PCS: We'll ballot Hewlett Packard Enterprise members over job cuts The Public and Commercial Services union is gearing up to test the appetite for industrial action among services staff at Hewlett Packard Enterprises over the latest round of planned job cuts. Some 166 staff in HPE’s infrastructure outsourcing unit in Lytham that work on public sector contracts including the Department of Work …
The work sites seem to be moving ever further North where the climate is less hospitable.
For example Lytham St Annes is a lovely place with nice sandy beaches and a mild climate where people go to retire. Sheffield is also a pretty nice place to live.
So are they picking places with low expectations and high unemployment in the hope that existing staff just won't want to move there? Cheap land, cheap labour, development grants?
Nothing against the places named, just the further North you go the shorter the summer.
Small matter of HPE trousering various government grants for 'job creation' in areas of high unemployment. Of course this is just job relocation as the incumbents are made redundant at the original sites (Lytham & Sheffield) and the jobs moved to the new location.
Of course these jobs are then filled by contractors, such as at Erskine, who are then billed at their usual rate and a little extra to HP clients. Reduced permanent headcount, pleasing Wall Street. Extra money for managing contract staff, billable to client. Lump sum for job creation in high unemployment area/Enterprise Zones. Everyone's a winner. Or maybe not.
Erskine is probably HP's biggest site in the UK and has been in Scotland for well over 20 years.
Makes economic sense to shut offices with only a few 100 people and move to the larger sites that have 1000's of people. Saves on building costs, rates, electricity/heating, food facilities etc, the list goes on.
Makes economic sense to shut offices with only a few 100 people and move to the larger sites that have 1000's of people. Saves on building costs, rates, electricity/heating, food facilities etc, the list goes on.
As somebody with some expertise in this field, I can assure you that once you move beyond SME sizes, incremental economies of scale are minimal unless you've been incompetent and got a large and under-used building at the receiving site.
"Makes economic sense to shut offices with only a few 100 people and move to the larger sites that have 1000's of people. "
Especially when you go to all the effort and trouble to reduce a site that held thousands and make enough of them redundant until they number in the mere 100s. Don't worry, as soon as the current satellite sites are out of cannon fodder, the major sites will be next (like they haven't already started).
This has been on the cards for years. Always been known that HPE wanted to consolidate work in delivery centres at Erskine and Newcastle and close the smaller sites.
So anyone working at HP/HPE will have known this and cant really come as as a shock that the smaller sites will / are to close. Never good when redundancies involved though.
You obviously have more insight than the employees at the Lytham site. On many occasions at the 'town halls' I asked about the plans for the site, the lease of which was due to expire in 2018, and was told 'there are no plans' to close it and that an 'alternative site in the near vicinity was actively being sought'. Only last year, a senior manager stood in front of us and regaled us with his plans to turn the Lytham site into a 'centre of excellence' as the expertise present was 'too good to lose'. So it did come as a surprise.
The plans to consolidate into Delivery hubs was first mooted when the split into HPE and HP Inc. took place last year.
The have many many compulsory redundancies at Lytham for HP/HPE staff.
Knowledge Transfer is not just being asked of but REQUIRED with the threat that 'REDUNDANCY TERMS MAY BE AT RISK' if the knowledge transfer is not undertaken.
People are being made redundant even though their role is not.....
There have been MANY compulsory redundancies so far at Lytham and employees HAVE been TOLD to perform knowledge transfer - whilst being threatened that redundancy packages may be at risk if they do not.
Also many people have felt they have had no choice but to leave via voluntary redundancy.
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