Hi,
I have several comments, being one of the former staff members from the old PO! Am slightly restricted by the fact that I am still bound by the Official Secrets Act so bear with any vagueness...
We were all offered the opportunity to apply to join WHS when the franchise was first announced (and indeed they would have been delighted to have us), however a 30-40% pay cut combined with all day working on Saturdays and fewer benefits unsuprising didn't appeal.
The TUPE rights were avoided by giving us a compensation payment broadly equivalent to what we would have received if we had taken the PO to court in breach of them. This was in addition to an attractive voluntary redundancy package. One lady transferred to an office that wasn't being franchised nearer to her home, the rest of us accepted the payoff.
As we had virtually all been there over 10 years (most of us 14-18), we originally joined an organisation that was primarily a customer service led government department. This has now become a sales orientated business which most of us were uncomfortable with, and for me that was my main reason for going.
I wish the new staff at WHS well, but have grave concerns for the quality of customer service in the short term- only because they are straight out of training school. It takes a good year or two to be comfortably knowledgeable in that job, and that is assuming you have the memory of an elephant!
We all knew most of our customers, and often did things outside our remit, especially for some of the more vulnerable customers as they frequently had no-one else to trust.
I was concerned to see a WHS staff member and security guard mocking of one such customer on the day the new branch opened, as the man hung around outside debating out loud whether he would be ok in there- time constraints and the fact that he was not aware of their derision stopped me from seeking out a manager to make a formal complaint.
I am lucky enough to still live in Forest Hill and see many former customers, but my colleagues who won't were all sad to say goodbye to so many lovely people. We had many touching farewells...