Six appointments on both sides of the border

Mandate

Reshape the workforce for a smaller branch network and a remote advice model while keeping pay, conduct and consultation defensible.

Outcomes

• Closed 27 branches in four waves, with 204 of 238 affected colleagues continuing in new roles
• Reduced the unexplained adviser pay gap from 6.8% to 2.3% at a cost of €1.94 million
• Applied malus for the first time after a cross-border suitability failure
• Introduced tested and paid language requirements for German and Luxembourgish roles

Decisions in context

I lead human resources for a bank that is becoming smaller in branches and larger in remote advice, and my work is to make that change defensible to the people affected, to our employee representatives and to our board. I sit on the executive committee and present to the remuneration and nomination committees, whose members are directors elected through our local cooperatives. Since 2019 we have closed 27 branches, opened a remote advice centre in Metz, rebuilt our job architecture for the pay-transparency directive and applied malus for the first time. My five heads of function cover pay and benefits, employee relations, talent and training, payroll and HR operations, and workforce planning. The hardest decisions are those where the right answer for the institution is expensive for a few people; I make that cost visible early enough for the board to weigh it.

Reason for the move

Remain CHRO of Banque Ardevrange; any board seat I accept would be held alongside that executive post.

Mandate

Bring pay, training and job architecture into line with new European remuneration and adviser-competence requirements.

Outcomes

• Moved regulatory training records into a register tested quarterly by compliance
• Redesigned branch incentive schemes with compliance review before each launch
• Prepared the bank's transition from three employee bodies to a single CSE

Decisions in context

As deputy HR director I took on training and job architecture alongside pay and employee relations. New European requirements on adviser competence meant that a missing training record had become a regulatory finding rather than an administrative gap, so we rebuilt the register and asked compliance to test it every quarter. I also redesigned the branch incentive schemes with compliance colleagues, removing objectives that rewarded single-product volume in the weakest months. During 2018 I prepared the move from three separate employee bodies to one CSE, renegotiating meeting calendars, the number of representatives and what data they would see. The new body's first year coincided with my appointment as chief human resources officer. This period taught me that competence and incentives are two halves of the same conduct question, and that they need to be reviewed together rather than by separate departments.

Reason for the move

Chosen by the chief executive to lead the function after the previous CHRO retired at the end of 2018.

Mandate

Rebuild negotiating relationships with four representative unions during a period of margin pressure.

Outcomes

• Reached signed pay agreements in four of five annual negotiations, after two failed years
• Negotiated the bank's three-year agreement on job and career planning
• Helped write the first policy identifying staff whose work could materially affect risk

Decisions in context

I joined the bank as head of employee relations and pay in the month the financial crisis reached its sharpest point. Relations with the four representative unions were formal and mistrustful, and the annual pay negotiation had ended without agreement two years running. I changed the preparation rather than the positions: the unions received the bank's personnel-cost data a month earlier, and we agreed in advance which figures both sides would treat as fact. We reached signed pay agreements in four of my five annual negotiations. I also negotiated the bank's agreement on job and career planning and helped write our first policy for identifying staff whose work could materially affect the risk profile, as EU pay rules for banks strengthened. My nine colleagues ran payroll policy, the negotiation calendar and individual employee-relations cases across the network.

Reason for the move

Promoted to deputy HR director to add training and job architecture to pay and employee relations.

Mandate

Stabilise turnover in fund accounting and transfer agency during rapid growth.

Outcomes

• Reduced voluntary turnover in fund accounting from 19% to 12% a year
• Published operating and people procedures in French and German alongside English
• Trained 46 team leaders to manage staff working in a second or third language

Decisions in context

I led human resources for the operations division of a growing fund administrator: about 540 people in fund accounting, transfer agency and depositary control. Most commuted daily from Lorraine, Belgium or Saarland, and turnover in fund accounting had reached 19 per cent a year as competitors recruited trained staff. Exit interviews showed that pay was only part of the explanation. New joiners struggled with procedures written in English, and team leaders had never been taught to manage people working in their second or third language. We wrote procedures in French and German alongside English, trained 46 team leaders and introduced a defined progression path for fund accountants. Turnover fell to 12 per cent by 2008. I worked with the staff delegation on working-time arrangements and reported to the group HR director, with a working line to the operations director.

Reason for the move

Wanted to lead collective negotiation at a larger French employer after six years in Luxembourg.

Mandate

Handle individual employee-relations cases and support the staff delegation's meetings.

Outcomes

• Handled about sixty disciplinary and grievance cases a year
• Prepared French and German versions of staff-delegation minutes
• Drafted manager guidance on working-time rules for part-time staff

Decisions in context

My first role in Luxembourg moved me from advising employers to working for one. I handled about sixty individual disciplinary and grievance cases a year, prepared the staff delegation's meetings and wrote French and German versions of their minutes. Luxembourg employment law differed from what I knew in Strasbourg, and I learnt it file by file with the company's external counsel. The most useful lesson came from grievances. Several turned on instructions a manager believed were clear and an employee had understood differently, because they had read them in a second language. I began asking managers to confirm important instructions in writing in the employee's preferred language, and disputes about what had been agreed became noticeably rarer. I had no direct reports and no budget, but I saw how operational growth turned into individual friction.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead human resources for the operations division.

Mandate

Prepare consultation documents, negotiation briefs and procedural advice for employer clients.

Outcomes

• Prepared consultation files for more than thirty reorganisation procedures
• Drafted negotiation briefs for company agreements on the 35-hour working week
• Advised insurance, retail and manufacturing clients on works-council procedure

Decisions in context

I began at a three-partner employment-law practice in Strasbourg, advising employers in insurance, retail and manufacturing. Most of my files concerned consultation procedures for reorganisations and the company agreements that followed France's move to a 35-hour working week. I drafted the documents that went to works councils, prepared negotiation briefs and attended meetings beside the partners. I learnt to make a procedure watertight. I also learnt where procedure stops: at the 1999 claims-centre meeting described in my biography, every document was in order and the secretary's question about one employee's journey still went unanswered. By 2002 I wanted to work inside an employer, where I would live with the consequences of advice rather than hand it over and open the next file. Luxembourg offered that, along with a workforce more varied than any I had advised.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work inside an employer and carry the consequences of the advice.