Alison Cook
Unite the Union Seconded Representative
What does your department do?
My job title is the “full-time seconded rep to Unite the Union” – one of the longer job titles in the Bank. And basically it means I’m on a secondment for two years, as a paid Bank employee but reporting to a Unite the Union official. My job is to look after the interests of staff and in that way I support both core purposes of the Bank, because I’m looking after staff who work in both monetary stability and financial stability.
There are two of us in the Unite office – myself and my assistant – and we sort of react to what’s thrown at us, either by staff or by the Bank. So it’s very difficult to predict what we’re doing on any given day, but basically we get involved in pay negotiations, any discussions and consultations on changes to terms and conditions – we’re one of the first people the Bank talks to. And similarly, if people have concerns about how the Bank is implementing a policy, they might come to us rather than go directly to a manager, because sometimes it’s easier to talk to somebody in the union rather than to go directly to a named individual and put your head above the parapet. So that’s quite an interesting aspect of the job.
Tell us about your career with the Bank so far.
I’ve been in the Bank for a little bit over 20 years and I’ve been lucky in that I’ve done a large variety of different jobs. I’ve hopped around all over the place. I started off in the Finance division where I did a couple of jobs. And then, looking for something more challenging, I opted for a secondment to Birmingham branch where I got involved in note distribution, which was quite interesting. And then I came back, still in Banking, and went into a customer relations role, which was the costing and charging of customer accounts. There’s an interesting historical perspective in that job which made it quite unusual.
After that I did a brief stint in Audit division – a very brief stint because I ended up then moving on to an eight-week Economics course at Birkbeck, which helped me decide that I and Economics weren’t really suited for each other long term. After that, I then hopped across to Banking Supervision. That’s the part of the Bank that was moved across to the FSA some ten years ago. I looked after the smaller banks which most people have never heard of, but they were licensed deposit takers so we looked after them.
After that, I then moved to HR and that’s where I spent the longest chunk of my career. Initially I was in Training Support, which was quite an enjoyable role looking after the new graduate entrants. And then I moved on to a much more policy, meaty, analytical role and I was a Management Information Analyst. So that played to my strengths of playing with numbers and Excel spreadsheets. Sad, but that’s what I enjoy doing! I did that job for eight years – really enjoyed it. Towards the end of that time I was thinking, where do I go from here? The obvious gap in my skill set was people management. I hadn’t actually run a team of my own, so I was thinking if I could find a small team – four to six people – that would be good. I was looking out for a job like that and somebody invited me, encouraged me – pick your words – to apply for an Operational Team Leader role in one of the Banking areas. It was a team of 12, a few more than I’d counted on going for initially, but it was good experience. They wanted me because of my skill set in terms of my experience elsewhere, so my time in Audit division and the fact that I had a known reputation for implementing processes and systems and controls. I did that job for a little over a year and then there was an internal reorganisation and I moved to another team leader role in the same general area, but this time it was a team of 23 people, which was thoroughly enjoyable again and showed me that I was good at managing people and it was something I really enjoyed doing. But I needed another challenge – it was time to move on.
I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, but thought I wanted to be back in HR. So I was kind of keeping my eyes open and my manager suggested that I apply for the seconded rep’s job. And I thought, well, I’ve been a union member since I joined the Bank, but I’ve never actually been that keen on that sort of role. So I looked at the job specification and I thought: I can do that; that would be enjoyable; that would be really interesting; OK, I have to go for it. So I did and I got the job. And I’ve been in position for twelve months now.
It’s a very varied job, but the bit I enjoy the most is the one-to-one casework. I have a small personal caseload – probably a maximum of four people at any one time. These are people who have various issues and it’s my role to identify what the problem is, what the best strategy is for dealing with it and then taking it forward. I can’t do things for people – all I can do is provide them with options and choices and information. And the biggest challenge is ensuring there’s adequate communication so they know where they can go and what they can do. But that’s also what makes it the most rewarding piece of my work.
What does your typical day look like?
I don’t really have a typical day in my job. I have an idea, according to my diary, as to what I’m supposed to be doing on any day, but by nine o’clock or thereafter all of that can go straight out of the window. My job is reactive, so I respond to what people bring to me and that determines what happens in my day. So that could be an ad-hoc meeting to discuss an issue that’s causing a group of staff concern, or it could be a meeting to discuss a proposed tweak to an HR policy. It could be that somebody has been a witness to something that they need support and guidance to take them through. So it’s very unpredictable, and that’s what makes it enjoyable at the same time.
What makes the Bank a special place to work?
The Bank’s a special place to work because of the people who work there. It’s been described as having a “collegiate” atmosphere, and I think that’s probably a good way of describing it. The people are friendly, they’re helpful, they’re always willing to give up their time, so if you have a need for some information or explanation, you find the right person and they’ll usually bend over backwards to help you.
Tell us something we didn’t know about the Bank.
One of the unusual things about the Bank is its history, and particularly during the Second World War, a lot of people don’t know that we continued to operate pretty much as normal. The only concession being that where possible, we tried to move staff below ground, because we have a lot of vault-level offices. They weren’t offices at the time, but they became offices. And one of the vaults was actually turned into a staff restaurant, and there’s still evidence of that by the posters on the wall. So there’s a poster for P&O cruises, there’s one for Regent’s Park Zoo, and it gives you a very interesting perspective on what life might have been like some fifty-odd years ago.