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G4S is never far from the news, and having just given CEO Ashley Almanza a staggering 73% pay increase for the bringing the company back into profit, they are back in the news for all the wrong reasons. It has emerged that more than 50 security guards have been given the choice of reduced hours, lower wages, or voluntary redundancy despite the company having increased the total number of guards it has working for them.
Worse still, as the company attempted to deliver all letters at the same time, it meant that at least 10 of the recipients were handcuffed to dangerous criminals when they received their letters, while some of the notices were handed to partners and family members by G4S staff that usually monitor tagged criminals. The police were even called to one incident, as the wife of a security guard refused to accept the letter and the deliverer was said to have become persistent and was said to have caused offence while trying to deliver the news. Guards’ union, Community, said that G4S should be ashamed and that there were many ways of communicating with people in 2015.
Following reports on the incident, G4S had said that it would reopen negotiations on the matter, but then sent out an exact duplicate of the redundancy letters by Royal Mail to exactly the same guards. They have blamed the need for redundancies on restructuring within the firm, but some have blamed the fact that the company took a loss leading contract with the Scottish Government to ferry prisoners and inmates to hospitals and other locations, and are using the cutting of hours and the redundancies to help claw back some of the money that they will lose through that contract. Others have said that inexperienced and poorly skilled, temporary staff are working 80 hours a week and falling asleep on the job, despite the fact that the private security firm offered reduced hours to the 56 redundancy letter recipients.
Following the 2012 Olympics debacle, G4S was also investigated by the government for fraudulent reporting and billing. They subsequently lost a number of potentially lucrative contracts, and the business started to suffer financial problems. They reported a considerable loss, and new CEO Ashley Almanza was brought in with the purview of bringing the company back into profit. In 2014, Mr Almanza received a total package of £2.5m, which included a £1.3m cash bonus.
Although pay packets of company chiefs regularly come under scrutiny, primarily for their seemingly excesive size, analysts have argued that this size of bonus and this amount of pay is nothing unusual for large global firms. G4S is the world’s largest security firm by contracts, and Almanza has essentially helped ensure the future of the business and made sure that shareholders saw profit once again. However, continued bad press, especially concerned with the mistreatment of employees will not help the company’s cause, and may well see Mr Almanza come under fire again in the near future.
Worse still, as the company attempted to deliver all letters at the same time, it meant that at least 10 of the recipients were handcuffed to dangerous criminals when they received their letters, while some of the notices were handed to partners and family members by G4S staff that usually monitor tagged criminals. The police were even called to one incident, as the wife of a security guard refused to accept the letter and the deliverer was said to have become persistent and was said to have caused offence while trying to deliver the news. Guards’ union, Community, said that G4S should be ashamed and that there were many ways of communicating with people in 2015.
Following reports on the incident, G4S had said that it would reopen negotiations on the matter, but then sent out an exact duplicate of the redundancy letters by Royal Mail to exactly the same guards. They have blamed the need for redundancies on restructuring within the firm, but some have blamed the fact that the company took a loss leading contract with the Scottish Government to ferry prisoners and inmates to hospitals and other locations, and are using the cutting of hours and the redundancies to help claw back some of the money that they will lose through that contract. Others have said that inexperienced and poorly skilled, temporary staff are working 80 hours a week and falling asleep on the job, despite the fact that the private security firm offered reduced hours to the 56 redundancy letter recipients.
Following the 2012 Olympics debacle, G4S was also investigated by the government for fraudulent reporting and billing. They subsequently lost a number of potentially lucrative contracts, and the business started to suffer financial problems. They reported a considerable loss, and new CEO Ashley Almanza was brought in with the purview of bringing the company back into profit. In 2014, Mr Almanza received a total package of £2.5m, which included a £1.3m cash bonus.
Although pay packets of company chiefs regularly come under scrutiny, primarily for their seemingly excesive size, analysts have argued that this size of bonus and this amount of pay is nothing unusual for large global firms. G4S is the world’s largest security firm by contracts, and Almanza has essentially helped ensure the future of the business and made sure that shareholders saw profit once again. However, continued bad press, especially concerned with the mistreatment of employees will not help the company’s cause, and may well see Mr Almanza come under fire again in the near future.
