funny)
We are excited to acknowledge that your deep dive into the relationship between core competency and next generation staffing needs prove you have grasped the necessity of establishing international touchpoints to overcome any failure of agility due to excessive human resource hyperlocality.
Your commitment to a positive customer journey means we can offer you the opportunity to share your expertise with the call centre rock stars who will be performing your tasks going forward.
Thank you for your service.
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Re: Always a good idea. (Score:2)
Re: Always a good idea. (Score:2)
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Thirty years in IT? What crimes did you commit in a past life to be reincarnated into that?
Not sure, but I've spent 29 years trying to figure that out.
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What is even more important is making up plausible reasons for firing your local, expensive staff, so you can off-shore it to a cheaper country, without running foul of the local labour laws and risking unjustified dismissal cases.
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Only fad technology knowledge is important.
Yes, but it's important to have a lot of experience in that technology.
Requirements:
* Minimum 5 years experience in Windows 11
Motivation (Score:5, Interesting)
reductions inevitable and some roles being offshored to Lloyds Technology Center in India.
There's the real reason. Brings me back to the days when I worked for company that did offshoring and yearly assessments, but the assessments were braindumps of certs where they did a find and replace on versions and didn't include images that made the questions make sense. (Like questions about Office 2010 that reference the new format .docx...) Since promotions and continued employment were tied to the evaluation and likewise customer billing on certified knowledgeable staffing, cheating was rampant. It's all a billing game though, because if people passed they met the contractual knowledge requirements they sold to their clients.
When IT workers have to be replaceable cogs, offshoring to get the same knowledge seems thrifty. But then some of the realities set in, like being a different time zone and being disconnected from business processes that technology is supposed to enable. So the workers that you'll get are ones that have to work graveyard shifts. So the people you'll get are the people desperate enough take jobs at awful hours. Which leads to willingness to lie about experience and knowledge. Then when those people do get the experience to be qualified, they'll disappear into gigs that aren't as bad. Then later they'll realize the burden on the onshore staff is greater than expected.
At least, it seems like they are running their own service which shortcuts some of the other pass the buck games.
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Lloyds is a UK bank.
Re: News Flash (Score:1)
And H1Bs are not.
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Please don't spoil the punchline.
"Required to reapply for new positions" (Score:4, Funny)
I suggest they all apply for the CEO position.
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After all, there will never be a skills audit for any C?O position, not even CIO, CTO, or CFO where it would make sense for the occupant to be at least buzzword-familiar with the subjects.
"How many people have you fired today?" (Score:2)
Just more rounds of mass firings (Score:2)
They can call it anything they want but what they *really* want to do is just use this as an excuse to reduce headcount.
Good luck, as their most competent rats leave the ship first.
Who Can We Replace With AI? (Score:2)
Editors: (Score:2)
Instead of providing an alternative source when the original is paywalled, how about only providing the alternative source and completely disregarding the paywalled one?
Let us Bow our Heads and remember RBS... (Score:3)
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) got rid of 1500 experienced people, and replaced with 750 hired guns from the subcontinent... who turned out to be not as gifted as those who were shown to RBS before the contract was signed (surprise surprise).
These guys fucked up an update to the batch scheduler software, and fucked up restarting the batch schedule, which left RBS without any functioning banking apps nor any valid databases.
Over the weeks of disruption, the FCA said customers could not:
- Use online banking facilities to access their accounts
- Obtain accurate account balances from ATMs
- Make timely mortgage payments
- Access cash in foreign countries
In addition, the banks applied incorrect credit and debit interest to customers' accounts, and produced inaccurate bank statements.
It took more than four months to completely restore all the function for all customers.