TSB has told its around 5,000 staff they will have to work in the office three days a week from April 2027, and the TBU union is preparing to take cases to the Employment Tribunal to respond.
The requirement follows Santander’s £2.65 billion takeover of TSB, which was completed in April. The Spanish banking group continues the integration of operations and policies of the two banks so that all employees are compatible. TSB currently operates as an independent entity.
Previously, the bank had no legal requirement for how much time employees should spend in the office.
Workers’ representatives at the TBU are preparing to take cases to the Employment Tribunal over concerns that some members will not be able to change their plans for personal and medical reasons, amid a wider backlash against the changes and whether they are enforceable.
The union cited comments it made in its internal newspaper that a large number of people have health or personal reasons for their current work arrangements and that “all roads will go back to employment law”. The TBU added that it is “prepared to fight cases in the Employment Tribunal”.
A source close to TSB said that the bank has launched discussions between employees and management aimed at avoiding people with personal health problems that require a flexible approach.
All parties declined to comment.
Under the government’s labor and conditions guidelines, employees cannot complain to the court just because a request has been denied, but they can do so when the employer has not handled the request properly. Complaints must be made within three months of the employer’s decision, and the maximum award is eight weeks’ pay.
The row is the latest example of business conflict over plans to bring workers back to the office regularly in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis. Santander itself strengthened its hybrid working policy in September 2024, telling 10,000 UK employees to work the equivalent of three days a week at its sites, up from two.
TSB has already announced 130 job cuts in the wake of the Santander deal as the two firms go through a merger process.
Mahesh Aditya, the chief executive of Banco Santander, took charge of Santander UK in early March to lead the merger, which also comes as the lender seeks to address a mis-selling scandal that has engulfed Britain’s financial industry.
TSB has been embroiled in controversy due to technical difficulties arising from past operational fixes. Sabadell attempted to transition the UK lender to a new IT environment, but problems during the transition caused chaos for millions of customers and a months-long disruption to its services.
TSB was formerly known as the Trustee Savings Bank and was first established by the Rev Henry Duncan in Dumfriesshire in 1810. This product was retained when the lender merged with Lloyds Bank in 1995. Sabadell, another Spanish bank, acquired the British lender for a book value of £1.7 billion in 2015 to agree to the sale of Santa.
Santander first entered the British market in 2004 with the purchase of Abbey National for £9 billion. It then expanded its footprint during the 2008 financial crisis with the acquisition of Alliance & Leicester and the savings business of Bradford & Bingley. Dame Ana Botín, who leads the wider Banco Santander group, previously ran its UK business between 2010 and 2014.
