The RMT are holding an urgent meeting tomorrow to discuss Transformation among their reps.
Part of these discussions will be the below proposal from Management that could be perceived as a variation to existing agreements that affect all members of staff.
The RMT are happy to work through changes with Management but they need be in no doubt that we won’t stand by and see them steamroller our conditions
Maximising job opportunities for employees in scope for Transformation
At our last Transformation Oversight Group (TOG) meeting with the union Full Time Officers, feedback was provided on the redeployment support provided by TfL. Specifically, the trade unions were not confident that adequate arrangements were in
place to ensure that TfL was maximising the opportunities for staff in scope of organisational change to find alternative employment across TfL and in other work streams.
I share your concerns about the potential to lose knowledge, skills and experience. I also agree that we should ensure “at risk” and “displaced” staff are provided with optimum opportunities to secure a suitable job within TfL without compromising any
of the principles or commitments contained within either the RSRP or OCP processes.
To this end we will be introducing a more proactive and prescriptive approach to filling all vacancies across TfL during Transformation which seeks to redeploy existing skills, knowledge and experience as follows:
• An employee in a selection pool where there are more people than roles will be able to apply for vacancies across the business as a priority candidate at the earliest opportunity in consultation. This activity will run in parallel with either RSRP or OCP as appropriate.
• This is entirely voluntary – an employee has a choice whether to apply for a vacancy elsewhere in TfL or not.
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• Those employees already formally displaced (whether for medical reasons or as a result of a previous organisational change) will always be considered first for any vacancies that exist, including roles currently temporarily filled by non-permanent labour (NPL). This new category of priority candidate will be considered before any other internal candidates.
• If the role is a direct 1:1 skills match (e.g. an existing PA applies for another PA role) the priority candidate will be appointed on a permanent basis. There will be no trial period.
• If the role is not a direct skills match or more than one priority candidate applies, an assessment and selection process will be followed. If the minimum benchmark is met, a priority candidate must be appointed (no trial period).
• If the priority candidate chooses to accept the role they will come out of their pool at that point. They will not take part in assessment and selection.
• The relevant terms and conditions for the role will be offered. The successful priority candidate’s salary will be honoured provided it is within the pay band. If the current salary is above the salary maximum for the band, protection of earnings will be applied for 3 years in line with OCP / RSRP as appropriate. Their salary will always be capped at the band maximum.
• If an individual is unsuccessful in securing an alternative role prior to the assessment stage they will be required to participate in the relevant assessment process for their pool.
To maximise job opportunities available for those identified above, we will implement the following:
Targeted recruitment freeze – we will immediately limit recruitment to priority candidates only in disciplines where we can readily identify potential redeployment opportunities – e.g. Band 1 and Band 2 administration, Project Management and Engineering roles. A jobsite will be created, only accessible to priority candidates, where all applicable vacancies will be posted. We will also seek to make work streams aware of new vacancies arising on an ongoing basis during consultation.
Business critical roles will only be temporarily filled with NPL.
For all other recruitment (excluding high volume and operational) we will ensure priority candidates are considered before any other applicant.
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With regard to redeployment support for those who become displaced we will be even more proactive in identifying potential opportunities for our people as follows:-
All business areas will be required to undertake ongoing reviews of their NPL and identify all long term / permanent non specialist NPL roles for potential swap out with anyone remaining at risk of redundancy post selection and assessment.
All secondments over 3 months to be processed through the Redeployment Team, as potential opportunities.
We will rigorously enforce that anyone referred to Redeployment, must be interviewed for posts where their skills, knowledge and experience are deemed to match by Recruitment. Managers must accept people into roles identified as suitable alternative employment.
HR Business Partners are being briefed on this and will be able to answer any questions your representatives may have in the course of the ongoing work stream consultation.