Lloyds to hand shares worth £200 to every member of staff to thank them for their efforts during coronavirus crisis
Lloyds will hand shares worth £200 to every member of staff this month to thank them for their efforts during the coronavirus crisis.
The bank has rewarded 65,000 staff for handling an unprecedented number of calls requesting mortgage payment holidays, rescue loans and overdrafts.
The bank’s managers said they also recognised that customer-facing staff were under increasing pressure from irate members of the public who refused to socially distance themselves in branches.
A thank you: The bank has rewarded 65,000 staff for handling an unprecedented number of calls requesting mortgage payment holidays, rescue loans and overdrafts
Some staff members complained that members of the public had spat on them. The bank has ramped up a campaign to improve customer behaviour in response to cases of abuse.
Lloyds has also put all planned redundancies on hold and reassured staff they would still be entitled to bonuses paid this year for 2019. However, top executives – including chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio – have decided to forgo bonuses this year.
Now unions are also asking the bank to give an additional reward to branch staff in front-line roles.
Lloyds’ profits in the first three months of this year were almost wiped out as it set aside nearly £1.5 billion to deal with an expected surge in bad loans. Profits came in at just £74 million for the period. RBS and Barclays have also made hefty provisions to prepare for the economic fallout from the pandemic.
Britain’s biggest banks – including Lloyds, RBS, Barclays, HSBC, Santander and Standard Chartered – have now set aside £7.6 billion to deal with bad loans from business collapses.