Aviva,Job losses confirmed at 950

I heard on the radio that staff there had received 15 pay increases, amounting to around 50% of salary, over the last few years. Can anyone confirm this?
 
Purple said:
I heard on the radio that staff there had received 15 pay increases, amounting to around 50% of salary, over the last few years. Can anyone confirm this?
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assuming staff received either an increment or performance based increase every year + also received the benchmarking increases as was the case in many unionished financial services companies, then it's feasible. Certainly in the boom times, I know people in the banks who were averaging 10% + per annum rises annually
 
Yet they were able to spend €40m on naming rights for Landsdowne Road

Which executive came up with that plan
Most likely someone high up in HQ who won't be one of the staff being made redundant,

No doubt Aviva will be keeping their corporate box while preaching about difficult conditions.
Well yes conditions are difficult and costs are high but start at the top.
 
Purple said:
I heard on the radio that staff there had received 15 pay increases, amounting to around 50% of salary, over the last few years. Can anyone confirm this?
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I doubt that's the case. Pay freezes have been kicking in around most insurance companies since 2008.

This whole sorry saga highlights the crazy and costly strategies being pursued by multinational organisations.

Aviva Ireland was to be a centre of excellence for the Aviva group effectively replacing work that was being done elsewhere.

A massively costly lease was taken out on a state of the art headquarters, they are now tied into this lease despite losing half their staff and having no need for such salubrious and spacious accommodation

€40m was spent on naming rights to the Aviva stadium. That goodwill is up in smoke, with redundancies and outsourcing.

Hundreds of new staff were taken on, there was upheaval and there was surely no time to assimilate them into the organisation before having to pay them redundancies.

They have now decided that strategy is unworkable. A costly gamble that has cost the company €100m+ and messed up people's lives.

When are companies going to stop this type of nonsense? The average lifespan of a CEO is never long enough to result in anything other than costly strategic changes of direction every few years.
 
Purple said:
I heard on the radio that staff there had received 15 pay increases, amounting to around 50% of salary, over the last few years. Can anyone confirm this?
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Yes you are 100% correct ...and now they have priced themselves out of the market and the jobs go to England...Thank God for unions and the Croke Park Agreement
 
Purple said:
I heard on the radio that staff there had received 15 pay increases, amounting to around 50% of salary, over the last few years. Can anyone confirm this?
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It was mentioned on the radio that the average pay was 20% higher than AVIVA staff in London, which in itself would not be a cheap city to live in.
 
Shawady said:
It was mentioned on the radio that the average pay was 20% higher than AVIVA staff in London, which in itself would not be a cheap city to live in.
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In a nut-shell -I am worried about that.

The cost of living here has gone out of control.

Rents, Rates etc are still far too high.
 
The pay differential is obviously an issue, and Aviva may even justify their strategy by reference to it.

That same differential, if not bigger, existed a few years ago when their strategy was to make Ireland their centre of excellence, however.

So whilst it's important not to get complacent on the need to continue to bring down costs, I'm not sure we should be taking the view that "they were paid too much so they deserve it".

For my money this is not a financial decision, it is a strategic one. Say there's a salary roll of €50m for the 1000 employees conccerned. moving the jobs to the UK might save €5-€10m p.a. but compare this to the lost value of the €40m in naming rights on the stadium, probably €5m+ in unnecessary rents for God knows how long, the €50m+ in redundancy costs, the costs of hiring and training up new staff elsewhere.

Nope the more you think about it, this is a braindead adherence to the myth that you need to be working on a "big strategy" as opposed to a well thought through financially beneficial move.
 
I listened to some of the staff of Aviva being interviewed today on RTE Radio 1. The staff advised that they were given no information. She is on the Call-Centre Staff at Aviva and she stated "they didn't tell us nothin'". Could it be that there are several tiers of staff in Aviva and the non Call Centre sections were informed of what is about to happen?

And was it the Call Centre staff that received a 20% increase in wages. If so what was it 20% of?
 
Very sad news. Feel for those about to join the dole queue. Wouldn't want to job hunting over the next 3 or 4 yrs. Devastating news for so many people.
 
RMCF said:
Very sad news. Feel for those about to join the dole queue. Wouldn't want to job hunting over the next 3 or 4 yrs. Devastating news for so many people.
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Well said. Debate about costs can be saved for another day. It is not the staffs fault.
 
I presume all of the official references to the stadium will now refer to it as Landsdowne Road again?
 
SteveW9 said:
Yes you are 100% correct ...and now they have priced themselves out of the market and the jobs go to England...Thank God for unions and the Croke Park Agreement
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Croke Park Agreement had no impact on private sector bodies like Aviva.
 
If this was simply about saving money, pay cuts could have been agreed.

I don't buy the whole England being massively cheaper argument either. One large insurance company relocated much of its operations to wexford. Massive savings were made thanks to moving away from Dublin and replacing older staff at high ends of pay grades with younger ones. Productivity also improved.

The likes of Waterford & especially Leitrim are crying out for jobs with plenty of qualified people available and possibly IDA supports available.

No, if it was a mere cost cutting exercise, this could have ocurred in Ireland. It is no such exercise, but part of a wider Aviva group strategy.

I appreciate that this is extremely hard to understand for self employed individuals who are at the coalface in terms of their own businesses. Large Multi-nationals exist simultaneously in many markets with vastly different cost structures and profitability opportunities. As a rule they don't necesssarily gravitate to cheapest costs. The centralised decision making can seem bizzare at times and often leads to very inefficient outcomes with a each new CEO trying to implement his "big strategy" before being pushed aside to make room for the next CEO.

Ireland does need to cut costs but we're fooling ourselves to think Aviva's CEO's strategy didn't override everything else. If cost cutting was the strategy it could have been addressed long before now. In any case, if sterling strengthened against the euro, cost cutting by moving staff from Ireland to the UK would appear very stupid. Also inflation in the UK is running at double our rate, so there's no way in my mind wage differentials between here and the UK would persist into the longer term.
 
Government seem to have no jobs stratergy.

People who want to be re-skilled can't get training places.
 
DerKaiser said:
The centralised decision making can seem bizzare at times and often leads to very inefficient outcomes with a each new CEO trying to implement his "big strategy" before being pushed aside to make room for the next CEO.
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Careful now. You’ll be letting the cat out of the bag on how the private sector works. People might see through the usual oul guff about efficiency, effectiveness and accountability and realise that it’s really down to trendy fashions being oversold by highly paid consultants.
 

Happens in all walks of life...I'm sure the HSE concept looked pretty trendy in its day too. At least in the private sector when something isn't working out the employer can change tack.
 

Please stop private sector bashing.
 
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