The employee said the changes were announced in an email titled \u201cBNZ staff banking proposition\u201d and were framed as an effort to \u201cimprove\u201d how benefits are applied.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, employees who opened the links quickly realised this was not a proposal or a consultation \u2013 it was a mandate of sweeping cuts, implemented effectively that very same morning,\u201d the employee said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe financial and emotional toll of this decision on households across New Zealand is immense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based on information sent to staff and seen by the Herald, the banking benefits no longer available from June 30 include:<\/p>\n
Low equity premium waiver, application fee waiver, benefits for non-personal entities and discounts on variable rates for home loansOverdraft establishment fee waiver for TotalMoney and YouMoney accountsMonthly account fee waiver for foreign currency accountsAll benefits for all business lending<\/p>\n
Benefits upon retirement provided to long-serving staff have also been removed.<\/p>\n
The employee said cuts to the benefits, which had been \u201can established part of BNZ\u2019s remuneration culture for over 20 years\u201d, were made without warning or consultation and have \u201cshattered staff morale, leaving many feeling betrayed by an employer they serve\u201d.<\/p>\n
BNZ is the second-largest bank in New Zealand and employs more than 5000 people. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
BNZ chief people officer Matt Cullum told the Herald existing benefits for current staff \u201cwill not all end immediately\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike many large organisations, BNZ offers a range of employee benefits,\u201d Cullum said in a statement. \u201cThese include six weeks\u2019 annual leave, subsidised health and life insurance as well as a range of discretionary benefits on banking products.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn June 30, we made changes to some of these banking benefits, but our most popular benefits remain unchanged.<\/p>\n
\u201cBNZ continues to have dedicated channels to support our colleagues and customers experiencing financial hardship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The employee said they were grateful for the staff benefits still in place, with the main issue for most workers \u201cthe lack of notice and transparency\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am currently trying to buy my first home … losing these waivers effectively sets my budget back by two years.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200bPeople budget and make long-term plans around these things. For example, I know of long-serving staff who delayed their retirement specifically to meet the criteria to keep their benefits, only to have them removed without warning.\u201d<\/p>\n
BNZ confirmed to the Herald that the changes won\u2019t impact former employees who have already retired. It did not respond to questions about why employees were not given prior warning. <\/p>\n
Callum Francis, the national finance organiser at Workers First Union, which represents just over 600 BNZ employees, said members were \u201creally shocked\u201d and felt \u201clet down\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of our members are really gutted and really disappointed in the bank,\u201d Francis told the Herald.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow this organisation, that\u2019s one of the most profitable companies in the country, is just trying to take more away from their workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve made billions of dollars in previous years, and they continue to make obscene, exorbitant profits out of not just New Zealanders, but also off the backs of hard workers throughout the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greed that they\u2019re demonstrating is mind-boggling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis said BNZ had been \u201cconsistently chipping away\u201d at employee benefits over the past five or six years, with workers now concerned more will be taken away.<\/p>\n
Some also worry it will affect their ability to buy a home.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of these people were categorically relying on those things and had built an expectation and joined the bank to get these sorts of benefits. Their decisions around who they\u2019d go on to work with had been, in some instances, based around these benefits that exist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t be surprised if BNZ starts to see that people are resigning because of the lack of care and the lack of really wanting to return stuff to their people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis said the union is writing to BNZ asking to explain \u201chow a so-called decent employer in New Zealand can justify taking a chainsaw to people\u2019s benefits\u201d without consultation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorkers are upset and shocked. And this is not what we expect of an organisation or a large company with BNZ\u2019s stature and influence. It\u2019s not New Zealand values.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The employee said the changes were announced in an email titled \u201cBNZ staff banking proposition\u201d and were framed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,806,1643,1052,28500,138,10666,30548,9948,9881,1644,2082,145264,12065,4277,31181,661,58202,2683,111,139,69,1118,29544,34752,27053,1516,20247,24994,27300,2742,4483,4478,80],"class_list":["post-506654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-after","tag-as","tag-bank","tag-benefits","tag-bnz","tag-business","tag-cuts","tag-distress","tag-employee","tag-facing","tag-financial","tag-for","tag-greed","tag-immediate","tag-key","tag-labelled","tag-major","tag-mindboggling","tag-move","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-range","tag-scrapped","tag-shocked","tag-staff","tag-stunned","tag-sudden","tag-theyre","tag-thousands","tag-union","tag-workers","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}