Employee Voice in a Dot Com: The rise and demise of the employee forum at Web Bank

Abstract

This chapter examines the employee involvement and voice (EIV) system at a UK-based Internet bank, referred to by the pseudonym “WebBank,” which was established in 1997 and ceased trading in 2011. The company quickly grew from a small city-centre startup operation to employing more than 2,500 in a large purpose-built operations centre at its peak. The context provides an interesting opportunity to explore the evolution and development of EIV in a greenfi eld context over its entire lifecycle. Given the importance of context and management choice in shaping EIV systems (Wilkinson et al. 2013), this represents an opportunity to explore a relatively unusual model of non-union EIV in Britain, during a period when the newly elected Labour government appeared to have warmer attitudes to trade unions after almost two decades of Conservative governments of leaving them out in the cold.