Nationwide has been accused of offering unsuitable alternative roles to staff affected by a department being outsourced to India.

Earlier this month, employees were surprised to learn that the digital webchat service would be manned by a third-party team overseas from the start of next year.

The building society, which has its headquarters on Pipers Way in Swindon, said that this change would not cause any redundancies.

While this impacted 50 employees on temporary contracts, the firm claimed that new customer service roles would be found for most of the webchat team.

But the Adver understands that while it is technically true that no one is being made redundant, staff are being faced with a difficult choice which may end with them being out of a job.

For some employees, the available options are taking on a new role that may not be suitable for them or leaving voluntarily.

These departures would not be considered redundancies and therefore not entitle them to severance pay.

A source told the Adver: “Nationwide's strategy appears to be well-calculated, presenting the situation in such a way that no employee is being made redundant.

“Instead, all digital staff are being offered the opportunity to move into the already overstaffed telephony department.

“The implication is that anyone who refuses this would be seen as voluntarily resigning.

“The core issue here, aside from the significant differences between the roles, is the drastic impact on employees’ lives.

“There are many digital staff who specifically transitioned away from telephone roles when they secured their current positions due to the telephone-based role negatively impacting their mental health.

“If a role is outsourced and ceases to exist, is this not considered redundancy regardless of the loopholes Nationwide seeks to exploit?

“Is it reasonable to describe an alternative role as suitable when it requires such significant personal and financial adjustments for employees?

“The handling of this situation by Nationwide, particularly the lack of consideration for employees’ well-being and the abrupt timeline, is deeply distressing.

“I find it hard to comprehend how this approach is being allowed to continue from an institution who tries to portray itself as caring about the impact they have on the UK.”

A Nationwide spokesperson said: “We have worked extremely hard to retain all permanent employees within the digital team by offering them suitable alternative roles.

"This will enable them to support more complex member enquires on the telephone, where additional resource is required.

"We are continuing to engage with employees, who will move into the newly created roles by the end of February next year.”

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