Utility firm E.On has caused outrage among staff after finding out about its decision to axe 800 jobs following the closure of its Rayleigh call centre from a local Essex newspaper.
The German-owned company, which supplies gas and electricity to 5.5 million UK customers, said that the decision to close the facility was not “taken lightly” and that “we absolutely understand” the impact that it would have on the employees affected.
Some 600 jobs will be cut by shutting the call centre, while another 200 personnel will go following an overhaul of the firm’s IT and energy services operations. It currently employs about 16,000 people in the UK.
The upset came about, however, when the Essex Echo newspaper published a story about the closure on its web site at 21.20pm on Tuesday night, only three hours after E.On had sent staff a text message, informing them that an important announcement would take place that Thursday. They had been informed that just such an announcement would take place the Thursday before, but had not been given a time or date.
On publication of the article, the meeting was changed to 10am on Wednesday morning, however, and an official press release was published at 10.01am that day.
The Essex Echo’s comments section was subsequently inundated with responses from E.On employees and their family and friends, outlining the situation and their feelings about it. Beth Hawkwell, for example, said: “Nice of the Echo to do E.on’s dirty work. It would have been polite or nice to have let the E.On staff know before the rest of the world.”
‘1qwerty’ from Hockley said: “It had always been E.On’s policy to tell the press about important news before telling their own staff. For many of us, losing E.On as an employer is going to be a relief.”
But others were not so sanguine. ’71maisie’ from Rayleigh said: “We have been really pushed by E.On over the last two years with threats of if you don’t improve productivity, you might lose your jobs. Well, we did meet our targets and we still lose our jobs – I feel stupid and in a real panic. Where will we all find employment in this recession?”
To add insult to injury, she added: “Our jobs are already advertised for the New Nottingham offices, where all the big brass work! Yes, same jobs, just different area. E.on are replacing staff, who have a MINIMUM of two year’s experience on customer service, with temp staff, who can start immediately. This is about profit margins and not customer service.”
But Graham Bartlett, managing director of E.On’s retail business, said the fact that the unit had only just returned to profitability after years of loss-making, meant that it had to make “tough choices” to maintain the situation.
“I can assure everyone affected that we’ll be as supportive as we can during this difficult time and I also want to take the opportunity to thank them for their hard work,” he added.
The aim was to look for voluntary redundancies in the first instance and to provide relocation packages where applicable. Support services, including individual counselling, would also be made available to affected staff, Bartlett said.
The union Unison, meanwhile, described the plans as a bitter blow that would hit local families hard. It wants to have a meeting with the company and has called on the government to help save the jobs in question.
