Bank staff ‘given sack over emails’

A former ANZ manager says staff were sacked for deleting emails from customer files when they thought would give bad feedback about their service.

The woman, who does not want to be identified, said human resources was told to call 85 employees into disciplinary meetings and ‘‘sack them on the spot’’.

Banks have pledged to remove sales-based incentives for frontline staff after a critical report by regulators into the industry identified them as a potential problem.

But the manager said because staff were instead being judged on customer satisfaction, it replaced one pressure with another.

Customers are sometimes sent a survey to rate their experience with ANZ staff

‘‘The system is calculated so weirdly that a bad survey needs five or six good ones to be balanced out. Bad means a score of eight or below. Good means nine or 10.

‘‘It’s extremely difficult, almost impossible to remove incorrect surveys. Your manager basically had to identify the right person the customer complained about in their comments and tried to transfer that survey to that person’s manager. Some managers simply choose not to respond to these transfer emails.’’

She said people were marked down for asking for bank statements with a credit card application, or for giggling during a conversation.

‘‘In early 2018, there was a senior meeting talking about a list of 85 people that have changed customer emails and the words were ‘get them out’.’’

ANZ was asked whether it was correct 85 staff had been called into a meeting over the issue and whether any had lost their jobs.

Spokesman Stefan Herrick said one of the ways the bank got feedback was to randomly ask customers to respond to an email survey about their experiences.

‘‘About a year ago we found that some emails weren’t being sent to some customers. We take customer feedback seriously and staff involved were disciplined.’’

The bank has been under increased scrutiny since a censure from the Reserve Bank over its capital ratios, and the departure of chief executive David Hisco.

It is the subject of two reviews by the Reserve Bank. The first report will cover ANZ New Zealand’s compliance with the Reserve Bank’s current and historic capital adequacy requirements.

The second will assess ‘‘the effectiveness of ANZ New Zealand’s director’s attestation and assurance framework, focussing on internal governance, risk management and internal controls’’.

The bank has also been warned that the sector will need to show there is no need for a Royal Commission of Inquiry.